social class

Question 1

patterns and trends

Answer 1

middle class children perform better - 80% of uni plays

Jerrim - most talented children being left behaviour if from lower class

high achieving boys from most advantaged family at two and a half years ahead by age 15

Question 2

how do we measure social class

Answer 2

parents’ occupation

free school meals

income

Question 3

external factors

Answer 3

material deprivation - lack of access to thinks money can buy eg study guides

material capital - having adequate funds to purchase the hidden costs of education

cultural deprivation - lacking the norms and values that might give advantage in education

cultural capital - norms and values that m/c parents pass down to children

Question 4

internal factors

Answer 4

processes which go on in-school such as ethos of school, teacher labelling and pupil subcultures

marketisation - shape school policies

Question 5

Material deprivation

Answer 5

Douglas - home and school

poor home conditions, poor diet and ill health, low income and part-time jobs

Question 6

Cycle of deprivation

Answer 6

Gibson and Asthana

higher levels of sickness - more absences
low income - books and toys not bought - hidden costs
student loans and tuition fees - source of anxiety
part-time jobs - takes time from studying

Question 7

Sutton Trust - 2010

Answer 7

private school students - 7% of population - 55 times more likely to get into Oxford or Cambridge and 22 times more likely to get into high ranked uni compared to state school student on free-school meals

Question 8

evaluations of material deprivation

Answer 8

poverty causes poor educational performance is deterministic and only focuses on class aspect - children can succeed

cultural religious or political values create and sustain motivation despite poverty eg british chinese students

some sociologists - cultural failings of w/c parents

Question 9

covid material deprivation studies

Answer 9

LLAKES centre - 4500 children study - disadvantaged children less likely to complete over 4 hours of schoolwork during lockdown

Education policy institute 2020 - disadvantaged gap has stopped closing for first time in a decade - 560 years for gap to close

Question 10

3 main cultural factors

Answer 10

intellectual development

attitudes and values

linguistic deprivation

Question 11

intellectual development

Answer 11

w/c deprived of books and toys

douglas - w/c parents less likely to support children’s intellectual development at home - reading

philips - the neets - family disorder - broken families - disrupted socialisation

Question 12

intellectual development criticisms

Answer 12

Maternal deprivation more important
Victim blaming
Generalisation
Deterministic
Classist
Scapegoating
Marxism

Question 13

attitudes and values

Answer 13

douglas - parents’ attitudes to education - m/c students have more interest and more likely to encourage further education

immediate and deferred gratification

Question 14

types of gratification

Answer 14

immediate gratification - seeking enjoyment of the moment and sacrificing future reward

deferred gratification - putting off enjoyment in the short term and working hard in long term for future benefits

Question 15

immediate gratification - sugarman

Answer 15

sugarman - m/c more likely to have deferred gratification

w/c foster attitude of immediate gratification

concept of fatalism - working class class accept their economic situation

Question 16

linguistic deprivation

Answer 16

bernstein - restricted and elaborated codes
ability to use language is key to succeed in school

elaboration code puts m/c children at an advantage in schools

Question 17

criticisms of linguistic deprivation

Answer 17

labov - language used by w/c is imply different and not inferior - equally capable of dealing with abstract and complex ideas

troyna and williams - problem is not language but school’s attitudes - teachers have speech hierarchy

Question 18

cultural deprivation evaluation

Answer 18

blackstone and mortimore - w/c parents interested in education - have longer work hours - put off my school’s m/c atmosphere

marxism - victim-blaming explanation - lets social inequality and education system off the hook - society as a whole is to blame not w/c

Question 19

influence of cultural deprivation

Answer 19

influential in shaping government policy - conpensaory studies

however - state attempting to impose m/c values on w/c and many of policies have been cancelled by coalition

Question 20

cultural capital

Answer 20

bourdieu - m/c have particular habitus - tastes, culture and values that help them in education eg extracurricular

reay - m/c involved in children’s education with cultural capital to an advantage - educational capital so could help more

gewirtz -
privileged-skilled choosers - m/c who had high levels of economic and cultural capital
disconnected local choosers - w/c restricted by economic and cultural capital
semi-skilled choosers - ambitious w/c - frustrated about not getting child into school of choice

Question 21

cultural capital evaluation

Answer 21

+ w/c are culturally different rather than deficient
+ marxists - evidence that w/c better of in education due to cultural and material factors - transmitting dominant ideology

• lacks empirical support - different to operationalise concept
  deterministic

Question 22

internal explanations

Answer 22

school ethos

school subcultures

teacher labelling

streaming

marketisation

Question 23

school ethos

Answer 23

top private schools - given privileged access to oxford and cambridge through university guidance councillors

best state schools - ethos that university is the norm

average state school - choice

worst schools - anti-school subculture

Question 24

evaluating school ethos

Answer 24

• too deterministic to suggest that type of school will affect achievement
• government implemented education policies to compensate for schools lacking resources to help materially deprived but talented students

Question 25

subcultures

Answer 25

lacey - polarisation - streaming - high performance students improve and poor deteriorate and develop anti-school subculture for status - self-fulfilling prophecy

woods - not all students respond to negative labelling - ingration (teachers pet), ritualism (staying out of trouble), retreatism (daydreaming) and rebellion

Question 26

evaluating subcultures

Answer 26

willis - learning to labour - 12 working class lads formed anti-school subcultures to resist

mac an ghail - study - subcultures disappearing - crisis of masculinity - w/c now becoming young entrepreneurs

Question 27

labelling

Answer 27

becker - m/c have idea of ideal pupil - w/c seen negatively - ideal pupil most likely to be white, m/c female - self-fulfilling prophecy

hempel-jorgensen - ideal pupil varies between schools - w/c primary school - quiet, passive and obedient, m/c middle class - personality based

Question 28

pygmalion in the classroom

Answer 28

self-fulfilling prophecy

those labelled positively had more of a chance of improving

• deterministic
• iq not representative

Question 29

evaluating labelling theory

Answer 29

fails to explain expectations of teachers - why label

marxists - expectations stem from teachers work in system that reproduces class inequality

deterministic - some students can succeed with negative label

Question 30

streaming and setting

Answer 30

gillborn and youdell

w/c and black students seen as less likely to achieve higher grades - lower sets

creates educational triage

impact of marketisation

douglas - children placed in lower stream at 8 had a lower iq score by 11, while higher stream improved by 11

Question 31

marketisation

Answer 31

bartlett - pressures between schools
worse schools get funding cut

cream-skimming - selecting the higher ability students to get best results and cost less to teach

silt-sifting - off-loading pupils with difficulties who are expensive to teach