Education every study

Smith and noble

Material factors create a barriers to learning resulting in a poverty penalty eg

damp living conditions, lack of space, can’t afford tuition

Contemporary application supporting smith and noble

Mandy Rogers- “I don’t remember having books at home”

Digital divide felt especially during lockdown- children from middle class backgrounds averaged an additional 7 days of study a month studying compared to poorer peers

Evaluation of Smith and Noble

Definite link between material deprivation and underachievement,

Working class students defying the odds

Impact of ethnicity: Chinese working class outperform white working class

Pupil Premium, FSM

Calendar and Jackson

Working class are 5 times less likely to apply to university, Fear of debt, only 30% of uni students are from working class backgrounds

Contemporary application supporting callendar and Jackson

Article- the number of poorer students dropping out of university is at its highest level in 5 years

Sociology article- Mandy Rogers: I didn’t know further education existed

BBC article- white FSM least likely to go to uni: unlikely to see education as a way of improving their lives

Fear of debt more compelling given cost of living crisis

Evaluating callendar and Jackson

Student loan- don’t have to pay it back if their income is too low

Contemporary political example Supporting Callendar and Jackson

Corbyn pledged to scarp tuition fees proving it is a hotly debated issue

Contemporary application supporting cultural deprivation

Sociology article- poverty of expectation exists where low aspirations and negative attitudes form self fulfilling prophecy

Sugarman

fatalism, collectivism, immediate gratification and present-time orientation form a self imposed barrier to success

Fatalism

Whatever will be will be attitude- for example little preparation for exams

Immediate gratification

Seeking immediate pleasures and rewards eg working class pupils see staying on at school post 16 as pointless when you could be earning money

Collectivism

Group values

Present time orientation

Valuing spending time with friends more than studying

Evaluation of Sugarman

Why do some working class underachieve and others do not,

Billionaires like Richard Branson left school with no qualifications,

Makes value judgments about working class

Basil Bernstein

Restricted vs elaborated speech code

Restricted speech code

Short hand informal speech incompatible with essay writing

Elaborated speech code

More formal, detailed speech more compatible with the education system

Evaluating Bernstein

Overlap as middle class can use restricted and vice versus

Implies it is inadequate

Supporting Bernstein

The government has put more emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar, promote literacy across the curriculum which middle class pupils appear to respond to much more competently

Evaluating of cultural deprivation

Poor attitudes towards learning may well be a consequence of material deprivation

Victim blaming- working class students may have their aspirations dashed by low teacher expectations, setting and streaming,

Gill Evans

Contemporary applications evaluating cultural deprivation

Sociology article- a reason put forward is lack of parental aspiration but aspirations are generally high across all social groups and that parental engagement is more influential as working class parents tend to work longer hours

New Labour compensatory education policies- Surestart initiative provided outreach to aid socialisation

Sociology article-Insecure labour market dissociates the link between grades and job opportunity

Gill Evans

18 month fieldwork in a working class council estate and felt that they majority did care about their child’s education and tried to convince their children to do well, just less skilled at knowing how to help their children

Evaluating Evans

Only one estate,

Risks going native and losing objectivity,

Social desirability effect

Bourdieu

Middle class habits creates a cultural capital- pro education, highly qualified parents

Sociology article Bourdieu

Mandy Rogers- my parents never put enough into my education, lots of evidence have found a correlation between cultural capitol and educational achievement

Evaluation of Bourdieu

Social class is not deterministic

Not all schools are middle class institutions

Impact of material factors

Cultural capital is difficult to operationalise

Bath maker et al

Middle class social capital allows them to add value to degrees

Evaluation of bathmaker et al

A sample of students from the city of Bristol may not be a representative sample

Contemporary application internal factors

Working class are in worse staff student ratio than middle class, fewer qualified teachers, higher levels of teacher turnover and more supply of teachers

Teacher labelling

Middle class students seen as motivated and committed to studies and have a halo effect

Working class seen as lazy, disorganised and unmotivated

Dunne and Gazeley

Teachers normalised working class underachievement- negative labelling, creating a self fulfilling prophecy and anti school subcultures

Contemporary application supporting Dunne and Gazeley

Schools have an A to C economy where time is put into pupils perceived to get 5 Cs to boost league table points people are categorised into hopeless cases

Evaluation of Dunne and Gazeley

Small sample size

Evaluation of labelling theory

Deterministic

Many teachers are neutral

Evidence based on judgments rather than hard evidence

Setting

Grouped according to ability in a particular subject

Streaming

Pupils put into broadly similar ability groups across all subjects

Jo Boaler

School A vs School B setting and streaming vs mixed ability. Being stuck in lower sets like a psychological prison

Contemporary application supporting Jo Boaler

Sociology article-The education system can be soul destroying for those who struggle- the notions of intellectual hierachy can be damaging to mental state

BBC news- one woman feared her son had been branded from a young age and risked never being able to move up a group due to the fixed perceptions his teachers clearly held of him

Paul Willis

Lads anti school subculture, counter school values, the conformists were called ear oles, they underachieved and got low paid jobs

Evaluating Paul Willis

More relevant than ever as the manual jobs have largely disappeared, more working class boys feelin displaced with educational qualifications

Not a representative sample

Hawthorne effect

Vast majority of anti school subcultures do not wholeheartedly reject all aspects of school

Mac and Ghaill social class and underachievement

Macho lads vs academic achievers

Macho lads

Mac an Ghaill- bottom two sets academic failures and treated as such by teachers

Academic achievers

Mac an Ghaill- saw hard work and educational qualifications as a route to success

Contemporary application supporting Mac an Ghaill

Working class boys particularly low- need assistance particularly in literacy

Michael Edwards- they aren’t taught to read by parents

Ball

Removal of streaming led to a decline in anti school subculture among working class pupils, replaced with mixed ability teaching

Contemporary application the impact of cukture

British Asians, Asian well and bragging rights, most students felt pressure to achieve either to meet their parents expectations or to honour family name

Louise archer

Schools operate with middle class habitus devaluing working class identity: symbolic violence so in response they exaggerate into Nike identities to gain self worth

Evaluating Louise archer

Useful combination of inschool and home background factors

Overlooks those with Nike identities that achieve success

Haleema khanum

Positive pro education attitudes among British Asians explain high levels of achievement, parents have high expectations

Sociology article supporting Khanum

Bragging rights, Asian well, most students felt the pressure to achieve to honour family name and reach parents’ expectations

Evaluation of khanum

Small sample size 12 students

Sewell cultural deprivation

Matrifocal households make young black boys look for perverse loyalty and love from gang members

60% of Black Caribbean families are lone parent

Media representations of black ghetto-style gangsters

Contemporary application supporting Sewell

Lack of black teachers is showing, 1.9% of teachers in Bristol are black

Evaluating cultural deprivation theories

Ignores the string nurturing that black women provide- Black Caribbean families provide very strong role models for young girls

Culturally different rather than culturally deprived

Material deprivation and ethnicity key facts

More likely to experience material deprivation

15% of ethnic minority households live in overcrowded conditions compared to 2% of white households

Evaluation of material deprivation and ethnicity

Variations exist in how much it influences different ethnicities eg Chinese and Indian backgrounds

Mike noon

Racism in soceity letters under Evans and Patel

Contemporary application supporting Noon

Black workers continue to earn less than white colleagues, pay differences amount to around 23%

BBC: if you have a non English name it’s more difficult to get a job

Evaluation of Noon

Anti discrimination laws

Gillborn and Youdell

Negative expectations of black students makes teachers less tolerant of them explaining why black pupils have the highest exclusion rate

Evaluation of Gillborn and Youdell

There is less tolerance for discrimination in society and better teacher training on equality

Would they be selectively racist- exclusion is higher for Black-Caribbean than Black-African boys

Louise Archer pupil identities

School shapes the identities of ethnic minority students:

Ideal pupil, pathologists pupil, demonised pupil identity

Ideal pupil identity

Louise Archer- white middle class students considered high achieving and thus receive positive reinforcement

Pathologised pupil identity

Louise archer- Passive and quiet Asian girls seen as repressed by strict home life

Demonised pupil identity

Black or white working class pupils sexualised, peer led, culturally deprived underachievers considered trouble, self fulfilling prophecy

Evaluating Louise Archer

Somewhat simplistic

Sewell- pupil subcultures

The rebels, the conformists, the retreatists, the innovators

The rebels

Sewell- Rejected everything school stood for being macho desirable ways of behaving

The conformists

Sewell- black boys who followed the rules and worked hard

The retreatists

Sewell- Isolated individuals, withdrew from school keeping their heads down

The innovators

Sewell- pro education but anti school

Evaluation of Sewell types of subcultures

Impression that all teachers are racist and negatively label black boys

Deterministic: Mary Fuller

Fuller

Overcoming negative labels group of year 11 black girls, the girls channeled their anger at being labelled into their work

Evaluation of Mary Fuller

Evidence of negative labels

Dated research

Examples of ethnocentric curriculum

School year calendared around Christian festivals

Subject content focused on white British experiences

Ethnocentric curriculum contemporary application

Black students have to work harder than their peers to connect to assignments and content, widening curriculum could help BAME students connect to their learning

Contemporary application evaluating the ethnocentric curriculum

Decolonising education: 2015- Cecil Rhodes statue at Uni of Capetown

Evaluation of ethnocentric curriculum

Diversity awards

Black history month

Why are some ethnicities impacted by the ethnocentric curriculum and not others eg Chinese students

White working class boys underachieve the most- at 5 white British children 60% reach targets at 16 this number drops to 35%

Institutional racism

Schools fail to properly investigate racist bullying, discrimination is so historically deep rooted in society that it forms a locked in equality

Traditional tests are combined with teachers perceptions no judgments: the new IQism

Analysis of exam entry shows that black pupils are more likely to foundation tier papers

Contemporary application supporting institutional racism

MP David Lammy referred to Oxford Unuversity as a bastion of white middle class southern privilege, Corpus Christi admits 350 students a year and has had one black student between 2015-2017

Sociology article supporting institutional racism

Lana Crosbie- exclusions based on cultural nuances not picked up by white teachers, at the same school a black girl was expelled for kissing her teeth but a white student wasn’t excluded for saying a rude word

Marketisation and ethnicity

Greater scope for schools to select pupils, many black students are seen as problem students resisting offering them a space

Evaluating marketisation

Difficult for admissions departments to get away with selection by ethnicity due to pro equality legislation

Impact of feminism

Girls are empowered and encouraged to be ambitious changes in law reflecting these changes in attitudes:

Equal Pay Act, Sex Discrimination Act

Sociology article female achievement

Girls report more positive educational attitudes than boys more likely to say it means a great deal to do well at school

Sue sharpe

1970s girls: marriage and love
1990s girls: education and careers

Evaluation of sue sharpe

The feminist movement has had little impact on subject choice

Applies to middle class girls but has been little progress for working class girls

Changes in the family

Independent females in families provide excellent role models, they know that marriage and children is not the only option available to them to try hard and succeed

Evaluation of changes in the family

Independence is exaggerated as most girls still want to get married and have children

Changes in the workplace

Equal pay act, the sex discrimination act, proportion of women in employment: 1959- 47% 2007-over 70% inspiring girls to try hard in school

Evaluation of changes in the workplace

Exaggerated change: gender pay gap 88.4% men working full time, 58.4% women working full time

Women were less benefited from pandemic support- forced to bear the brunt of homeschooling

Girls achievement example

STEM targets science technology, engineering and maths aspirations for girls

Positive role models in school

Proportion of female teachers has increased but the number of female head teachers still falls below the number of males

Evaluation of positive role models at school

Number of female heads falls below the number of male heads

Females still outnumber males in cleaning staff roles and teaching assistants

Teacher attention

Boys tend to dominate in class discussion whereas girls are better at group work, teachers judge girls behaviour and approach to work as more positive than boys

Self fulfilling prophecy of high achievement for girls

Mitsos and Browne

More coursework. Women are better at coursework

Evaluation of Mitsos and Browne

Michael Gove led many exam boards to scrap coursework due to the demands on teachers and the potential for cheating

Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum

Conscious effort to remove stereotypes from the curriculum, tahsin meants that girls no longer see themselves in inferior positions

Example changing stereotypes in the curriculum

2015- Jesse McCabe to pressure edexcel to include influential female composers in their specifications

Louise Archer- working class girls identity

Working class girls- hyper sexual feminine identity for symbolic capitol, underachieved as the school