Education Key Terms
Academy/Free Schools	Self-governing schools that are free from local authority control and are funded directly by the government. Those in charge of the school have more freedom to control how that school is run.
Achieved Status	This is the idea that you earn your role in society in terms of your merits.
Anomie	This is an absence of social norms or chaos.
Anti-School Subcultures	A subculture is a culture within a culture with its own set of norms and values. Laddish sub cultures that reject education rather than embrace it. Anti-school sub cultures consist of not accepting teachers authority or acting up in lessons as a sign of rebellion
Ascribed Status	This is the idea your role in society is given to you or is fixed in the society to which you are born into.
Bourgeoisie	These are the ruling classes, the capitalists
Capitalism	This is a system of society based upon free market principles, the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of wealth. Although Marxists view it as a system where the bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat.
Consensus	Durkheim - Everyone in society having agreed norms and values in society.
Collectivism	Where you put your friends before your own individual achievement e.g. messing about inside and outside of class with your mates is more important than doing well for yourself
Colour-Blind Racists	Teachers who believe all pupils are equal but in practice allow racism to go unchallenged.
Communism	This is a society everyone where is equal as long as they contribute to society.
Compensatory Education	These are government policies that are aimed at combating the negative effects of deprivation. For example, EMA or SureStart.
Comprehensive Schools	This replaced the tripartite system, it is where secondary schools taught all students the same material, regardless of their ability. The school you went to is based upon catchment area.
Conformists	Sewell – Largest group, keen to succeed, accepted school’s goals and had friends from different ethnic groups. They were not part of a subculture and were anxious to avoid being stereotyped either by teachers or their peers.
Correspondence Principle	Education mirroring the workplace.
Cream Skim	This is where schools choose the best academic students to be at their school instead of choosing the less academic students. These tend to be middle class students.
Crisis of Masculinity	This is where males are having identity crisis there are no clear-cut male gender roles in western society as there are fewer traditional male jobs and women have made their way onto the job market.
Cultural Capital	This is the knowledge, attitudes, values, language and tastes of the middle classes. The socialisation if these give m/c children an advantage as it is what the education system is based upon.
Cultural Deprivation	a lack or deficit of values or of norms, attitudes, skills or knowledge that would allow you to do well in education
Culture	Culture refers to the language, knowledge, skills, norms and values of a particular society.
Curriculum	These are the things that we are explicitly taught in schools.
Deferred Gratification	This is where you can put off a small immediate reward and wait for a larger reward in future it is the opposite of immediate gratification.
Demonised Pupil Identity	A black or white, working-class, hyper-sexualised identity. This pupil is seen as an unintelligent, peer-led, culturally-deprived underachiever.
Dependency Culture	This is the idea that people assume that the state will support them, rather than them having to be responsible and work themselves.
Differentiation	This is creating differences between individuals or groups. This may be done in class by teacher splitting students into different groups, or by setting and streaming.
Disciplinarian Discourse	The teacher’s authority is made explicit and visible, for example, through shouting, an ‘exasperated’ tone of voice or sarcasm.
Disconnected-Local Choosers	Gewirtz – These were WC parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital.
Educational Maintenance Award (EMA)	2004 the government introduced the Educational Maintenance Award nationwide to try and encourage students to stay on in post-16 education. This is a means tested system whereby students with fewer material advantages actually receives payment for staying on in education after the age of 16.
Educational Triage	This is where students are classified into three different types.  -Students who are certain to be successful regardless of help offered- Students who with help could be successful - Students who are the failures no matter what help is given.
Elaborated Codes	The dialect spoken by the middle class, this is where a wide vocabulary is used, full and complex sentences, and is context free
Ethnic Group	This is where individuals share a similar cultural heritage, such as language or norms and values or religion. They may form an ethnic majority or minority in any given society.
Ethnocentric Curriculum	Subjects taught in school being biased towards one particular culture.
Fatalism	Believing you are destined to fail so don't bother trying as you believe your future is led by your fate.
Feminism	These are sociologists who believe society is patriarchal that men oppress, dominate and exploit women.
Gender	This is the social constructed social and cultural differences between men and women that are socialised rather than purely biological.
Gender Identity	This is how people perceive themselves and construct themselves in terms of their gender roles and biological sex.
Globalisation	The spread of culture products and ideas across national and international boundaries.
Hidden Curriculum	These are the lessons we learn in school that are not explicitly taught. The secret socialisation that takes place such as the acceptance of hierarchy.
Ideal Pupil Identity	A white, MC, masculinised identity, with a normal sexuality. This pupil is seen as achieving in the ‘right way’, through natural ability and initiative.
Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs)	According to Althusser, these are institutions such as education which spread the ideology that capitalism is fair and inevitable.
Ideology	A set of norms, values, ideas and beliefs.
Individualism	The belief that the wants and needs of the individual are more important than that of the community.
Innovators	Sewell – Second largest group. Like Fuller’s girls, they were pro-education but anti-school. They valued success, but did not seek the approval of teachers and conformed only as far as schoolwork itself was concerned. This distanced them from the conformists and allowed them to maintain credibility with the rebels while remaining positive about academic achievement.
Institutional Racism	Where all areas of a workplace or school are discriminating against a certain area
Interactionism	This is the sociological approach that focuses on small scale, micro level interactions between individuals and groups and the meanings that these groups and individuals give to these interactions. These are sometimes called social action theories.
Job Role Allocation	This is Parson's idea that school sorts us into particular careers by showing us what we are bad and good at through testing.
Labelling	This is the idea that teachers’ hypothesis about what students are like, results in attaching a stereotype or label to them. This effects people's interactions with them and can bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Liberal Chauvinists	Teachers who believe black pupils are culturally deprived and who have low expectations of them.
Liberal Discourse	Teacher’s authority implicit and invisible. This child-centred discourse involves ‘pseudo-adultification’: the teacher speaks to the pupil as if they were an adult and expects them to be kind, sensible and respectful of the teacher.
Linguistic Deprivation	This is where pupils do not have the dialect or language that would allow them to be successful in education for example, they may speak in restricted code or English may not be their first language.
Micro Level	These are theories such as interactionism that focus on small scale, micro level interactions between individuals and groups and the meanings that these groups and individuals give to these interactions.
Male Gaze	Mac an Ghaill (1994) suggested that the 'male gaze' existed within the school setting in that both male pupils and teachers 'eye up' girls as sexual objects and make judgements about their appearance.
Marginalisation	This is where individuals feel pushed towards the edges of society or an institution.
Marketisation	Schools are placed in competition with each other to drive up standards, market forces of supply and demand were introduced into education by the 1988 education act.
Material Deprivation	This means that children do not have the money and resources that would give them the advantage in education they may be in poverty
Means of Production	These are factories and raw materials required to manufacture goods.
Meritocracy	A system of equal opportunity in which rewards are based on achievement/ability.
Macro Level	Structural theories such as Marxism or functionalism that focus upon the large-scale social structures that they believe exist in society.
Moral Panic	This is where society becomes anxious about an exaggerated or imaginary threat to society. For example, male underachievement.
Overt Racists	Teachers who believe blacks are inferior and actively discriminate against them.
Parentocracy	Rule by parents. This is the idea that parents have more say over education as they can chose where to send their children to school.
Particularistic Standards	Parsons term for all norms and value that apply to your own particular family. They give a priority to personal relationships.
Pathologised Pupil Identity	An Asian, ‘deserving poor’, feminised identity, either asexual or with an oppressed sexuality. This pupil is seen as a plodding conformist and culture-bound ‘over achiever’, a slogger who succeeds through hard work rather than natural ability.
Patriarchy	This is where society is controlled and dominated by men. Women are oppressed and exploited.
Polarisation	The creation of two opposite extremes. For example, in schools labelling can create a school culture or an anti-school culture.
Positional Theory	This is Boudon’s theory that w/c children do worse that middle class children as to progress they have further to go up the social ladder.
Postmodernism	This literally means after modern society, it is characterised by choice, individualism, fluidity, diversity and constant change.
Present-Time Orientation	Seeing the present as more important than planning for the future
Primary Socialisation	This is the first stage of passing down a society’s culture to its young. It normally refers to the family teaching children norms, values, language and skills.
Privileged-Skilled Choosers	Gewirtz - These were mainly professional middle-class parents who used their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children.
Proletariat	These are the working classes.
Public Schools	Schools that are selective, fee-paying such as private schools.
Rebels	Sewell - Most visible and influential group, but they were only a small minority of black pupils. They were often excluded from school. They rejected both the goals and the rules of the school and expressed their opposition through peer group membership, conforming to the stereotype of the anti-authority, anti-school ‘black macho lad’.
Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs)	Maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by force or the threat of it. E.g. police, courts and army. When necessary, they use physical coercion (force) to repress the working class.
Reproduction of Class System	This is the idea that institutions like education keep the ruling class in power and the working class exploited. Keeping the rich, rich and the poor, poor.
Restricted Codes	This is a dialect spoken by the working class it may contain slang, shorthand speech, rely on gesture, have a narrow vocabulary and often cannot be understood outside of its context.
Retreatists	Sewell – A tiny minority of isolated individuals who were disconnected from both school and black subcultures, and were despised by the rebels.
Secondary Socialisation	This is learning norms, values and culture from outside the family, e.g. from teachers, TV.
Secularisation	This is the decline of religious thinking and influence in a society.
Selection	In education this is the process of allocating children to schools. For example, via the 11 plus
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy	When a pupil comes to live up to the label given him/her, something comes true because it has been predicted.
Semi-Skilled Choosers	Gewirtz - These parents were also mainly WC, but unlike the disconnected local choosers, they were ambitious for their children.
Setting	This is where students are split into ability groups on a subject by subject basis.
Silt Shift	Schools get rid of the pupils that are destined to fail in education and keep the more capable pupils who will improve the school’s exam results.
Social Mobility	The extent to which individuals can move up or down the social class hierarchy.
Social Norms	Social norms are the unwritten and sometimes written guidelines and expectations about how it is acceptable to behave within a particular culture.
Social Polices	These are the laws and legislations put into place by the government or educational institutions to deal with particular social issues.
Social Solidarity	This is a sense of belonging people have to society which holds society together.
Specialist Schools	85% of secondary schools are now of this type, they were introduced to drive up standards, choice and increase diversity. They had to raise £50,000 from sponsors that would then be matched by the government. This type of school specialises in the provision of a certain subject, once they had achieved this status, they are allowed to select 10% of their students on the grounds of aptitude and are additionally funded. Evidence suggests this type of school also do achieve better results compared to non-specialist schools.
State Schools	A school that is funded and controlled by the government and for which no fees are charged
Streaming	This is where students are split into ability bands or streams for all of their subjects.
Tripartite System	The secondary school system introduced by the Butler Act: Students were allocated to one of three types of schools dependent upon their performance on the 11 plus. Grammar Schools – Academic, Secondary Modern – Vocational, Technical Schools.
Underclass	These are long term welfare dependents; they are right at the bottom of the social class hierarchy and are socially excluded. e.g. single mothers.
Universalistic Norms	These are the written and unwritten guidelines about how to behave that are shared by all members of a society
Universalistic Standards	Parsons term for the norms and values that apply to all members of a society.
Value Consensus	These are social norms and values that all members of a society share agreement upon.
Values	These are the most important beliefs or principles that a society holds. For example, most societies value the preservation of human life.
Vocationalism	Education or qualifications that relate to a particular career or specific work roles.

Education Key Terms