Social class, gender and ethnicity in Education

Question 1

What is the social class acronym?

Answer 1

Black and White working-class Boys hate school

Question 2

What does Bernstein(1971)?

Answer 2

Bernstein- Elaborated and restricted codes
Middle class familiarity with elaborated code gives them better chance in education
Restricted Code- Slang between friends and family, ungrammatical, limited explanation, fine for everyday usage. Used primarily by working class and sued by every other class
Elaborated code- Used in formal context- used by teachers, interviews etc, wider vocabulary, used by middle-class

Question 3

What are the criticisms of Bernstein?

Answer 3

• Rosen accuse Bernstein of creating myth of superiority of middle-class speech
• Labov makes point that based on research done in Harlem, New York- working class language can more effective in making points, where middle class speakers can be less clear and to the point

Question 4

What d Waldfogel and Washbrook (2010) say?

Answer 4

waldfogel and Washbrook say that children from low income families are more likely to have a home that is dark unclean or unsafe

Poorer diets and higher levels of sickness can cause tiredness at school, cause absences and falling behind

Question 5

What are external and Internal factors of educational achievement?

Answer 5

External factors are outside of school e.g material and cultural factors

Internal factors are within school e.g lessons and student progress

Question 6

What is cultural derprivation?

Answer 6

The idea that people fail in education because of supposed cultural deficiencies- inadequate socialisation, failings, lack of pre-school learning

Question 7

What do Hyman and Sugarman say?

Answer 7

Middle class Jobs- Career progression through effort and educational qualifications lead to future orientation (Planning for future) and deferred gratification (putting of todays pleasures for future gains).

• Children socialized into values which encourage ambition and education success.
• Individual effort is seen as key to success

Working class jobs- Qualification are not important. Lack of promotion opportunities lead to present-time orientation( Lack of emphasis on long-term goals and immediate gratification)

• Fatalism- Acceptance of situation rather trying to improve
• Collectivism- Giving group priority rather than individual.
• leaving school getting money straight away more important than qualifications.
• Loyalty to group(collectivism), discourages individual effort

Question 8

What did Bordieu speak about?

Answer 8

• Marxist education justifies class inequalities and reproduces the class system
• Each class has own Habitus (Cultural framework)
• Middle class advantage of cultural capital, also more access culture of dominant class
• Lower class don’t posses cultural capital so educational underachievement is inevitable

Middle class access social capital( Social networks support people have)

Question 9

What are the criticisms of cultural Explanations?

Answer 9

Reay(2009)- Cultural explanations involve a 'blame the victim' approach which places emphasis on home and family.
Also working class culture is presented as deficient, they lack language skills.

Question 10

What is Compensatory education?

What is Positive Discrimination?

Answer 10

Compensatory Education- aims to tackle cultural deprivation by providing extra funds and resources to schools and communities in deprived areas.

Positive discrimination- Giving disadvantaged groups more favourable treatment because of inequalities they face

Question 11

Compensatory Education

What were Education action action Zones?

Answer 11

Education acts zones set up in 1997. These programmes directed resources t low-income, inner city areas in an attempt to raise educational attainment.

Sure Start- Main policies New Labour introduced to tackle poverty and social exclusion.

• Aim to work with parents to promote physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children.
• Aim to create high quality learning environments to help children’s learning
• Idea to intervene early and break cycle of disadvantage

Also Ofsted

Question 12

Why do females do better than males?

List 4 facts

Answer 12

• Girls do better at every stage in English, science and language and literacy
• Girls more successful in most GCSEs
• More girls stay in education
• More girls get 1st class degrees

Question 13

What is the Gender acronym?

Answer 13

Men and women should be friends

Question 14

What did Sue Sharpe say?

Answer 14

• 1975 The sex Discrimination Act illegal employers discriminate gender
• Helps explain differences in Sharp’s findings in 1976 and those in 1994
• Interviews show girls attitudes change in work and marriage and priorities change in education
• In ‘Just Like a Girl’ 1976 ‘love, marriage, husbands and career’ whereas in 1996 switched to ‘job, career and being able to support themselves’ making girls:
• More confident
• More assertive
• More ambitious

Question 15

Why do Boys Underachieve?

What does Forde et al (2006) say?

What did Willis say?

Answer 15

1. lower expectations
2. Boys are more disruptive
3. Masculinity and anti-learning sub-culture

Forde et al- peer pressure encourages boys to adopt dominant masculine identity and reject academic work as feminine. Working class boys get ‘street cred’ and group status by not doing work.

Willis- Lads- value system was opposed to that of school

Question 16

What do Mac and Ghail(1994) say?

Answer 16

Declining traditional male employment opportunities

Mac and Ghail- ‘crisis of masculinity’ because decline of traditional manual jobs.

Lead to identity crisis, made it easier for some males to question need for qualifications when jobs they would have gone into, no longer exist.

Question 17

What does Barber(1996) Say?

What does Francis(2000) say?

Answer 17

Michael Barber says that boys overestimate their ability and girls underestimate theirs

Francis did research on 3 London schools(1998-9) found out that boys thought it would be easy to do well in exams without having to put much effort in.
When they fail they tend to blame teacher or lack of effort, not ability and feel undervalued

Question 18

What are the Highest/Lowest achieving groups Ethnicity in school?

Answer 18

Highest achieving groups- Chinese ad Indian pupils consistently have highest levels of attainment

Lowest achieving groups- Black Caribbean, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Gypsy Lowest attainment of ethnic groups (exception working class white boy)

Black Caribbean more likely to be permanently excluded from school than white British students of the same sex

Question 19

What is the Ethnicity acronym?

Answer 19

White people must stop and Listen and Black

Question 20

What did cecile Wright say?

Answer 20

Study in 4 Multi-Ethnic primary schools

• Teacher stereotypes and labelling negative impact on Asian and Black Caribbean students in primary schools
• Asian students often excluded from classroom discussions because teachers thought they had poor english
• teachers expected Black Caribbean students to be poorly behaved, expected to be punished
• Write talks about Marcus shout out right answers , while white students were not

Question 21

What did Pilkington(1997) say?

What did Lupton (2004) say?

Answer 21

Pilkington said that pupils from ethnic minority groups enjoy greater parental support than others. Asian families have been characterised as consisting of extended families which value education

Lupton talks about lower-working class white British families in the most disadvantaged areas have negative attitudes towards education and low aspirations

Question 22

What did Mac and Ghail say?

Answer 22

mac and Ghail (1988) carried out 2 ethnographic studies in inner-city schools

• Asian Warriors and African Caribbean Rasta Heads- and group of black female students, of African Caribbean and Asian parentage, called Black sisters
• Black sisters never intended to study, but they found him. Because he was perceived as being on side of students that were happy to talk to him about their views of racism
• People racist towards them, created resistence subcultures, resulted in educational underchivement
• Chose participatory methods- Became friendly and visited home regularly
• Dominant theories argued that black underachievement was due to subcultures of resistance, Problem seen as students themselves
• His research realised that their subcultures were a response to a racially structured institution

Question 23

What does Sewell say?

What does Vincent et al(2001) say?

Answer 23

Sewell found that black identities were reinforced as young black students coped with racist teacher stereotypes of ‘black machismo’

Vincent et al said that black middle-class parents have the social and cultural capital to challenge stereotypes in order to achieve the best outcomes for their children

Also utilising social and cultural capital to adopt middle-class responses to problems faced within educational system. Encouraging extra-curricular activities, extra tutoring and high expectations.