sociology flashcards

3 AIMS OF EDUCATIONAL POLICIES IN THE UK

ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY

• Develops the skills of the young to make up a labour force

• Involves making the education system meet the needs of industry and employers 

• E.g. placements

RAISING EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS

• Uk education needs to compete in a global education market & is ranked against other countries

• E.g. PISA

CREATING EQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

• Ensuring ALL students get the best educational opportunities

1988 education reform act - national curriculum

• This meant all schools need to teach the same core curriculum 

EVALUATION

• Suits academic pupils more and doesn’t consider creative pupils, sporty pupils or less academically able

1965 comprehensivisation act

• Got rid of the 11+ exam

• All students got ‘parity of esteem’ and ‘equality’ in education

EVALUATION

• Comprehensive schools are larger meaning less one on one attention for pupils

School Admissions Code

• Forbid discrimination in admitting pupils based on socio economic background or ability

EVALUATION

• Covert selection still takes place from schools and parents

• POSTCODE LOTTERY

Policies that improve inequality

• PUPIL PREMIUM : Additional funding for students from a lower socio economic background. 

• Compensatory education

EVALUATION

• Kerr & west : too many factors outside of school that affect achievement

Selection & Admissions policies

• 3 types of selection

• Ability (entrance tests) , aptitude (talents) , faith (religion)

Arguments against selection

• Late developers don’t benefit

• Mixed ability fosters social cohesion

• Reduced risk of labelling and less risk of self fulfilling prophecy

Arguements in favour of selection

• Allows ‘high-flyers’ to benefit

• Specialised & focused teaching can take place

Open enrolment policies & Parental choice

• Open enrollment policies mean that parents can apply to ANY state school in ANY area

• If the school is under subscribed they MUST accept them

EVALUATION

• Under subscribed schools tend to run out of places QUICK so parents may not get their first choice

OVERSUBSCRIPTION POLICIES

• I.E : if a school has TOO MANY applicants

They give priority to : 

• Children in care

• Pupil Premium

• Siblings (At discretion of the school)

• Catchment area (closest first)

• Faith

Covert Selection

Tough & Brooks

• Backdoor social selection to ‘cherry pick’ students

• Discouraging parents of poorer students from applying in the first place 

• E.G. Through uniform prices, making literature hard to understand, not advertising in poorer areas, etc…

• Faith schools require a letter from a spiritual leader to gain insight on the potential students family and commitment to both the faith & school ethos

4 ASPECTS OF EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY : GILLBORN & YOUDELL

• Equality of access : Every child should have the same opportunities to access educational provision of similar quality regardless of socio economic background

• Equality of circumstance : Children should all start school with a similar socio economic background so that they are all truly equal

• Equality of participation : All students have the chance to participate equally within things that make up school life

• Equality of outcome : All students have the same chances of achievement in education regardless of socio economic background

MARKETISATION

services like education are pushed towards acting like a business. Students are deemed as consumers not pupils

privatisation IN education

changing internal processes of school to make it more like a business

E.g. target setting, performance related pay, league tables, treating parents & students as consumers

Privatisation OF education

 opening aspects of education up to private businesses 

E.g. Staff training, school finances, School management (Academy chains) & exams/exam boards

PARENTOCRACY

 Means when a child's educational achievement has more to do with parental wealth & wishes than ability 

Parents are able to have choice over where they can send their children

3 FEATURES OF MARKETISATION (ICC)

• Independence- allowing schools to run themselves however they like

• Competition- Making schools compete with each other for students 

• Choice- Giving customers (parents & students) more choice in where they go for school

3 ELEMENTS OF QUALITY CONTROL

• Ofsted inspections

• Publication of performance tables such as exam results

• National Curriculum, the baseline for what is taught 

EVALUATION OF PRIVATISATION OF EDUCATION

Positives

• More efficient

• More choice for parents

• Profit making might induce companies to support failing schools

Negatives

• Takes money from the education system

• Businesses can go out of business - leaving schools stranded

• Less equality

CONSERVATIVE GOVT 1979-1997 MARKETISATION POLICIES

• League tables

• Local management schools

• Funding formula

• Open Enrollment

CONSERVATIVE GOVT 1979-1997 RAISING STANDARDS POLICIES

• OFSTED

• National Curriculum

• National Testing

LABOUR GOVT (1997-2010) MARKETISATION POLICIES

• Business sponsored academies

• Specialist schools

LABOUR GOVT (1997-2010) RAISING STANDARDS POLICIES

• Maximum class sizes for 5-7 year olds

• Building schools for the future programme

• Education action zones

• Business sponsored academies

COALITION GOVT (2010-2015) MARKETISATION POLICIES

• New style academies

• Free schools

COALITION GOVT (2010-2015) RAISING STANDARDS POLICIES

• Pupil premium

• English Baccalaureate (EBac)

• Reform of the national curriculum

• Reform of the exams system

• Tougher performance target at schools

EVALUATION OF MARKETISATION POLICIES & RAISING STANDARDS

MYTH OF MERITOCRACY

• Parents do not have equal freedom to choose the schools in which their child attends due to the covert selection processes, postcode lotteries in catchment areas, etc… 

• Middle class parents have so much more freedom of choice due to their cultural and economic capital, higher education & income 

EVALUATION OF MARKETISATION POLICIES & RAISING STANDARDS

EDUCATIONAL TRIAGE

Teachers tend to allocate more resources to the children on the C/D border line in order to achieve the 5 A* - C needed for the league tables (A- C economy), thus ignoring those who are unlikely to achieve this

EVALUATION OF MARKETISATION POLICIES & RAISING STANDARDS

DUMBING DOWN

Due to the funding formula, schools need to retain & attract students in order to receive funding 

Schools will therefore dumb down the teaching and standards in order to retain students who aren't as academically inclined and may leave if it proves to be too pushy/ intense / courses are too difficult 

EVALUATION OF MARKETISATION POLICIES & RAISING STANDARDS

REDUCED QUALITY CONTROL

OFSTED is not as independent as it appears, with politicians and govt interfering with the process by changing the standards and goal posts 

GLOBALISATION

The increased interconnectedness between people & nations. Includes technological, economic and cultural interconnectedness.

PISA TESTS

The programme for International Student Assessment is a worldwide study by the Organisation for economic co-operation and development in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15 year old school pupils academic performance on mathematics, science and reading 

PREVENT POLICY

 A policy implemented to safeguard and support those vulnerable to radicalisation . PREVENT is one of the four elements in CONTEST, the government's counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to stop people supporting or becoming terrorists.

FEATURES OF GLOBALISATION

Technological Development 

New technologies have made it easier to connect over long distances. 

It has created a Time-Space compression. 

Economic Changes 

Economic activity now takes place on a global scale in a 24 hour system. 

The growth of transnational companies and an electronic economy. 

Political Changes 

Globalisation has undermined the power of the nation state. 

We now live in a borderless world (Ohmae). 

In some cases TNC’s have more power than governments. 

Cultural Changes

We now live in a global culture created by mass media and the internet that has led to the westernisation of the world.

Migration

People are moving more freely within and between countries for economic and personal reasons. 

IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION ON EDUCATION

• Increased competition of jobs : Schools need to change the curriculum to meet the new needs E.g. Computer science, apprenticeships, etc…

• Global ICT companies (Apple & Google) creating online resources and curriculums 

• Increased multiculturalism in schools & decline of the ethnocentric curriculum 

• Increased competition between schools and universities for students

• Global ranking systems used to compare and contrast systems and raise standards

• Increased risk of safeguarding issues for schools, E.g. Cyberbullying, PREVENT & Anti-Radicalisation

MARXISM : GLOBALISATION & EDUCATION

Globalisation only provides more job opportunities for the wealthy and those who can afford to move etc… E.g. teacher jobs in dubai

Joel Spring - Global corporations are setting the educational agenda, creating a digital divide, disempowering of teachers.

HYPER GLOBALIST VIEW : GLOBALISATION & EDUCATION

Ohmae : The creation of ‘global citizens’.

Greater tolerance & respect for different views

Greater access to information, creating higher educational achievement 

POST FORDIST VIEW : GLOBALISATION & EDUCATION

Globalisation has increased competition in the job market, meaning governments should increase educational spending

In order to compete globally, education needs to be more focused on skills and competences

NEO LIBERAL VIEW : GLOBALISATION & EDUCATION

Globalisation has increased competition in the job market, meaning governments should increase educational spending

In order to compete globally, education needs to be more focused on skills and competences

1944 TRIPARTITE SYSTEM

• Main aims

  • Selective education – students would receive a different education dependent on their ability. All students would sit a test at age 11 (the 11+) to determine their ability and sift them into the right type of school.

  • Equality of opportunity – All students in England and Wales have a chance to sit the 11 + . Previous to 1944, the only pupils who could get a good, academic equation were those who could afford it.

• Details of the Act

  • Students took an IQ test at 11, the result of which determined which one of three types of school they would attend:

  • The top 20% went to grammar schools, received an academic education and got to sit exams.

  • The bottom 80% went to secondary moderns. These provided a more basic education, and initially students didn’t sit any exams.

  • There were also technical schools which provided a vocational education, but these died out fairly quickly.

• Evaluations

  • There were class inequalities – grammar schools were mainly taken up by the middle classes and secondary moderns by the lower classes.

  • The IQ test determined pupils futures at a very young age – no room for those who developed later in life.

  • Some of the secondary moderns had very low standards and labelled 80% of pupils as failures.

1965 COMPREHENSIVISATION

• Main aims

  • Equality of opportunity – one type of school for all pupils

• Details of the act

  • The Tripartite System was abolished and Comprehensive schools established.

  • Local Education Authorities would maintain control of schools.

• Evaluations

  • There were poor standards in some schools – especially where progressive education was concerned.

  • Banding and streaming occurred along social class lines – the working classes typically ended up in the lower bands and vice versa for the middle classes.

  • Parents had very little choice in education – it was nearly impossible to remove their children from the local school if they wanted, because it was thought that all schools were providing a similar standard of education

1988 EDUCATION ACT

• Main aims

  • To introduce free market principles (more competition) into the education system

  • to introduce greater parental choice and control over state education

  • Raising standards in education.

  • These are the aims associated with Neoliberalism and The New Right.

• Details of the act

  • Marketisation and Parentocracy (schools compete for pupils parents are like consumers)

  • David (1993) – parentocracy. Power shifts from producers (teachers & schools) to consumers (parents). This encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and raises standards. (Further explanation of parentocracy)

  • League Tables – so parents can see how well schools are doing and make a choice.

  • OFSTED – to regulate and inspect schools.

  • National Curriculum – so that all schools are teaching the same basic subjects

  • Formula Funding – funding based on numbers of pupils – which encourages schools to raise standards to increase demand.

• Evaluations

  • Competition did increase standards – results gradually improved throughout the 1990s.

  • Selection by mortgage – the house prices in the catchment areas of the best schools increased, pricing out poorer parents.

  • Cream skimming – the best schools tended to select the best students, who were predominantly middle class.

  • The middle classes had more effective choice because of their higher levels of cultural capital.

GETWITZ - PARENTAL CHOICE

• Privileged-skilled choosers – professional, middle class parents who use their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children. They take advantage of choices.

• Disconnected-local choosers – working class parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of cultural/economic capital. They’re less able to manipulate the system to their own advantage.

• Semi-skilled choosers – working class who are ambitious for their children. They lack cultural capital and also struggle to make sense of the education market.

• League tables have been criticised for encouraging teaching to the test.

1997 – New Labour

• Main aims

  • To respond to increased competition due to globalisation

  • Raising standards

  • Equality of opportunity

  • Increasing choice and diversity

• Details of policies

  • Increased funding to education

  • Reduced class sizes, introduced literacy and numeracy hour

  • Introduced Academies

  • Sure Start

  • EMA

  • Tuition fees introduced for HE

• Evaluations

  • Early academies rose standards in poor areas a lot (Mossbourne)

  • Generally better at improving equality of opportunity than the New Right

  • Parents liked sure start but it didn’t improve education (improved health)

  • Tuition fees put working class kids off (connor et al)

2010 The Coalition Government and the Conservative Government

• Main aims

  • Same as the New Right

  • To reduce public spending on education due to the financial crisis.

• Details of policies

  • Cut funding to education (Scrapped EMA)

  • Forced academisation

  • Free Schools

• Evaluations

  • Standards have carried on rising

  • Academisation and Free schools are both ideological – no evidence they improve standards more than LEA schools

  • Free schools – advantage the middle classes/ duplicate resources

labelling theory

Labelling theory suggests that teachers often attach a label to students that often isn’t linked to their actual ability.

They form an opinion on them based on how close the student acts to an ‘ideal pupil’ 

Idea pupil characteristics : female, white, middle class, quiet

Becker suggests that these student teacher interactions are based on these labels, can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy

BECKERS STUDY IN CHICAGO

• 60 Chicago high school teachers

• Found they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the 'ideal pupil'

• Key factors in this judgement:

  • Work

  • Conduct

  • Appearance

  • WC seen as...

    • badly behaved

  • MC...

    • close to ideal pupil

DUNNE & GAZELY

• 'Schools persistently produce WC underachievement' because of the labels and assumptions of teachers

Found that in 9 English, state, secondary schools...

• Teachers 'normalised' the underachievement of WC pupils, seemed unconcerned by and felt they could do little or nothing about it, whereas they felt they could overcome the underachievement of MC pupils

Why?

Teachers labelled:

• WC parents as uninterested

• MC parents as supportive

Examples of how teachers dealt with this:

• Setting extension work for MC pupils

• Entering WC pupils for easier exams

D and G conclude that...

• The way teachers explained and dealt with underachievement itself constructed class differences in levels of attainment

LABELLING EVALUATION

Too deterministic, assumes students will passively accept these labels and do a sfp, 

E.g. Fullers study on black girls in a london comp school showed how they had negative labels but instead of doing a sfp they cracked down and studied well to prove them wrong

Focuses only on negative effects

Labelling theory gives too much importance to teacher agency (the autonomous power of teachers to be able to influence pupils).

Structural sociologists point out that schools themselves encourage teachers to label students

Teacher training 

Marxists thinks it ignores the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place

Not merely the result of teachers' individual prejudices, but stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class divisions

BERNSTEIN LANGUAGE CODES

RESTRICTED - WC

ELABORATED - MC

Rosenthall and jacobson study - pygmalion in the classroom

the spurters/bloomers - gave fake IQ test to students,  labelled 20% of students as bright, went back after a year and found that the label placed made them make more progress than others. 47% of children identified as 'spurters' made significant progress

RAY TRIST

teacher used pupils background to segregate them, there were 3 types:

tigers : neat middle class fast students

Cardinals : working class middle ability

Clowns : WC troublesome

HEMPEL JORGENSEN STUDY

Ideal pupil varies on the school

WC school (ASPEN) -ideal pupil was quiet passive and obedient due to discipline being an issue

MC school (ROWAN) - as fewer discipline issues, ideal pupil was based on academic ability, personality instead of behaviour

STREAMING & BANDING - BECKER

Sfp is more likely to occur when pupils are streamed

Becker shows that wc students are seen as lacking in ability, so less expectations from teachers, so they often are put in a slower stream

Its difficult to move to a higher stream so students in a lower stream ‘get the message’ and remain there, becoming a sfp

DOUGLAS STREAMING AND BANDING

Douglas found that students placed in a lower stream at age 8 had a significant decrease in IQ score by age 11

By contrast, MC students benefit from streaming as they are more likely to be placed in higher streams, reflecting the teachers notion of an ‘ideal pupil’. As a result, they develop more confidence, self concept & the IQ significantly improved from 8-11.

GILLBORN & YOUDELL - EDUCATIONAL TRIAGE

Gillborn & Youdell found that teachers use stereotypical notions to stream pupils

Teachers see WC pupils as less ability, so placed in lower stream which denies them the opportunity to get higher grades, widens the class gap in achievement.

Publishing league tables : creates an A-C economy , school focuses on those they believe can get the grades and neglect the others.

Educational triage : sorting pupils into hopeless cases, those with potential and and those who will pass anyways

EVALUATION OF SETTING & STREAMING

Setting and streaming allow for higher ability students to be stretched and the lower ability students to be supported which can lead to higher achievement.

PRO SCHOOL SUBCULTURES CHARACTERISTICS

Committed to school values

Gain approval / status through academic success

Involved in the wider life of the school

MAC AN GHAILL - TYPES OF PRO SCHOOL SUBCULTURES

The Academic Achievers : Seek to achieve academic success by focusing on traditional academic subjects such as english, maths & science

The New Enterprisers : Rejected the traditional academic curriculum but were motivated to study subjects such as business and computing which they saw as a route to economic success

ANTI SCHOOL SUBCULTURES

Lower streams

Rejection of school values

Truanting

Disruption

Not doing homework

E.g. The Lads - Willis

FORMATION OF SUBCULTURES : LACEY

Differentiation:The process of teachers categorising pupils based on how they perceive their ability, attitude and behaviour. E.g. Streaming

Polarisation :  The process by which pupils respond to differentiation, by moving towards one of the two opposite poles (extremes). E.g. pro or anti school subcultures.

LACEY STUDY OF SUBCULTURES

In his study of Hightown boys' grammar school, Lacey found that streaming polarised boys into a...

Pro-school subculture

• Pupils placed in high streams (largely MC) tend to remain committed to the values of the school

• They gain their status in the approved manner, through academic success

Or, anti-school subculture

• Pupils placed in lower streams (largely WC) suffer a loss of self-esteem

• Label of failure pushes them to search for alternatives ways of gaining status, inverting the school's values

• e.g. Not doing HW, smoking, cheeking a teacher etc.

BALLS FINDINGS ON STREAMING

Ball found that when the school abolished streaming...

• The basis for pupil to polarise into subcultures was largely removed

• Influence of the anti-school subculture declined

However,

• Differentiation continued

• Ball's study shows that class inequalities can continue as a result of teachers' labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming

WOOD’S OTHER RESPONSES TO LABELLING & STREAMING

Ingratiation - being the teacher's pet

Ritualism - going through the motions and staying out of trouble

Retreatism - Daydreaming and mucking about

Rebellion - Outright rejection of everything the school stands for

FURLONG OBSERVES ABOUT WOODS RESPONSES TO LABELLING AND STREAMING

• Many pupils are not committed permanently to any one response

• They may move between types of response, acting differently in lessons with different teachers

SUBCULTURE

 A subculture is a group of people within culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs often maintaining some of the founding principals but developing their own norms and values. 

SYMBOLIC CAPITAL & SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE

Symbolic Capital – The status, recognition and sense of worth that students receive from others. 

Symbolic Violence – using symbolic capital in a negative way, for example demonstrating superiority through values, beliefs and attitudes. 

WORKING CLASS DILEMMA

The dilemma faced by working class pupils to achieve symbolic capital from their friends or academic capital by rejecting working class identity.

SYMBOLIC CAPITAL & PEER GROUPS

reinforcing acceptable behaviours, ostracising those who don’t conform and giving status to those who do.

E.g. calling those who study ‘nerds’ and ‘geeks’.

SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE : ARCHER

Schools impose forms of symbolic violence against students whose identities are shaped by designer clothing or hyper hetero-sexual feminine behaviour (usually wc). 

This suggests to those students that education is not ‘for them’.

SCHOOL ENVIRONMENTS : REAY

Students align their ability with the type of school they attend

Students who attend a poor performing school see themselves as poor students and are more likely to go for or form anti school subcultures

Those attending high performing schools however tend to form pro school subcultures.

ETHNOCENTRIC CURRICULUM : BALL

The current curriculum is very focused on middle class white british culture, ball refers to this as ‘little englandism’

This can make ethnic minorities, wc and women feel excluded

SUBJECT CHOICES

Schools reinforced gender in subject choice, pushing girls to expressive subjects (ie health and social care, art) and  boys to instrumental ones (maths, science, ict). This reinforces gender identity. Can also be done with stereotypical images within school  E.g. poster of males in science class and women painting.

UNIFORM

Uniform reinforces gender roles 

Girls expected to wear skirts and blouses

Boys to wear shirts trousers and ties

Also shapes class identity within schools E.g. boys who wear their tie differently to show they don’t care for authority etc

Schools may send those who break the uniform code home

Most schools don’t take in ethnic minorities and their requirements when it comes to uniforms either. E.g. hijab, hair cuts, braids, etc…

SUBCULTURES AND ANTI AUTHORITARIANISM

Rejection from school can lead working class and ethnic minority groups to identity as being anti authoritarian and therefore reject authority in all walks of life. 

E.g. willis the lads, sewell, Fuller

LABELLING AND IDENTITY

Positive and negative labelling impacts self esteem and concept, students labelled negatively may assume that academic achievement is not part of their identity & therefore look towards a more vocational course in the future 

BORDIEUS CONCEPT OF HABITUS

• Habits, behaviours, ways of thinking you develop as a result of your social background or social groups

• They can unconsciously guide your behaviour in social situations

• Includes tastes, preferences about lifestyles and consumption, their outlook on life and their expectations about what is normal or realistic for 'people like us'

• Gives MC pupils an advantage as the school has a MC habitus - WC class culture regarded as inferior

NIKE IDENTITY : ARCHER

• Due to symbolic violence, pupils looked for alternative ways of creating self-worth, status and value

• Did so by constructing meaningful class identities for themselves by investing heavily in 'styles' - especially through consuming branded clothing such as Nike

• Pupils' identities also strongly gendered

• Style performances were heavily policed by peer groups and not conforming to 'social suicide'

• The right appearance earned symbolic capital and approval from peer groups and brought safety from bullying

• Led to conflict with the schools dress code - Pupils who adopted street styles risked being labelled as rebels

nike identity & it’s role in the rejection of higher education

• Nike styles also play a part in WC pupils' rejection of higher education, which they saw as...

  • Unrealistic

    • Not for 'people like us' - for richer, posher, cleverer people

    • They would not fit in

    • Seen as unaffordable and risky investment

  • Undesirable

    • Would not 'suit' their preferred lifestyle or habitus

    • e.g. did not want a student loan because they would be unable to afford the street styles that gave them their identity

Ingram's study of the relationship between educational success and WC identity:

• 2 groups of WC, Catholic boys from the same highly deprived neighbourhood in Belfast

• 1 group passed 11+ exams and went to grammar school

• 1 group failed and went to a local secondary

• Ingram found that WC identity was inseparable from belonging to a WC locality

• Boys who failed felt intense feeling of belonging

• Street culture and branded sportswear were a key part of the boys' habitus and sense of identity

• Grammar school boys struggled to 'fit in' and experienced tension between the habitus of their WC neighbourhood and that of their MC school

• e.g. Callum's experience of symbolic violence as he was ridiculed for wearing a tracksuit on non-uniform day

• 'The choice is between worthlessness at school for wearing certain clothes and worthlessness at home for not'

Evans' study of class identity and self-exclusion:

• She found 21 WC girls from South London were reluctant to apply to elite universities

• The few who did apply felt a sense of hidden barriers and of not fitting in

• Like Archer and Ingram, Evans found that the girls had a strong attachment to their locality e.g. only 4/21 intended to move away from home to study

All studies show a consistent pattern of...

• a MC education system that devalues the experiences and choices of the WC people as worthless or inappropriate

• As a result, WC pupils are often forced to choose between maintaining their WC identities, or abandoning them and conforming to the MC habitus of education in order to succeed

Reay points out that...

• Self-exclusion from elite or distant universities narrows the options of many WC pupils and limits their success

calendar & Jackson - fear of debt

explored the relationship between prospective students' attitudes towards debt and their decisions about whether to enroll in higher education. 

relationship between internal & external factors - class

• WC pupils' habitus and identities formed at home may conflict with the school's MC habitus, resulting in symbolic violence and pupils feeling that education is not for the likes of them

• WC pupils using the restricted speech code may be labelled as less able, leading to a SFP

• What teachers believe about a pupil actually produces over/underachievement

• Poverty may lead to bullying, which may lead to truanting and failure

HABITUS

learned or taken for granted ways of

thinking, being or acting that are shared by a

particular social class (Bourdieu)

It includes their tastes, outlook on life,

expectations and what is normal or realistic for

people ‘like us’

M/C have power to set the habitus of the school

giving M/C students an advantage.

W/C habitus is devalued by schools and W/C

students felt that they had to change who they

are in order to be academically successful.

W/C habitus sees HE as undesirable and

Unrealistic.

EVAL OF CLASS AND IDENTITY

Postmodernists argue that class doesn’t have as

much of an impact on students identity

anymore due to the pick and mix culture.

INTERNAL FACTORS : CLASS

Labelling

Setting & Streaming

Ability grouping and educational triage

Subcultures

Identity

Self fulfilling prophecy

EXTERNAL FACTORS : CLASS

material deprivation

• diet housing

• fear of debt

• resources

cultural deprivation

• Language and speech codes

• Parents education

• Parental style

• Working class community subculture

• Cultural capital

SUGARMAN

• Sugarman's 4 features of working-class subculture that act as a barrier to educational achievement

  • Fatalism

    • A belief in fate - 'que sera sera' or “YOLO’

    • Nothing you can do to change your status

    • Contrasting middle-class value:

      • You can change your position through your own efforts

  • Collectivism

    • Valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual

    • Contrasting middle-class value:

      • An individual should not be held back by group loyalties

  • Immediate gratification

    • Seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future

    • Contrasting middle-class value:

      • Deterred gratification, making sacrifices now for greater rewards later

  • Present-time orientation

    • Seeing the present as more important than the future

    • Not having long-term goals or plans

    • Contrasting middle-class value:

      • Future-time orientation that sees planning for the future important

MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

• Refers to poverty

• Lack of money to buy material necessities such as adequate housing and income

• Children on FSM underachieve academically compared to those who are not on FSM - 36.8% kids on FSM achived 5 A*-C, 63% of those not

• Is linked to non-attendance, which affects achievement

• Exclusion rates higher in low income - hard to get back into mainstream education

• Nearly 90% failing schools in deprived areas

HOUSING - MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

• Overcrowding – direct - Can mean less room for educational activities, nowhere to do homework, disturbed sleep from sharing beds/bedrooms etc.

• Children's development can be impaired from a lack of space

• Poor housing – indirect – Children in crowded homes run greater risk of accidents

• Subsequent health problems due to poor housing could mean physical and mental distress, meaning more absences from school, meaning more likely to perform worse in school

DIET & HEALTH : MATIERAL DEPRIVATION

• (Howard) Children in poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals (poorer nutrition) - weaker immune system and less energy means short and long term health problems and more absences and difficulties concentrating.

• (Wilkinson) The lower the social class, the more likely and higher the rate of hyperactivity, anxiety and conduct disorders

• (Blanden and Machin) Children in low income families more likely to engage in 'externalising' behaviour e.g. fighting and temper tantrums etc. likely to disrupt schooling

The Hidden Costs of ‘free education’ ": MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

• (Bull) 'the costs of free schooling' poorer families may miss out on extra resources that may enhance the child's learning experience

• (Tanner) Costs of uniform, transport, books, etc. is a burden on poorer families

• (Flaherty) fear of stigmatisation may also help to explain why 20% of those eligible for FSM don’t take it up

• EMA abolished in 2011

FEAR OF DEBT : MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

• (Callender and Jackson) Most debt-averse students were over 5x times less likely to go to uni than debt-tolerant students – they saw debt as something to be avoided and saw more costs than benefits of going to uni

• No. of applicants to uni in 2012 fell by 8.6%

• (Reay) WC students likely to apply to local unis to save costs on accommodation and travel, also wanted to work part-time to fund their studies, WC spend 2x as much time in paid work to reduce their debts compared to middle-class students

evaluation of material deprivation

• Effect on class linked with ethnicity and gender

  • Cultural, religious or political values may maintain a child's motivation to work hard at school despite poverty

  • e.g. Higher proportion of Chinese pupils on FSM achieve 5 A*-C GCSEs compared to non-FSM students from other ethnic groups

  • Modood found the effects of low income are much less for other ethnic groups compared to white British pupils

  • Girls on average achieve higher grades than boys

  • Being WC, white and British means you are likely to be the most severely disadvantaged

• MD can explain why some but not all within the WC underachieve

  • Cannot say why WC students from families who have a decent/high income (e.g. a plumber ) do not achieve as highly as MC students

• Fernstein argues that educated parents (regardless of income) make...

  • a positive contribution to a child's achievemet (link to CD)

  • However, defenders of MD argue that MD has the greatest effect on achievement - poverty affects attitudes to education and so tackling child poverty would have the biggest impact on achievement

• Interactionist explations - internal/small scale interaction situations

  • Argue that factors within schools are more important such as teachers attitudes towards students and ability grouping - these factors affect the way pupils see themselves and their motivation

  • However, MD sociologists argue that a student may want to achieve but may not be able to if they do not have the right working conditions at home

what is cultural deprivation

Means having inferior norms and values, skills and knowledge that make it difficult to access education.

• The theory states that people of the working class experience cultural deprivation and this disadvantages them, as a result of which the gap between classes increases
  

Cultural deprivation : What do Bereiter and Engelmann claim about language in lower-class homes?

• Language used in lower-class homes is deficient

• They describe lower-class families as communicating by gestures, single words or disjointed phrases

• As a result...

  • Children fail to develop the necessary language skills

  • They grow up incapable of abstract thinking and unable to use language to explain, describe, enquire or compare

Cultural deprivation : Hubbs-Tait found that where parents use language that...

• Challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities e.g. 'What do you think?’ - cognitive performance improves

Cultural deprivation : Feinstein found that…

• Educated parents are more likely to use language in this way

• Educated parents more likely to use praise, encourages their children to develop a sense of their own competence

• What types of language will less educated parents tend to use?

  • Types that only require children to make simple, descriptive statements e.g. 'What's that animal called?'

  • Results in lower performance

Bernsteins speech codes: cultural deprivation speech

• The restricted code

  • Typically used by the working class

  • Limited vocabulary

  • Based on simple sentences

  • Descriptive, not analytic

  • Context-bound

• The elaborated code

  • Typically used by the middle class

  • Wider vocabulary

  • Based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences

  • Speech is more varied and communicated more abstract ideas

  • Context-free