Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Education - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Selective education - Students receive different education dependent on their ability
      - Equality of opportunity - All students in England and Wales have a chance to sit the 11+
      - Meritocracy - Individuals should achieve their status in life through their own effort and abilities, rather than it being ascribed at birth
    - - Students sat the 11+ exam to decide what secondary school they went to
      - Grammar schools - Academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education, with mainly middle-class pupils
      - Secondary modern schools - Non-academic,'practical' curriculum and access to manual work for pupils who failed the 11+, with mainly working class pupils
      - Technical schools - These were intended to focus on 'technical' subjects, but existed in some areas
    - - It reproduced class inequality - It channelled the two social classes in two types of school that offered unequal opportunities
      - MC pupils were more likely to pass the 11+ as they had cultural and economic capital so they went to grammar schools and performed well
      - WC pupils went to secondary modern schools and received a lower standard of education
      - It also reproduced gender inequality as girls needed higher marks than boys
  - - - Equality of Opportunity - One type of school for all pupils
    - - All students went to the same type of school and received the same education
      - Allocation of places was based on catchment area
    - - It helped to reduce class inequality to a small extent
      - Teacher labelling and setting/streaming did create some inequalities
      - The tripartite system exists in some areas still
  - - - Reducing direct state control over education
      - Increasing both competition between schools and parental choice of school
    - - The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced marketisation in the British education system through OFSTED reports, league tables & formula fundings.
      - Other policies have included- open enrolment (successful schools being able to recruit more students), specialists schools, academies & free schools. These link to New Right ideas of trying to raise standards and create parentocracy
      - Impacts
        
        Ball argues marketisation benefits the MC
        
        League tables mean that schools are more selective of their pupils (cream-skimming - picking the best students and silt-shifting - avoiding taking in the 'worst' students
        
        Formula funding means top schools gets more money, can improve their facilities again and become selective of their intake
        
        This creates 'sink schools' - schools which can't improve due to the students they enrol and their poor facilities
    - - Privileged skilled choosers - Mainly professional middle-class parents who used their economic and cultural capital for their children
        
        These parents knew how school admissions systems and had the time to visit schools and research options
      - Disconnected local choosers - Working-class parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital
        
        They found it difficult to understand school admissions proedures and were less confident in their dealings with schools
      - Semi-skilled choosers - Mainly working-class but were ambitious for their children
        
        They lacked cultural capital and found it difficult to make sense of the education market
  - - - They were set up to raise the attainment levels of students in low income, inner city areas
      - By 2003, 73 EAZs were set up in England
    - - These were set up to improve outcomes for younger children, with a particular focus on the most disadvantaged families, in order to reduce inequalities in child development and school readiness
      - Core Aims
        
        To provide high quality and affordable early years education and childcare.
        
        To raise Parenting aspirations, self esteem and parenting skills.
        
        To improve child and family health, primarily through providing education and information about local health services.
        
        To acting as a hub for the local community, building social capital and cohesion
    - - Schools that aren't controlled by the local councils and that don't have to give 10% of funding towards the council
      - Academies are completely independent from local councils and can set their own term dates, admissions policies; staff pay levels and much more
      - It is argued the extra freedom for schools gives allows them raise standards.
      - Machin and Vernoit (2010) - Academies that had been open for at least 2 years had 3% more students who achieved 5 GCSEs at A-C
    - - Payments to students from low-income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications
- - - - Social Solidarity
        
        Its individual members must feel themselves to be part of a single 'body' - Without social solidarity, social life and cooperation would be impossible as everybody would be selfish
        
        Durkheim argued that ‘school is a society in miniature.’ preparing us for life in wider society.
        
        The education system helps to create social solidarity by transmitting society's culture
        
        For example, Durkheim argues that the teaching of a country's history instils in children a sense of shared heritage and a commitment to the wider social group
        
        Durkehim argues that society needs a sense of solidarity
      - Specialist Skills
        
        Durkheim noted that modern industrial economies have a complex division of labour, where the production of even a single item usually involves the co-operation of many different specialists
        
        This co-operation promotes social solidarity, but for it to be successful, each person must have the necessary specialist knowledge and skills to perform their role
        
        At school, individuals learn the diverse skills necessary for this to take place.
        
        For example, we may all start off learning the same subjects, but later on we specialize when we do GCSEs
    - - Talcott Parsons (1961) - The school is the 'focal socialising agency' in modern society, acting as a bridge between the family and wider society
      - This bridge is needed because family and society operate on different principles, so children need to learn a new way of living if they are to cope in the wider world
      - In the family, children are judged according to what he calls particularistic standards by their parents – that is they are judged by rules that only apply to that particular child.
      - Individual children are given tasks based on their different abilities and judged according to their unique characteristics.
      - Parents often adapt rules to suit the unique abilities of the child.
      - In contrast in school and in wider society, children and adults are judged according to the same universalistic standards (i.e. they are judged by the same exams and the same laws).
      - These rules and laws are applied equally to all people irrespective of the unique character of the individual.
      - Parsons believes school and society are both based on meritocratic principles
    - - Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) - Education is a device for selection and role allocation
      - They argue inequalty is necessary to ensure that the most important roles in society are filled by the most talented people
      - For example, it would be inefficient and dangerous to have less able people performing roles such as surgeon or airline pilot
      - This will encourage everyone to compete for them and society can select the most talented individuals to fill these positions
      - Peter Blau and Otis Duncan (1978) - Modern economies depend for its prosperity on using its 'human capital' (workers' skills)
      - The education makes most effective use of their talents and maximise their productivity
    - - Positives
        
        School performs positive functions for most pupils – exclusion and truancy rates are very low
        
        Role Allocation – Those with degrees earn 85% more than those without degrees
        
        Schools do try to foster ‘solidarity’ – PSHE
        
        Education is more ‘work focused’ today – increasing amounts of vocational courses
        
        Schooling is more meritocratic than in the 19th century (fairer)
      - Negatives
        
        Marxists argue the education system is not meritocratic – e.g. private schools benefit the wealthy.
        
        Functionalism ignores the negative sides of school – e.g. bullying/
        
        Postmodernists argue that ‘teaching to the test’ kills creativity.
        
        Functionalism reflects the views of the powerful – the education system tends to work for them and they suggest there is nothing to criticise.
        
        The Wolf review of vocational education (2011) claims that high-quality apprenticeships are rare and up to a third of 16-19 year olds are on courses that do not lead to higher education or good jobs
        
        Interactionist Dennis Wrong (1961) argues functionalists have an 'over-socialised view' of people as mere puppets of society - Implying that pupils passively accept all that they are taught and never reject school's values
  - - - The New Right is a conservative political view that incorporates neoliberal economic ideas
      - Neoliberals argue that the state should not provide services such as education, health and welfare
      - The New Right argue that state education systems take a 'one size fits all' approach, imposing uniformity and disregarding local needs - Schools that waste money or get poor results are not answerable to their consumers, meaning lower standards of achievement, a less qualified workforce and less prosperable economy
      - The New Right's solution is marketisation of education - They believ that competition between schools and empowering consumers will bring diversity, choice and efficiency to schools and increase schools' ability to meet the needs of pupils, parents and employers
    - - Chubb and Moe (1990) argue state-run education in the US has failed because: it has not created equal opportunity and has failed the needs of disadvantaged groups, it fails to produce pupils with skills needed by the economy and private schools deliver higher quality education
      - Chubb and Moe base their arguments on the comparison of the achievements of 60,000 pupils from low-income families in 1,015 state and private high schools
      - Their evidence shows that pupils from low-income families consistently do about 5% better in private than state schools
      - Chubb and Moe call for the introduction of a market system in state education that would put control in the hands of consumers - They argue this would allow consumers to shape schools to meet their own needs and would improve quality and efficiency
    - - The state imposes a framework on schools within which they have to complete - For example, by publishing Ofsted inspection results and league tables, the state gives parents more information so they can make an informed choice between schools
      - The state ensures that schools transmit a shared culture by imposing a single National Curriculum, guaranteeing that schools socialise pupils into a single cultural heritage
      - The New Right believe that education should affirm the national identity - For example, the curriculum should emphasise Britain's positive role in world history
      - This would integrate pupils into a single set of traditions and cultural values, and so they oppose multicultural education that reflects the cultures of the different minority groups in Britain
    - - Gerwitz (1995) and Ball (1994) both argue that competition between schools benefits the middle class who can use their cultural and economic capital to gain more access to desirable schools
      - Marxists argue that education does not impose a shared national culture, as the New Right claim, but imposes the national culture of a dominant minority ruling class and devalues the culture of working class and ethnic minorities
      - There is a contradiction between the support for parental choice and the state imposing a compulsory national curriculum
  - - - Louis Althusser (1971) - The state consist of two apparatuses to keep the bourgeoise in power
      - The repressive state apparatus - Maintains the rule of the bourgeoise by force (police, courts and army) and can use physical force to repress the working class
      - The ideological state apparatus - Maintains the rule of the bourgeoisie by controling people's ideas, values and beliefs through religion, the media and education system
      - The education system is an ISA which reproduces class inquality by transmitting it generation to generation, failing each successive generation of working-class pupils in turn
      - Eduaction also legitimates class ineuqality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause - It persuades people to accept that inequality is inevitable and that they deserve their subordinate position in society, meaning that they are unlikely to challenge capitalism
    - - Bowles and Gintis (1976) - Capitalism requires a workforce with their kind of attitudes, behaviour and personality type suited to their role as alienated and exploited workers willing to accept hard work, low pay and orders from above
      - They completed a study with 237 New York high school students and the findings of other studies, concluding that schools reward personality traits that make for a submissive, compliant worker
      - For instance, they found that students who showed creativity and independence tended to gain low grades, while those who showed characteristsics linked to obedience and discipline tended to gain high grades
      - Bowles and Gintis conclude that school stunts and distorts students' development
      - Correspondence Principle and The Hidden Curriculum
        
        Bowles and Gintis argue that there are close parallels between schooling and work in capitalist society
        
        Both schools and workplaces are hierarchies, with head teachers or bosses at the top making decisions and giving orders
        
        They refer to these parallels between school and workplace as examples of 'correspondence principle' - This is the relationships and structures found in education that mirror or correspond to those in work
        
        Bowles and Gintis argue that the correspondence principle operates through hidden curriculum - Through the everyday workings of the school, pupils become accustomed to accepting hierarchy and competition
        
        Schooling prepares working-class pupils for their role of exploited workers of their future, reproducing workforce capitalism needs and perpetuating class inequality from generation to generation
        
        Cohen (1984) - Youth training schemes serve capitalism by teaching young workers not genuine job skills, but rather the attitudes and values needed in subordinate labour force, lowering their aspirations so that they will accept low paid work
      - Myth of Meritocracy and Legitimation of Class Inequality
        
        Bowles and Gintis describe the education system as a 'giant myth-making machine' as it promotes the 'myth of meritocracy'
        
        Bowles and Gintis argue that meritocracy - Evidence shows that the main factor determining whether someone has a high income is their family and class background, not their ability or educational achievement
        
        The education system justifies poverty, through what Bowles and Gintis describe as the 'poor-are-dumb' theory of failure - It blames poverty on the individual and plays a part in reconciling workers to their exploited position, making them less likely to rebel against the system
    - - Paul Willis' (1977) study shows that working class pupils can resist attempts to indoctrinate them
      - Willis studied the counter-school culture of 'the lads' - They formed a distinct counterculture opposed to the school
      - The lads find school boring and meaningless and flout its rules and values (smoking, drinking, and playing truant) - These are ways of resisting the school and the meritocratic ideology that working-class pupils can achieve middle-class jobs through hard work
      - Willis notes the similarity between the lads' anti-school counterculture and the shopculture of male manual workers - Both see manual work as superior and intellectual work as inferior and effeminate
      - This explains why they see themselves as superior to both girls and to the 'effeminate' ear'oles who aspire to non-manual jobs
      - However, the counter culture of resistance makes them more suitable to slot into the roles that capitalism needs
      - Their acts of rebellion guarantee that they will end up in unskilled jobs, by ensuring their failure to gain worthwhile qualifications
    - - Morrow and Torres (1998) - Marxists take a 'class first' approach that sees class as the key inequality
      - They argue society is more diverse and that non-class inequalities are as equally important and that sociologistts should explain how education reproduces and legitimates all forms of inequality and how they are all interrelated
      - Feminists such as Macdonald (1980) would say that Bowles and Gintis ignore the fact that schools also reproduce the patriarchy and Mcrobbie (1978) points out that females are absent from Willlis' study
- - - - According to cultural deprivation theorists, many working-class families fail to socialise their children adequately - these children grow up 'culturally deprived' (in aspects such as language, parents' education and working-class subculture
      - Language
        
        Language is an essential part of the process of education and the way in which parents communicate with their children affects their cognitive development and their ability to benefit from the process of schooling
        
        Hubbs-Tait et al (2002) - Parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities, cognitive development improves
        
        Feinstein (2008) - educated parents are more likely to use this language
        
        Bereiter and Engelmann (1966) - Language in lower-class homes is deficient, decribing them as communicating with gesture, single words and phrases
        
        As a result, their children fail to develop necessary language skills - they grow up incapable of abstract thinking and unable to use language to explain, describe, enquire or compare
        
        Speech Codes
        
        Basil Bernstein (1975) - identified differences between working-class and middle-class language that influences acheivement
        
        Restricted code is a speech code typically used by the working class - it has limited vocabulary and is based on the use of short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences
        
        Elaborated Code is typically used by the middle class - it has wider vocabulary and is based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences
        
        These differences put middle-class pupils as textbooks, teachers and exams use elaborated code
        
        In Bernstein's view, it is the 'correct' way to speak and write, and it also is more effective for analysing and reasoning
        
        Elaborated code is socialised in middle class, giving educational advantage at age
      - Centre of Longitudinal Studies (2007) conducted a nationwide study finding that by age 3, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already up to one year behind those from more privileged homes and the gap widens with age
      - Parents' Education
        
        Feinstein (2008) - Parents' own education is the most important factor affecting children's achievement and, since middle-class parents tend to be better educated, they can give their children an advantage by how they socialise them
        
        Douglas (1964) - Working-class parents placed less value on education - they gave their children less encouragement and took less interest in their education, visited schools less and were less likely to discuss their children's progress and so their children had less motivation and a lower achievement
        
        Parenting Style
        
        Educated parents' parenting style emphasises consistent discipline and high expectations of their children, and this supports achievement by encouraging active learning and exploration
        
        By contrast, less educated parents' parenting style is marked by harsh or incosistent discipline that emphasises 'doing as your told' and behaving yourself
        
        This prevents the child from learning independence and self-control, leading to poorer motivation at school and problems interacting with teachers
        
        Use of Income
        
        Better educated parents not only tend to have higher incomes - They spend their income in ways that promote their children's educational success
        
        Bernstein and Young (1967) - Middle class mothers are more likely to buy educational toys, books and activities that encourage reasoning skills and stimulate intellectual development
        
        Working-class homes are more likely to lack these resources, and this means children from such homes start school without the intellectual skills needed to progress
        
        Educated parents also have a better understanding of nutrition and its importance in child development and a higher income with which to buy more nutritious food
      - Workinng-Class Subculture
      - Most people acquire skills needed for educational success through primary socialisation in the family
  - - - External
        
        Changes in women's employment
        
        Since 1975, the pay gap between men and women has halved from 30% to 15%
        
        The proportion of women in employment has risen from 53% in 1971 to 67% in 2013 - The growth of the service sector and flexible part-time work has offered opportunities for women
        
        According to Social Trends (2008) the number of men and women in paid work is now virtually the same. There is a growing service sector where women are increasingly likely to be employed over men and employers increasingly seek women for higher managerial roles because they generally have better communication skills than men.
        
        This means women now have greater opportunity than men in the world of work which makes education more relevant to them than in the 1970s when there was a relative lack of opportunity for women compared to men.
        
        Conversely, there is now less opportunity for men. The decline in manufacturing has led to a decline in traditional working class men’s factory-based jobs. Now these jobs have gone, many working-class boys perceive themselves as having no future
        
        The 1970 Equal Pay ACt has made it illegal to pay women less than men for work of equal value, and the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act outlaws discrimination at work
        
        Change in the family
        
        Since the 1970s, there has been an increase in the divorce rate, cohabitation, the number of lone-parent families and smaller families
        
        There has also been a decrease in the number of first marriages
        
        Increased numbers of female-headed lone-parent families may mean more women need to take on the breadwinner role - This creates a new adult role model for girls, the financially independent woman
        
        In order to achieve this independence, women need well-paid jobs and therefore good qualifications
        
        The increase in divorce rate suggests that it is unwise to rely on a husband as a provider - This encourages girls to look to themselves and their own qualifications to make a living
        
        However, the increasing independence of women has led to a more uncertain role for men in British society, leaving many men feeling vulnerable and unsure of their identity in society – suffering from a crisis of masculinity
        
        Girl's changing ambitions
        
        Sue Sharpe did a classic piece of research in the 1970s, repeated in the 1990s in which she interviewed young girls about their ambitions. In the 1970s their priorities were to get married and have a family, but by the 1990s their priorities were to get a career and have a family later on in life
        
        In 1974, the girls had low aspirations; they believed educational success was unfeminine and that appearing to be ambitious would be considered unattractive
        
        By the 1990s, girls' ambitions had changed and they had a different order of priorities
        
        Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2001) -This is linked to individualisation in modern society, where independence is valued much more strongly than in the past
        
        Impact of feminism
        
        Feminism is a social movement that strives for equal rights for women in all areas of life
        
        Since the 1960s, the feminist movement has the challenged the traditional stereotype of a woman's role as solely that of a mother and a housewife in a patriarchal nuclear family and inferior to men outside the home, in work, education and the law
        
        Mcrobbie's (1994) study of girls' magazines, in the 70s, they emphasised the importance of getting married and not being 'left on the shelf', whereas nowadays, they contain images of assertive, independent women
        
        The changes encouraged by feminism may affect girls' self-image and ambitions with regard to the family and careers - This may explain improvements in their educational achievement
        
        Evaluation
        
        The decline of manufacturing and crisis of masculinity only affects working class boys, possibly explaining their achievement relative to girls, but middle-class girls outperform middle class boys too, who are less likely to associate masculinity with factory work.
        
        McDowell – research on aspirations of white working-class youth A sample of males with low educational achievement living in Sheffield and Cambridge aged 15. Followed from school to work. Criticizes the notion of a crisis of masculinity leading to aggressive male identities These lads had traditional laddish identities but were not aggressive or put off by ‘feminized work’ They are best described as reliable workers making the most of limited opportunities available to them.
        
        Willis in 1977 argued that the Lads formed a counter school culture and rejected education even when they had jobs to go to, meaning there are other causes of male underachievement besides the crisis of masculinity.
        
        It is difficult to measure the impact of Feminism – changes in the job market that lead to improved opportunities for women may be due to other technological and cultural changes.
        
        The socialisation girls does not explain why they started to overtake boys in the late 1980s – if anything gender socialisation has become more gender neutral in recent years.
      - Internal
        
        GCSEs and Coursework
        
        Gorard (2005) - The gender gap in achievement was fairly constant from 1975 until 1989, when it increased sharply
        
        This was the year that GCSEs were introduced, bringing with it coursework as a major part of nearly all subjects
        
        Gorard concludes that the gender gap in acheivement is 'a product of the changed system of assessment rather than any more general failing of boys'
        
        Mitsos and Browne (1998) conclude that girls are more successful in coursework because they are moe conscientious and better organised than boys
        
        Teacher attention
        
        Jane and Peter French (1993) analysed classroom interaction and found that boys received more attention because they attracted more reprimands
        
        Francis (2001) - Boys got more attention, they were disciplined more harshly and felt picked on by teachers
        
        Swann (1998) - Boys dominate in whole-class discussion, whereas girls prefer pair-work and group-work and are better at listening and cooperating
        
        When working in groups, girls' speech involves turn taking and not the hostile interruptions that often characterise boys' speech
        
        This may explain why teachers respond more positively to girls, whom they see as cooperative, than to boys, whom they see as disruptive
        
        This may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy in which successful interactions with teachers promote girls' self-esteem and raise their achievement levels
        
        Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum
        
        Some sociologists argue that the removal of gender stereotypes from textbooks, reading schemes and other learning materials in recent years has removed a barrier to girls' achievement
        
        Research in the 1970s and 80s found that reading schemes portrayed women mainly as housewives and mothers and that math books depicted boys as more inventive
        
        Gaby Weiner (1995) - Since the 1980s, teachers have challenged such stereotypes
        
        This may have helped to raise girls' achievement by presenting more positive images of what women can do
        
        In general, sexist images have been removed from learning materials
        
        Selection and league tables
        
        Marketisation policies have created a more competitive climate in which schools see girls as desirable recruits because they acheiev better exam results
        
        David Jackson (1998) - The introduction of exam league tables has improved opportunities for girls: high-acheiving girls are attractive to schools, whereas low-acheiving boys are not
        
        This tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy - Girls are more likely to be recruited by good schools, so they will do well
        
        Roger Slee (1998) - Boys are less attractive to schools because they are more likely to suffer from behavioural difficulties and are 4 times more likely to be excluded
        
        As a result, boys are seen as 'liability students' - obstacles to the school improving its league table scores
        
        Positive role models in schools
        
        There has been an increase in the proportion of female teachers and heads
        
        These women in senior positions may act as role models for girls, showing them women can achieve positions of importance and giving them non-traditional goals to aim for
        
        Women teachers are likely to be particularly important role models as far as girls' educational achievement is concerned since, to become a teacher, the individual must undertake a lengthy and successful education herself
        
        In 2012, there was 61% of female teachers in secondary schools compared to 49% in 1992 and 37% in 2012 of female headteachers compared to 22% in 1992
  - - - Intellectual and Linguistic Skills
        
        Cultural deprivation theorists see the lack of intellectual and linguistic skills as a major cause of underacheivement for many minority children
        
        They argue that many children from low-income black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences
        
        This leaves them poorly equipped for school because they have not been able to develop reasoning and problem-solving skills
        
        Bereiter and Engelmann consider the language spoken by low-income black American families as inadequate for educational success
        
        They see it as ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas
        
        In 2010, pupils with English as their first language were only 3.2 points ahead of those without English as their first langauge (55.2 to 52%) when it came to gaining 5 GCSES A*-C passes including English and maths
        
        Gillborn and Mirza (2000) note that Indian pupils do very well despite often not having English as their home language
      - Family Structure and Parental Support
        
        Cultural deprivation theorists argue that the failure to socialise children adequately is the result of a dysfunctional family structure
        
        Daniel Moynihan (1965) - Many black families are headed by a lone mother
        
        Their children are deprived of adequate care because she has to struggle financially in the absence of a male breadwinner
        
        The father's absence means that boys lack an adequate role model of male acheivement
        
        Moynihan sees cultural deprivation as a cycle where inadequately socialised children from unstable families go on to fail at school and become adequate parents themselves
        
        Charles Murray (1984) - A high rate of lone parenthood and a lack of positive male role models lead to the underachievement of some minorities
        
        Roger Scruton (1986) - The low achievement levels of some ethnic minorities as resulting from a failure to embrace mainstream British culture
        
        Ken Pryce (1979) - Family structure contributes to the underachievement of black Caribbean pupils in Britain
        
        From a comparison of black and Asian pupils, he claims Asians are higher achievers because their culture is more resistant to racism and gives them a greater sense of self-worth
        
        By contrast, black Caribbean culture is less cohesive and less resistant to racism
        
        As a result, many black pupils have low self-esteem and underachieve
        
        Pryce argues the difference is the result of the impact of colonialism on both groups
        
        He argues that the experience of slavery was culturally devastating
        
        Black people lost their language, religion and entire family system
        
        Sewell - Gangs and Culture
        
        Tony Sewell (2009) - He sees the proble of absence of fathers as a lack of fatherly nurturing or 'tough love'
        
        This results in black boys finding it hard to overcome the emotional nd behavioural difficulties of adolescence
        
        In the absence of the restraining influence of a nurturing father, street gangs of other fatherless boys offer black boys 'perverse loyalty and love'
        
        These present boys with a media-inspired role model of anti-school black masculinity, whose ideal Chris Arnot (2004) describes as 'the utra-tough ghetto superstar, an image constantly reinforced through rap lyrics and MTV videos'
        
        Many black boys are subject to powerful anti-educational peer group pressure: most of the academically successful black boys that Sewell interviewed felt that the greatest barrier to success was pressure from other boys
        
        Sewell argues that black students do worse than their Asian counterparts because of cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes to education