EDUCATION

CLASS DIFFERENCE IN ACHIEVEMENT

EXTERNAL FACTORS

The Centre for Longitudinal studies -
They found that children at the age of 3 middle-class children were a whole year ahead of their working-class counterparts in development

Cultural Deprivation

Language

The language used at home influences a child's intellectual development.
More complex language helps consolidate a child's understanding
Cultural deprivation theorists believe that middle-class children are exposed to more complex language than working-class children

Bernstein (Speech Codes) -


Speech codes are what lead to differences in educational attainment between the working class and middle class


The Restricted Code - is used by working-class students and contains grammatical errors, simple short sentenced and is description based


The Elaborated Code - Is used by middle-class students and contains wider vocabulary, more complex longer sentences and is analytical.

EVALUATION OF BERNSTEIN


Bernstein places blame on working-class families for the differences in attainment


Fails to realise the diversity of speech


Labov - Restricted speech codes aren't less complex, they are just different

Parents Education

Douglas (Lack Of Parental Interest) -
Middle class parents are more likely to have achieved higher levels of qualifications, This means:


Parenting Style - Middle-class parents are more likely to emphasise discipline and high expectations.


Parent' Educational Behaviours - Middle-class parents are more likely to read to their children, help with work and attend events such as parents evening


More Income- Middle-class parents earn more because of their education and higher income is correlated to higher educational achievement for students


Use Of Income - Middle-class parents are more likely to spend their income in ways that benefit their child's education

Working-Class Subcultures

Sugarman (Subculture) -
There are 3 main factors that contribute to underachievement


Immediate Gratification - Working-class value instant rewards


Fatalism - Believing that no matter what they do they wont be successful


Low value on education - instead valuing alternatives, e.g. sporting achievement

Material Deprivation

Douglas (The Home And The School) -
Material deprivation has a cumulative effect on education


Poverty stricken households have poorer living standards and therefore mold and damp in homes can cause illness amongst working-class families.


Overcrowding is also a issue for large families who live in unsatisfacotry accomidtion; less privacy and quiet for studying.

1/3 of free school meal children get 5 A-C GCSES

Howard (Diet) -
Students from poorer homes have a worse diet, this can lead to more absences and illness which cause their attendance to be low and them to miss out on education

Bull (Cost Of Free Schooling) -
Students from poorer backgrounds may be unable to access things such as textbooks, trips, equipment and transporting therefore are put at a disadvantage in spite of free education

Smith and Noble(Poverty Penalty) -
working-class have a 'barrier to learning' which makes them unable to access things such as tuition and private schools

Halsey -
Education fails to provide equal opportunity for all children, children from working-class are often less successful than middle-class in the education system

Cultural Capital

Bourdieu -
Material and cultural deprivation are not separate and are interlinked.


Cultural Capital - Refers to an individual's social assets i.e middle-class families may go to plays or the opera which are valued in a middle-class habitus


habitus - the way society favours certain individuals i.e school is a middle-class habitus

INTERNAL FACTORS

Labelling

Becker -
Teachers idea of an 'ideal pupil' match the labels that they give to middle-class students

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy -
This is the concept that students become what they are labelled


those labelled as achievers achieve and those who are labelled slackers do not achieve

EVALUATION

  1. It's too deterministic
  2. If it were true wouldn't all teachers label their students as 'intelligent'
  3. Teachers would argue they have a sense of professionalism and don't label students

Streaming and Setting -


Schools often enforce the labels through 'streams' or 'sets'. These separate students dependent on their labels


those labelled as smarter (commonly the middle class) are put in higher sets which offer better educational enviroments

Student Subcultures

Labelling theory can cause students who are labelled as 'thick' to see themselves unable to achieve in education. Therefore creates an anti-school subculture forms as they understand achievement amongst peers can be created by doing not what the teacher asks

Class Identities

Archer -
The middle-class habitus of the school causes a symbolic attack on working-class students as it devalues who you are


Working class students create 'nike identities' through the use of branded goods to gain symbolic capital

Educational Policy

Educational Policies can be seen to effect achievement in education due to social class both positively and negatively

Marketisation -
The marketisation of schools can be seen to negatively impact the working-class's achievement in school as middle-class families are granted more choice in the market

Cream-Skimming -
The marketisation of schools has allowed schools to pick the high-achieving students that cost less to teach to join their schools, this negatively effects the working class as they cost more to teach despite their lower grades

Silt-shifting
Schools can offload students with learning disabilities and high cost in favour of achieving children who cost less

Pupil Premium -
Pupil premium can be seen to improve the lives of working-class students through educational policy as it removes part of the cost of schooling from low income households

Tripartite system

Evaluation -
Created class differences as those in grammar schools and higher levels of education tended to be middle-class

Aims
Student's education is selected by their ability


Every student across England and wales has equal access to education

New Labour -
Focused on creating equal opportunity between students of all backgrounds through the head start scheme

Ethnic Differences in Education

Lawson and Garrod -
defines ethnic groups as people who share common history, customs and identity, as well as language( in most cases). They will also see themselves as a unit

Cultural Deprivation

Language

Bereiter and Engelman -
Claimed that the language spoken by low income black households is inadequate for academic success

Evaluation -
Labov - Black speech is perfectly logical


Baker-bell - This theory is anti-black linguistic and labels black speech code as inferior

Demie and Mclean -
Language was not the main reason for difference in attainment for Caribbean students with low expectations and stereotyping by the teachers coming out on top.

Attitudes and Values

Cultural deprivation theorists would argue that some cultures socialise their children into a sub-culture that isn't valued by the education system; e.g. being too deterministic

Platt and Parsons
Children from Ethnic minorities were more likely to aspire for higher paying jobs than their white counterparts

Archer et al -
Ethnic minority students identified racism as the main barrier to their success

Family Structure and Parental Support

Black Families

Driver -
Evaluates Moynihan by stating how caribbean families are not dysfunctional and a lone mother provides girls with a strong independent role model

Asian Families

Sewell -
Indian and Chinese Pupil's benefit from supporting families
Asian Work Ethic

Lupton -
The model of adult authority mirrors how schools operate. Therefore parents are more likely to support school behaviour policies

Moynihan -
Argues that because many black families are headed by a lone mother they have no male role model to inspire achievement


Cultural Deprivation is a spiral

White Families

There is overgeneralisations of asian achievement - different cultures achieve different things

Mculloch -
more ethnic minority students aspired to go to university than white students

Compensatory Education

Aiming Higher Scheme
increasing the number of ethnic groups in higher education

Archer -
Emphasise of fixing low aspirations in ethnic minorities

Keddie -
Cultural deprivation is victim blaming - ethnic minorities are culturally different, not culturally deprived in a white ethnocentric environment

Lupton -
White-middle class males are more likely to cause behavioural problems

Critical Race Theory -
The institution of school is racist and an white ethnocentric environment

Rocket
middle-class black families supplement their children's learning with their economic and cultural capital

Raz -
cultural deprivation is a political distraction

Material Deprivation

Palmer -
1/2 of all children from ethnic backgrounds live in low income households (1/4 white children)


Minorirty ethnic groups are 3x as likely to be homeless
and 2x as likely to be unemployed

Many families live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment and low wages

Purdah in muslim cultures prevents woman from working outside the home

Speech/ Foreign qualifications may not be recongised by UK employers

Asylum seekers may be unable to work

Racial Discrimination in the labour and housing market

CRITICISM

Indian and Chinese pupils who are materially deprived are still more likely to achieve

86% of Chinese girls who received free school meals achieved 5 or more higher grade GCSEs compared to 65% of white girls who did not have free school meals

Modood -
effects of low income were much less for other ethnic groups than white

Racism In Wider Society

Mason -
Discrimination continues as an experience of Britain's ethnic minority citizens

Rex -
Racial discrimination leads to social exclusion - this worsens poverty faced by ethnic minorities

Wood -
experimented with job applications and showed a bias towards white applicants with the same qualifications

Internal Factors

Gillborn and Mirza -
Black children were the highest achievers in primary school, yet worse in GCSE level

Labelling and streaming

Black pupils and Discipline

Gillborn and Youdell -
"racialised expectations" mean that teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils for the same behaviour as white pupils.

Concluded that many conflicts are due to the sterotypes held by teachers in schools rather than their actual behaviour

Bourne -
Black boys are seen as a threat and negatively labelled - and therefore punishments such as exclusion lead to low academic success

Olser -
Black students are more likely to suffer from unrecorded forms of exclusions such as internal exclusions

Interactionalists -
Interactionalists focus on the labels applied to children of different ethnic backgrounds by teachers.
Teachers often see black and Asian students as being far from the "ideal student:

Foster -
teachers stereotyping of black pupils as badly behaved means they will be put in lower sets, rather than basing it off students with similar ability which fulfils a self-fulfilling prophecy of under achievement

Wright -
Teachers hold ethnocentric British views and believed that Asians were marginalised for different cultures and were seen to have a poor grasp of English

Archer (3 identities of pupils) -


Ideal pupil - White, middle class. heterosexual


Pathologized pupil - Asian, deserving poor, oppressed sexuality. Culture Bound. Overachiever


Demonised Pupil - Black or white working class, hypersexualised. Seen as culturally deprived underachiever

Archer and Francis -
Chinese pupils have a negative positive stereotype as they are seen as never being able to fulfil the role of an ideal pupil despite what they achieve

Institutional racism

Troyna and Williams -


Individual Racism -
results from the prejudiced views of individual teachers and others


Institutionalised Racism - Discrimination that is built into the operations of institutions

Roithmayr -
Institutional Racism is a locked in inequality in society that becomes self-perpetuating

Gillborn -
Racism is so deep rooted that it is practically a feature of the education system

Marketisation and segregation

Gillborn -
Marketisation allows schools to select pupils, this allows negative stereotypes to influence admissions

Moore and Davenport -
American research show how selection procedures lead to ethnic segregation with minority pupils failing to get into better secondary schools due to discrimination

Commission for Racial Equality -
Racism in school admissions is still in Britain

Ethnocentric Curriculum

David -
Languages, Literature and music are all specifically British

Ball -
National curriculum ignores ethnic diversity and tries to create a mythical age of empire and glory

assessment

Gillborn
Assessments are rigged to validate the dominant culture

Gifted and Talented (Gillborn) - White pupils were 5x as likely to get invited to the program than black African pupils

Tikly et al -
Black pupils were more likely than white pupils to be entered for lower tier GCSEs

EVALUATION -
Why do Indian and Chinese pupils over achieve?


Sewell would argue that we need to focus on external issues

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT

External Factors

Changing Ambitions

Rise of Feminism has lead to more girls wanting to achieve higher in society, therefore education has become a priority for them to achieve. These ambitions have been made more realistic by the equal pay act etc

Sharpe -
Girls priorities changed from love and marriage in the 1970s to career and independence in the 1990s

Evaluation -
Does not explain why girls do better than boys - or does it? do girls hgave more ambition

Changing Families

Increase in divorce rate -
woman are able to feel more independent

Female headed lone parent families - provide a strong role model for girls

Woman are having less children and are staying single - this gives woman an opportunity to focus on their careers

Changing Employment

Equal pay act
sex discrimination act

Internal Factors

Equal Opportunity Policy

GIST (Girls Into Science and Technology) aim to encourage girls into STEM careers

National curriculum - Equalised opportunities by making girls and boys now having to study the majority of the same studies.

Education is now more meritocratic as girls have equal opportunities

Role Models

There are now more female teachers and head teachers in school than before. This provides a pro-education role model for girls

Coursework

Mitos and Browne -
believed that girls do better than boys in course work because they are more conscientious and organised

Gorad -
Found the gender gap in achievement increased when coursework based GCSEs were introduced

Teachers Attention

Francis -
Boys received more attention as they are disciplined more, therefore picked on and provided with lower expectations


link to labelling

French and French -
Boys and girls receive equal attention for academic reasons. However boys attracted more attention due to their misbehaviour

Swann -
Boys are dominant in class discussions whereas girls are better at listening and cooperating. Teachers give girls more encouragement


  • link to labelling

Selection and League Tables

Due to girls being seen as the more able students they get recruited to the better schools, meaning they have a better education and achieve more

Boys underachievement

Feminisation of Schools

Sewell
Boys have begun failing at school due to 'feminisation', schools don't focus on traditional masculine traits like competition and leadership

Lack of Male role models due to disproportionally female teachers 1 in 6 teachers at primary school are male, this shows how a male role model isn't provided at an early age

Laddish Subcultures

Francis -
Boys are scared of being labelled 'smart' by their peers as it threatens their masculinity


Working Class subcultures value Manuel work rather than academic success

Epstein -
Pro-school working class boys were subject to harassment and given labels by their peers

Globalisation -
Globalisation has led to heavy industry jobs being relocated to developing countries, this has created a crisis of identity amongst males

Literacy

Parents spend less time reading with their sons because it is seen as a feminine activity

Boys interests do not encourage communication skills, whereas bedroom culture of girls does

Evaluation -
However, the majority of headteachers and senior staff are disproportionally male

Gender, Identity and Subject Choice

1% of vocational construction apprentices are taken up by girls.
Post-16 education - More choices lead to bigger gender differences
National Cirriculum - Non-core subects see a difference in gender signups

Early socialistion

From and early age boys and girls are dressed differently and given different toys to play with.

Byrne -
Teachers encourage boys to be tough, whereas they expect girl to stay quiet and helpful

Murphy and Elwood -
Boys read information books whilst girls read stories

Peer pressure plays a factor as boys often opt out of music; girls opt out of sport out of fear of peer judgement

Gender Domains

Browne and Ross -
When given an open ended task boys designed battle ships whilst girls designed cruise ships

Gender domains are activities that are seen as distinctively male or female i.e cooking being a female activity

Gender differences in subjects can be explained as subjects such as science have more male teachers, and the textbooks show more male examples and images which leads to a subliminal connection between the gender and subject

Some careers are Gendered, this means that they tend to be dominated by one gender e.g. girls dominate nursing, men dominate construction

Gender Identity and schooling

Connell -
Connell argues that schools reproduce 'hegemonic masculinity' - the dominance of heterosexual masculinity and suppression of female and queer identities

Feminists believe that schools reproduce the patriarchy through their practices and experiences

Lees -
Girls were called 'slags' by boys when deemed sexually able but there is no male equivalent

Mac and Ghalil -
Anti-school subcultures of working class boys used verbal abuse to reinforce their masculine identities

Boys boast about their sexual exploits whereas girls get called slags for their own

Haywood, Mac and Ghalil -
Male teachers enforce gender identities through saying boys are 'acting like girls' or ignoring boys verbal abuse of girls

Max and ghalill The male gaze is a form of social control where boys objectify woman through looking them up and down, boys may be labelled as 'gay' if not partaking which is another form of social control

The Role Of Education In Society

Functionalism

Durkheim -
Education promotes social solidarity and binds students together through shared norms and values, common history and social rituals.

Prepares students for work and equips them with individual skills that are needed in society
i.e. Obedience to authority

Parsons -
School's act as a bridge between family and society as they act as an agent of secondary socialisation.
Teaches universal values and gives everyone equal chance through meritocracy

Parson believes in ideas of meritocracy:
Individual Achievement - Everyone achieves their own status through their own effort and ability


Equal opportunity - Everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential

Exams - Every student is provided with the same questions, therefore they believe they have equal chances to succeed
National curriculum - Every student is taught the same topics

Evaluation -
Durkheim and parsons fail to explain how all roles are fulfilled in society - if everyone is given an equal chance why do some fail and do the least desirable jobs in society

Davis and Moore -
Role Allocation - A meritocratic education system allows for everyone to compete for the same qualification, however those who achieve more are allocated the more complex and desirable jobs

Evaluation -
Are the jobs with the biggest rewards always the most complex?


Woman and Ethnic minority students often get the worse jobs - therefore are they lazy?

Marxism

Althusser -
Ideological State Apparatus The parts of society that 'brainwash' you to believe in capitalist ides such as meritocracy


2 functions:

  1. Reproduction - The next generation of workings is reproduced through failing students from working class backgrounds i.e. Grade Boundaries change every year to ensure failures.
  2. Legitimation - By making lies such as 'meritocracy' appear as true, people blame failure on the individual rather than the capitalist system.

Evaluation -


Willis - discovered students rebelling in school through the laddish subculture, this is an example of how students are not being brainwashed. Counter-school subcultures challenge the myth of meritocracy

Althusser would argue that these small rebellious groups keep the system alive and hide the real factors of the ISA

Bowles and Gintis -
Correspondence Principle
Bowles and Gintis believe that school prepares students for work and that school mirrors the workplace in several ways


This happens due to the 'hidden curriculum' which is lessons you aren't taught directly but are implicit in school e.g. Uniform, working by the bell.

The Myth Of Meritocracy -
Bowles and Gintis believe that success is not based on hard work and talent as functionalists would say. It is based on class background

Role Allocation -
Bowles and Gintis agree with functionalists that education is there to allocate roles to people
However, their research showed the best grades go to the most obedient students, obedience is valued in capitalist society

New Right

Marketisation
Neoliberalism(Economic Doctrine) -
Neo-liberalism is very similar to the new right and they share ideas on how education should be run


They both think schools work best in a free market environment, where schools act like businesses for their consumers (students)


introduced in the UK by Thatcher

Similarities between functionalism and NR -


  • Believe some are naturally more talented than others
  • Believe education should be meritocratic and based on competition
  • Education prepares students for work
  • Education socialises people to shared values

Chubb and Moe -
Chubb and Moe argue that a government cannot run a successful education system as it is essentially the same for everyone. The new right believe that individuals and communities have specific needs that can't be tailored to by a state ran system

The new right believe that state run schools are not accountable to students and parents. Schools get poor results do not have to change, therefore there is a lower standard of education that leads to a less qualified workforce

Private schools are the answer because it solves the problems of accountability they outline in state schools. Chubb and Moe specifically believe that each family should be given a voucher that they 'spend' at which ever private school they like

The New Right believe in National identity, the schools should promote 'britishness' and teach positive elements of British history. They also therefore oppose multiculturalism as it fails to promote a single shared value

Evaluation -
Gerwitz and Ball - Believe marketisation only benefits the middle class as they have the material and resources to receive the benefits


The new right contradict themselves by favouring parent choice, but wanting the state to decide a national curriculum


They ignore real cause of low results i.e. poverty

Education Policy

Tripartite System 1944 -
Students were allocated into 3 types of schools based on the results at the 11+ test


Grammar School: Academic Curriculum
Secondary Modern: Practical Curriculum
Technical Schools - Technical schools that teach mechanics and other technical subjects


EVALUATION

  • Reproduces class inequality
  • Gender inequality as girls achieve higher marks
  • Secondary moderns are seen as second class

Comprehensive System -
Aimed to overcome class divide by giving more opportunities to everyone
Abolishes 11+ exams, secondary modern and grammar schools


was not successful as there is 160 grammar schools have 500 secondary modern schools in existence


EVALUATION:

  • Marxism: Promotes inequality by labelling and denying WC opportunities


  • Ford: "social exclusion due to streaming"

Compensatory Education:
Tackle the problems of cultural deprivation through providing additional resources

Surestart(2010) -


3,500 centres created with the aim to help parents with the physical and intellectual development of babies

Operation Headstart -


Multi billion dollar scheme that sought to improve educational skills and instil motivation. Created sesame street to transmit educational value

WISE -
Doubled number of female engineers to 18%

League Tables -
Parents are provided with necessary information to make a choice.


Schools with poor league table positions can't be selective, take less WC and remain unattractive

Formula Funding -
More successful schools get more funding

Bartlett

Gillborn and Youdell -
A-C Economy - Schools rationalise their time and resources to concentrate on pupils who are able to et 5 gcses or above.

Globalisation

PISA -
The way that schools are assessed on an international level. They have a standardised test on maths, reading and science

Raising standards for teachers
Teacher training has been expanded on in the UK to ensure that the UK charts higher on The PISA rankings

Rishi Sunak's new policy to introduce maths as a core subject until 18 will set it inline with other developed nations on the global stage

ESOL -
ESOLis a training program that easily allows native English speakers to enter the global market to teach English

Free Schools -
Inspired by Scandinavian school systems to push the UK towards the Scandinavian countries

Academies -
Based loosely on the American charter school system as our policies of marketisation began to mirror that of Americas

Oversees Projects -
The growth of free trade and neoliberal marketisation has allowed for UK based trusts and universities to hold campuses and programs

Criticisms

PISA -
Only focuses on limited subjects

The finnish system -
Market values do not favour every system such as the finnish system which involves high spending and teacher autonomy

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