Education

• STATISTICS:

  • only 35% of working-class students gain 5 or more GCSEs but 75% of middle class students pass
  • only 13% of students on free school meals got into universities in 2009
  • 7% of the population attend private schools and yet a disproportionate number carry on to gain high status, highly paid jobs
  • middle-class people are 7x more likely to go to university than working-class students.
• Which sociologist give internal reasonings to why there is a social inequality within education?

  1. Becker -- positive labelling of middle class students
  2. Ball -- labelling wc and putting them in bottom sets
• Becker

  • many teachers viewed middle-class students as the “ideal students” and as a result were labelled positively. Teachers expected middle-class students to have more positive attitudes towards school, to be more intelligent and to be generally well-behaved in lessons.
  • In contrast, the teachers had negative labels for working-class children assuming they were lazy, disruptive and lacked intelligence. — leading to SFP
• Which sociologist claimed that teachers labelled MC students positively and labelled WC students negatively leading to self full-filling prophecies?

  Becker
• Ball

  • Labelling caused working-class children to be put in bottom sets. This was because teachers assumed their intelligence. This resulted in minimising their chances of getting the highest grades — foundation papers
• Which sociologist claimed that labelling caused the working class to not be able to get higher grades -- setting?

  Ball
• Which sociologist give external reasonings to why there is a social inequality within education?

  1. Bourdieu -- cultural capital helps with school
  2. Bull -- material deprivation
  3. Leech & Campos -- mc family move to areas with better schools
  4. Bernstein -- mc students speak in "elaborated code" - wc speak in "restricted code"
• Bourdieu

  • middle-class children were advantaged due to their parents passing on knowledge (cultural capital)
• Which sociologist claimed that a reason for the social inequality in education was due to cultural capital?

  Bourdieu
• Bull

  • working-class students lack money to pay for resources such as textbooks, trips etc. This affects their achievements. Material deprivation
• Which sociologist claimed a reason for social inequality within education was material deprivation?

  Bull
• Leech & Campos added to Bulls point

  stating that middle-class families were able to move to expensive areas where the best schools were (economic capital)
• Bernstein

  • middle-class students speak in an “elaborated code” which means speaking in a more complex language which meant they are more comfortable understanding teachers and exam questions compared to working-class students who speak in a “restricted codes” which lack complex language and used slang
• Which sociologist claims that the reason for differences in education is due to the different ways mc and wc students are socialised to speak?

  Bernstein
• Name every sociologist that gives a reasoning for social inequality within the education system:?

  1. Becker
  2. Ball
  3. Bourdieu
  4. Bull
  5. Leech & Campos
  6. Bernstein
• only 35% of working-class students gain 5 or more GCSEs but 75% of middle class students pass
• only 13% of students on free school meals got into universities in 2009
• 7% of the population attend private schools and yet a disproportionate number carry on to gain high status, highly paid jobs
• middle-class people are 7x more likely to go to university than working-class students.