Education - key concepts

Question 1

Hidden Curriculum

Answer 1

All those things learnt without being formally taught and often aquired simply through the everyday working of the schol, such as attitudes, obiedience and competitiveness.

Question 2

Cultural Capital

Answer 2

The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, taste and abilities that the middle class transmit to their children. 
Bourdieu argues that educational success is largely due to the possession of cultural capital.

Question 3

Corrospondence Principle

Answer 3

Bowles and Gintis’ concept describing the way organisation and control of schools mirrors the workplace in capitalist society.

Question 4

Compensatory Education

Answer 4

Government education policies such as Operation Headstart, that seek to tackle the problem of underachievement by providing extra support and funding to schools and families in deprived areas

Question 5

Tripartide System

Answer 5

The system of secondary education created in 1944, based on 3 types of schools. The 11+ exam was used to identify pupils abilities. Those identified as the most acedemic went to grammar schools, some went to technical schools and the rest went to secondary modern schools.

Question 6

Streaming

Answer 6

Where children are seperated into different ability groups or classes and then each ability group is taught seperatly.

Question 7

Speech Codes

Answer 7

Patterns or ways of using language. Bernstein argues that working class only uses the context bound restricted code and the middle class uses the context free elaborated code. This code is the one used in education giving middle class children an advantage.

Question 8

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 8

Where the prediction made about a person or group comes true simply because it is made. In predicting that some pupils will do badly, teachers will treat them in line with these low expectations. This will discourage the pupils from trying, making the prediction true.

Question 9

Immediate Gratification

Answer 9

A prefference for immediate pleasure or reward without regard for the longer term consequences. A value of lower class society.

Question 10

Labelling

Answer 10

The process of attatching a definition or meaning to an individual or group. Often the label is a stereotype that defines all members of a group in the same way.

Question 11

Marketisation

Answer 11

The policy of introducing market forces of supply and demand into areas run by the sate such as education. The 1988 Education Reform Act began the markitisation of education by encouraging compotition between schools and choice of parents.

Question 12

Material Deprevation

Answer 12

Poverty, a lack of the basic needs such as an adequate diet, housing, clothing or money to buy these things. In education this explains working class underachievement as the result of the lack of resources.

Question 13

Meritocracy

Answer 13

An education or social system where everyone has an equal oppertunity to succeed, and where the individuals rewards and status are by their own effirt and hard work rather than ascribed to them by society.

Question 14

Myth Of Meritocracy

Answer 14

Bowles and Gintis claims that meritocray in an ideology legitamising inequality by falsly claiming everyone has equal chance ansd unequal rewards are the natural result of unequal ability.

Question 15

Parentocracy

Answer 15

‘Ruled by parents’. The concept is associated with markitisation of education which is based on the ideology of parental choice.

Question 16

Deffered Gratification

Answer 16

Postpronning immediate rewards or pleasures, generally with the aim of producing a greater reward at a later date. This is seen as a characteristic of middle class culture.

Question 17

In what ways did the Tripartite education system reproduce class inequalities?

Answer 17

Middle class kids, were more likely to get into the grammar schools because they had the cultural advantage in the 11+ and/or could pay for private tutors to help them prepare for 11+

Question 18

Give two reasons why comprehensivisation did not end educational inequality.

Answer 18

- Class differences were still evident in sets and streams.
The school reflected the local area; schools in working class areas has working class kids in them.
Labelling of social class groups

Question 19

Define particularistic values

Answer 19

The idea that you are judged to be of special worth in the home by your family - you are treated as special.

Question 20

Define universalistic values

Answer 20

You are treated the same way as everyone else and judged against the same set of standards

Question 21

Explain how Functionalists see the education system as legitimizing social inequality.

Answer 21

Education sorts individuals into particular sets or subjects and how well you do in exams is based on how hard you work or how intelligent you are, therefore it looks to be fair if someone is put in a low paid job as a consequence of not getting good qualifications, and those in higher positions deserve to be there because they did get good qualifications.

Question 22

Explain what is meant by ethnocentric curriculum

Answer 22

A curriculum that give priority to white culture and the English language, whilst largely ignoring non-European languages, literature and music.

Question 23

Suggest three examples of how the curriculum and/or the ways school is organised may be “ethnocentric”

Answer 23

History curriculum ignores Black and Asian people and history
Languages studied are primarily European
Canteen not considering dietary requirements of different religions
Uniform rules not taking into account religious codes of dress.

Question 24

Suggest three reasons why black girls tend to do better than black boys in education.

Answer 24

Many Afro-caribbean girls have working mothers who act as a positive role model.
Girls are less likely to attract negative labels as seen as being more attentive and harder working.
Girls in Fullers study had high self esteem and were able to reject negative labelling.

Question 25

Suggest three factors within schools that may lead to the educational underachievement of pupils from some minority ethnic groups.

Answer 25

Labelling - black students not seen as the ‘ideal’ student
Self fulfilling prophecy as a result of negative labelling
Ethnocentric curriculum.

Question 26

Explain what is meant by the term institutional racism

Answer 26

Discrimination that is built into the way institutions like schools operate.

Question 27

What is an anti- school subculture?

Answer 27

A group of students who often as a consequence of negative labelling turn the values of the school “on their heads” and seek status by not conforming the the schools expectations.

Question 28

Define the term self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 28

Where a prediction is made about a person or group comes true simply because it has been made. For example predicting that a student will do badly, the student comes to accept that label and gives up trying, subsequently the prediction comes true.

Question 29

Identify Sewell’s 4 responses to racist stereotyping by the boys he studied.

Answer 29

Rebels,
conformists,
retreatists,
innovators

Question 30

Suggest three reasons why girls’ examination performance has improved in recent years.

Answer 30

feminisation of the curriculum
extended use of coursework
Positive role models in schools

Question 31

Suggest three reasons why boys tend to under-achieve in school compared with girls

Answer 31

Boys don’t like reading
lack of male role models in education
decline in male employment.

Question 32

Suggest three factors that may explain gender differences in subject choice

Answer 32

early socialisation
peer pressure
The gendered image that a subject “gives off”

Question 33

Suggest three ways in which teaching might be altered to favour boys

Answer 33

More competition introduced into lessons
Less coursework
more male teachers

Question 34

Explain what is meant by “streaming”

Answer 34

A system of dividing students into groups of similar ability in which they stay for all their subjects.

Question 35

Explain what is meant by the “ideal pupil”

Answer 35

This is a stereotype that teacher hold of students in relation to academic and non-academic factors, such as speech, dress, personality.

Question 36

Explain what is meant by the “halo effect”

Answer 36

This is when pupils become stereotyped either favourably or unfavourably on the basis of earlier impressions, which then may colour future teacher-student relations.

Question 37

Explain what is meant by ‘educational triage’.

Answer 37

the way schools divide students into three groups. A-C, C/D borderline and those that will not get a C or above. Resources are directed towards those that can get into the A-C groups, which will boost the school’s position in the league tables, whilst the rest are left to “die an educational death”.

Question 38

Suggest three ways in which interactions between pupils and teachers may affect attainment and/or behaviour
6 marks

Answer 38

Teachers allocate students to a set or stream which could lead to students being entered for lower tiered exams.
Teachers may label students as failures and this may lead to the Self fulfilling prophecy.
Pupils placed in lower sets may go on to develop an anti-school subculture in which poor behaviour is highly prized.

Question 39

What is meant by ‘social capital”

Answer 39

The connections middle class parents have that help them to get their children into the best schools. For example knowing teachers at that school, knowing other parents who were successful at getting their children into that school.

Question 40

Which Marxist sociologists claimed that education was part of the ruling class state apparatus?

Answer 40

Althusser.