Education with Methods in Context Flashcards

Flashcards covering key terms and concepts from the Education with Methods in Context lecture notes.

What is a key question that theories of education are concerned with?

What is the role of education?

List four core functions that Functionalists, Marxists, and Feminists agree that education performs.

Social solidarity, specialist skills, secondary socialization, and sifting and sorting.

According to Durkheim, what is education's role in society?

Education is a vital part of society, creating social solidarity by teaching shared norms and values.

What is meant by Social Solidarity in terms of functionalism?

Members of society feel that they belong to a community that is much bigger than themselves.

According to Durkheim, what is the school in relation to society?

The school is a society in miniature

What specialist skills does Durkheim argue individuals must be taught?

Individuals must be taught specialist skills so that they can take their place within a highly complex division of labor

What is meritocracy and how does it relate to secondary socialization according to Parsons?

Meritocracy is the idea that individuals achieve status based on their own ability and effort, and schools socialize children into this value.

According to Davis and Moore, what is the role of education in terms of sifting and sorting?

Education sifts and sorts people according to ability and effort and puts people on career paths they are suited to.

What do New Right thinkers believe about education and talent?

Some people are naturally more talented than others, and education should be meritocratic, encouraging competition.

What is neoliberalism's influence on the New Right’s view on education?

Neoliberalism argues that the state should not intervene in society but encourage competition; the New Right applies this to education.

Why is the New Right worried about education?

State control has led to inefficiency, schools aren't providing necessary employment skills, and a 'one size fits all' approach fails to meet individual and employer needs.

What solutions does the New Right propose for the problems in education?

Introducing a competition structure via OFSTED and ensuring schools pass on a shared culture.

What is Marketization and why do the New Right support it?

Marketisation is the introduction of market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers (schools) into areas run by the state (such as education). The New Right believe this will improve standards.

According to Marxism, what are the two classes in capitalist society?

The ruling class (bourgeoisie) and the subject class (working class, or proletariat).

How do Marxists view the role of social institutions such as the education system?

Social institutions play an ideological role by persuading exploited workers that inequality is justified and acceptable.

What is 'false class consciousness' and to what does it lead?

As a result of brainwashing, the proletariat fail to see their own exploitation.

According to Althusser, how does the education system serve as a tool of the state?

The education system acts as an ideological state apparatus used to brainwash people into accepting capitalist values.

According to Bowles and Gintis, what do schools mirror that corresponds to the workplace?

Hierarchy, external rewards, competition, dress code, and alienation.

What do Bowles and Gintis say about meritocracy?

The education system helps to prevent people from recognizing their exploited postion and rebelling against the system by legitimating (or justifying) class inequality

How do Marxist Bowles and Gintis describe their view on how the education system prepares people for their future roles?

Instead of based on ability and effort. pupils are allocated roles based on their class.

What is an anti-school subculture?

A group of WC lads who resist the values of capitalism that school taught them that helped reproduce class inequality.

Compared to Marxism, what is the Feminism's key conflict in society?

Feminism argues that society is patriarchal, or male dominated.

How do feminists view the role of education relating to patriarchy?

Education reinforces patriarchy and therefore controls women through subject choices, the male gaze, and sexual double standards.

What is meant by the 'male gaze' (according to Mac an Ghaill relating to feminism?

A way of seeing them as sexual objects that leads to the reinforcement of dominant masculinity and femininity devalued.

How do interactionists and interpretivists view of education?

Interactionists and interpretivists take a small scale (micro) view of education, trying to understand what happens within schools and the meaning of behaviour in schools.

What is labeling relating to interactionism and interpretivism?

An individual attaches a meaning or definition to a person, which can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Students live up to their label/internalize it.

What do interpretivist Rosenthal and Jacobson’s self-fulfilling prophecy study show?

Teachers' expectations can significantly affect their pupils’ performance.

What are Anti-school subcultures?

Working class lads resisting authority and not prioritising education because they value physical (manual) work.

What do Postmodernists believe about the role of education in society?

That there is not one big story. In postmodern society, barriers like class, gender, and ethnicity no longer exist.

Acording to Thomspn (1992), how can schools change to reflect postmodern society?

Schools can break free from the ‘oppressive uniformity’ of the old centralised one size fits all system.

What are key trends in social class and differential achievement?

Middle क्लास children are more likely than working class in starting school who have started to read and write their own name; middle class students get five ‘good’ GCSE's and good A levels are have the opportunity to got to private school.

What is material deprivation?

Lacking the physical necessities of life, such as adequate housing, diet, and income.

What is meant by cultural deprivation?

Lacking the ‘right’ norms and values for educational success.

According to Douglas, what is the main reason for WC children underachieving?

A lack of parental interest.

Discuss the impact of speech codes in understanding cultural deprivation.

Working class children tend to use a restricted code (short, grammatically simple). Middle class children tend to use complicated code.

What is 'elaborated code'?

This explicitly verbalizes many of the meanings taken for granted in restricted code. Meanings are context free and universalistic – they can be understood by anyone regardless of the context. It is better for conveying abstract ideas.

Explain Cultural Capital.

This is used to explain why middle-class students are more successful. This refers to knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes, and abilities of the middle class.

Explain teacher-labelling (Howard Becker reading notes

Teachers classify an evaluate students as 'ideal pupils'.

What is Stephen Ball's examination of banding in schools?

First band contains the most able pupils, the third with the least able.

What is Differentiation and Polarisation?

Differentiation is categorizing pupils according to ability. Polarisation is streaming and creating pro-school and anti-school subcultures.

Over the last 50 years, what has accounted for the differential achievement between genders

The educational performance of boys has steadily improved - but the performance of girls has risen at a faster rate in all stages of their education

Compared to boys, what do research show about how girls use their free time?

Girls are more likely to spend their leisure time in ways that complement their education and contribute to educational achievements.

What did Sue Sharpe's interveiws tell you about changing ambitions in gender (comparasion of females in the 1970s verses the 1990s?

1970s: low aspirations, marriage. 1990s: independent woman with a career.

What policies existed that promoted equal opportunities for achieving genders

GIST (Girls into Science and Technology) and WISE (Women into Science and Engineering)

According to Tony Sewell, why are boys 'falling behind'?

schools have become feminized - this means that schools tend to emphasis feminine traits such as methodical working and attentiveness, which disadvantages boys

The research findings (mac an Ghaill) highlight what relationship about schooling between the different sexes

that peers groups reinforce masculinity that is class-based.

What does Mitsos and Browne say about the gender and national curriculum?

According to Mitsos and Brown, girls do better than boys in every stage of National Curriculum SAT [Standard Assessment Tests] results in English, Maths and Science

What is the definition of double standards in terms of gender identity?

One set of moral standards apply to one group but a different set to another. For boys boasts about their sexual adventures and girls who dress in a certain way are 'slags'.

As of current, what does the research show about girls and boys and school?

Girls outperform Boys

The trends in ethnicity show that paterns intersect with what two factors?

Gender and Class

What is the cultural deprivation in terms of 'family structure'? (according to the out-of-school lecture slides

lack of adequate care because many black families are headed by a lone mother

what does moynihan (1965) say about black families?

Moynihan (1965) believes that, because many black families are headed by a lone mother, children are deprived of adequate care. Why might boys miss out if they do not have a father at home? (Think Murray)

what is institutional racism?

discrimination that is built into the way institutions such as schools and colleges operate.

Mac an Ghaill’s research suggests that teachers hold racialised expectations. Give three example that could lead to inequality of opportunity.

Teachers have Teachers expected black pupils: To present more discipline problems, Misinterpreted their behaviour/challenge of authority, Black pupils felt underestimated

what does Gillborns and Youdell say about pupils being categorized into three types

Black student: “hopeless Cases”. Ethnic: denied access Students Achieving as and Bs: left to their devices: Asian: (DC borderline) extra tension. These are students on the D-C borderline who could ‘count’ with some extra attention, so schools focus on helping these students

Why did Gillian Evans argue that in order to fully understand the relationship between ethnicity and achievement

There is an ‘interactions effect’: class and gender interact differently with ethnicity depending on which ethnic group we are looking at.

What does being the the ideal pupil identity consist of?

Archer says pupils are defined as one of the following:. This student is seen, a white, MC, heterosexual identity, as achieving in the ‘right’ way, through natural ability and initiative.

In the terms of ethnicity and policies, what did the government adopt around and prior do the assimilation decade?

Government adopted assimilation policies, especially by helping EAL students

What does vocation education do as a main function

prepares pupils for particular work role

What do marketization policies do to student choice

resulted in the introduction of competition and choice in education

What is the privatization of education

takeover of state industries by private companies

What is culture capital?

the knowledge, habits, and tastes learned from parents and family that individuals can use to gain access to scarce and valuable resources in society (education qualifications)

What is habitus?

way of life for a social class

Why might there be a WC identity educational clash

WC identities were inseparable from belonging to a WC area as it gave them an intense feeling of belonging because of the connection to their neighbourhood through friends, family etc.

What is the Triple tripatite that included key terms or policies

System (1944) Tripartite System. Comprehensive System. Tripartite System

What was the aim of ERA that was passed in 1998s, that include the education system?

Reduce direct state control over education to allow schools to answer to parents and businesses, rather than local government. Give parents more choice to find a school that is right for their child.