Education Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is material deprivation?
The lack of the ability and resources to purchase goods and services that can directly and indirectly help make it easier for students to achieve success in the education system.
Material Factors that can affect education
1.) Occupation (lack of financial income and support) - Flaherty
2.) “Hidden costs” of education (trips, school uniform and equipment) - Smith and Noble
3.) Diet and Health (can make a student physically and mentally absent, as it can affect how much they’re actually learning)
- Howard’s study
Criticisms of material deprivation
-Too deterministic : automatically assumes that WC are doomed to fail
-Fails to explain why there are some WC students that still achieve well
-It can be argued that due to material/ financial circumstances, WC students may use this as motivation to work harder and get themselves out of their economic situation.
-Poor Chinese students do almost as well as rich Chinese students;
ethnicity plays a role in educational achievement as well
What is cultural deprivation?
Lacking the values, beliefs, behaviour and attitudes that society regards as important for educational success
How can cultural capital be gained?
-Primary socialisation
-Having access to economic capital / wealth (Bourdieu);
this can be converted to educational capital (in order to afford private schools, extra tuition etc.)
3 categories of cultural deprivation
Linguistic deprivation (Language barriers)
Lack of Cognitive development (Parents’ education provided to children)
WC subcultures (values and attitudes)
What happens as a result if parents provide their education to their children by asking complex questions?
They can improve their children’s cognitive performance, meaning their children can articulate their essays better
- can lead to better exam grades
According to Bernstein, what is considered as the correct way of speaking:
Restricted or elaborated speech?
Elaborated speech, which is stereotypically thought of as a MC value to possess
What does Feinstein say about parent’s education?
It’s the most important factor affecting their children’s achievement, as they can influence their children from early on in their cognitive developmental years
What is a subculture?
Another group in society whose values deviate from the mainstream values in society
Sugarman’s (1970) 4 key features that act as a barrier between WC and MC
- Time orientation - WC live in the moment; MC plan for the future
- Attitudes to gratification (immediate vs deferred) - WC seek immediate gratification; MC seek deferred gratification
- Collectivism vs Individualism - WC rely on collective action to bring change & improvements into their lives; MC value self-reliance & personal achievements when pursuing their own goals
- Attitudes to luck - WC rely on luck / fate for social mobility; MC rely on hard work
Criticisms to Sugarman’s 4 features that act as a barrier between WC and MC
Too deterministic: relies on WC conforming to these standards and not wanting to divert and change to being hardworking like the MC
Criticisms of cultural deprivation
-Stigma created against WC values in education system: negative attitude and neglect of WC values
- It can be argued that WC aren’t culturally “deprived” per se, but culturally “different”.
-Class differences have declined since Bernstein’s time and research, meaning differences between MC and WC are smaller now.
-Just because the parents are culturally deprived, it does not mean that the children will be too;
the parents may want their children to achieve more in school than they did in order to be socially mobile
How can the MC be reproduced into future generations?
By passing on cultural capital down to their children
Criticisms of cultural factors
-It ignores the importance of internal factors (how different groups of students are treated within the schooling system)
-It may ignore the material factors
What are the internal factors within school?
1.) Labelling
2.) Self-fulfilling prophecy
3.) Streaming
4.) Pupil subcultures
Explain what labelling is
Attaching a meaning to a student (e.g “hardworking” or “troublemaker”)
It can be linked to their class background (with MC students seen as “ideal students”) , appearance or their work and conduct
Following the concept of labelling, what is self-fulfilling prophecy?
This is the aftermath of labelling (when a student internalises their label) :
Labelling can have a positive or negative impact on students’ confidence levels -
This leads to them acting on their labels that were assigned to them
Stages of self-fulfilling prophecy:
1.) Teacher assigns a student a label / makes predictions about them based on their label
2.) Therefore the teacher-to-pupil interaction is affected based on the prediction / label they assigned their pupil
3.) The pupil then internalises their label/predictions and it becomes a part of their self-concept (they become the label) ;
Thus fulfilling their original prophecy
Criticisms of labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy:
-Can be too deterministic: students may wish to prove their teachers wrong
-Mirza studied 2 South London schools with 62 black girls (aged 15-19) - wanted to study the effects of racism on these girls’ confidence:
Mirza found that they actually rejected their labels and were determined to work hard for their educational success
What is Streaming?
The act of putting students with similar abilities into the same groups/classes (basically sets)
Top sets for bright studious pupils
Bottom sets for “thick” dumb students, where education is ‘dumbed down’
Why do schools stream?
-The pressure of league tables and formula funding
Thus leading them to the triage system
What is the triage system?
Where schools ration their time and resources as they categorise their students by considering:
1.) Those who’ll pass anyways (less help required for them)
2.) Grade 4-5 students (help is targeted to them)
3.) Hopeless cases (more attention and resources allocated to them)
What factors in schools may shape gender differences in subject choice?
- Peer group pressure: leads to girls and boys choosing subjects based on stereotypical gender identities
- Subject counselling: teachers may influence boys and girls to different subject choices in relation to their own gender stereotypes
- Learning resources (may include gender stereotypes and represent subjects to be dominated by a specific gender: subject images)
- Gender of teachers
