social class revised Flashcards
external - material deprivation
house and school
- douglas
poor housing conditions, diet, health, low income and part-time jobs
analysis in 1960s - 4.2 million children living in poverty
cycle of deprivation
- gibson and asthana
illness means more absence
low income so lack of educational books, hidden fees, student loans
90% of failing schools in deprived areas
recent evidence
w/c children more likely to drop out of uni because of debt - 16.1% drop out of london met 1.5% from oxford
- flaherty - fear of stigmatisation - 20% of students entitled to free school meals dont take them
- sutton trust - private school students 55 more likely to get into oxbridge 22 more likely to get into high ranked uni
external - material deprivation strength
marxists would highlight the importance of this factor as evidence for the myth of meritocracy
poverty is closely linked to educational under-achievement
external - material deprivation limitations
too deterministic - some children from poor families are able to succeed
cultural, religious or political reasons - poor chinese doing nearly as well as rich chinese
quality of school - poor children who go to grammar schools or have bursaries for private schools
external - cultural deprivation
lack of intellectual development
- douglas - w/c parents less likely to support intellectual development eg reading to them
- melanie philips NEW RIGHT - the NEETS - w/c and underclass children lack intellectual development due to family disorder - broken families where socialisation disrupted - one parent ect
poor attitudes and values
- Sugarman instant and deferred gratification
fatalism - w/c accept situation rather than trying to change it
linguistic deprivation
- Bernstein - elaborated vs restricted speech code
external - cultural deprivation strengths
influenced many policies such as sure start centres and EMA
these policies aim to help support parents and students to help offset and reduce the influence of cultural deprivation
external - cultural deprivation limitations
Troyna and Willians - speech - problem is not language but school’s attitude towards it - teacher have a speech hierarchy and value w/c lower
Marxism - victim-blaming explanation, lets social inequality and educations system off the hook - smoke-screen that covers the true cause which is material deprivation
Keddie - victim-blaming explanation - culturally different rather than culturally deprived - education system based on m/c values
external - cultural capital
bourdieu - marxism - the more material deprivation the more likely to be culturally deprived
- social groups with control over economic capital ensure their children pick up cultural capital as essential for educational capital
w/c remain w/c as handicapped in the acquisition of cultural capital - reproduces class inequality - victims of symbolic violence
- m/c have a particular habitus which is a certain culture that makes them more likely to do well in education
external - cultural capital studies
Diane Reay - m/c mothers more active in education after researching mothers of 33 children at two london primary schools - m/c mothers have more educational capital and more information about how system works
Stephen Ball - m/c skilled choosers, w/c disconnected choosers
external - cultural capital support
w/c children are culturally different rather than deficient
marxists support - evidence that m/c better off due to cultural and material factors
external - cultural capital limitation
lacks large amount of empirical evidence - difficult to actually operationalise the concept of cultural capital
- how can musical instruments impact english GCSE
deterministic - some w/c can break away from culture and have high level of cultural capital
interrelationship of external factors
bourdieu
pointless to argue
- interrelated
- the more material deprivation a family suffers from, the more likely be culturally deprived
- more economic capital the more likely cultural capital
interrelationship of external and internal factors
- external factors are important in class and achievement as gap exists before school
- interactionists - internal factors more important as increasing gap in achievement as children progress through education system
- work together - external factors place w/c children at a disadvantage - then compounded by processes within schools
internal factor - type of school and school ethos
wealthy - private schools - Westminster school - smaller class sizes and privileged access to elite unis
- more than half of cohort from Westminster go to Oxbridge
- best state schools and grammar schools socialised into ethos that uni is the norm
worst schools - major disruptions from anti-school subcultures and high teacher turnover
internal factor - type of school and school ethos - limitations
too deterministic - many students at so-called deprived schools may work harder to beat odds as know they do not have the same support as private school students
governments have been implementing policies to compensate for lack of resources to help materially deprived but talented students and impact of cultural deprivation - pupil premium, sure start, EMA
internal factor - labelling
halo and horns affect - early impression colours all future perceptions
Becker - interactionist - interviewed 60 American high school teachers - judged pupils according to image of ideal pupil - non academic factors eg speech and dress
- m/c more likely to fit criteria
Dunne and Gazeley - interviewed teachers from 9 english state secondary schools
- teachers normalised w/c underachievement and unconcerned about it - felt they could help underachieving m/c
