External Factors Affecting Class Achievement Flashcards
What is one popular explanation of class differences in achievement?
Better-off parents can afford to send their children to private schools, which many provide a higher standard of education.
What is an external factor?
Factors outside the education system, such as the influence of home and family background and wider society.
What does the nationwide study by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies show?
That by the age of 3, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already up to one year behind those from more privileged homes.
What is cultural deprivation?
- Most of us begin to acquire the basic values, attitudes and skills through primary socialisation
- Many working class families fail to socialise their children adequately, they lack the cultural equipment (language and self discipline).
Why is language a cultural equipment?
It is an essential part of education and the way in which parents communicate with their children affects their cognitive performance.
What did Hubbs-Tait et al find regarding speech codes?
Parents who uses language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities have a higher cognitive performance.
What did Feinstein find regarding speech codes?
That educated parents are more likely to use praise. This encourages their children to develop a sense of their own competence.
What did Bereiter and Engelmann claim about language differences?
The language in lower-class homes is deficient. As a result, their children fail to develop the necessary language skills, they grow up incapable of abstract thinking.
What 2 types of language codes did Bernstein identify?
The restricted code, typically used by working class, it has limited vocabulary based on the use of short unfinished, grammatically simple sentences, predictable speech.
The elaborated code, typically used by the middle class, it has a wider vocabulary based on longer more complex sentences, communicates with abstract ideas.
How does the difference in speech codes give middle class children an advantage?
The elaborated code is used by teachers, textbooks and exams, it’s a more effective tool for analysing, reasoning and expressing thoughts clearly which are essential skills for education.
Why is early socialisation into the elaborate code beneficial for middle class children?
It means that MC children are already fluent users of the code when they start school. Thus they feel ‘at home’ in school and are more likely to achieve. By contrast WC children lack the code which makes them feel excluded and therefore unsuccessful.
How do critics challenge Bernstein views on cultural deprivation?
They argue that working-class pupils fail not because they are culturally deprived, but because schools fail to teach them how to use the elaborated code.
What did Douglas find?
Working class parents place less importance on education, as a result they are less ambitious for their children and give them less encouragement to try hard and do well in school.
What did Feinstein conclude?
That a parents’ own education was an important factor affecting children’s achievement.
How does parenting style help middle class parents socialise their children?
- Educated parents’ parenting style emphasises consistent discipline and high expectations of their children and supports achievement by encouragement
- By contrast, less educated parents’ parenting style is marked as harsh or inconsistent discipline which prevents the child from learning independence and self control leading to poorer motivation.
How does parents’ educational behaviours impact a child achievement?
- Educated parents are more aware of what is needed to assist their children’s educational progress.
- Better able to get expert advice on child rearing, more successful in establishing good relationships with teachers
How does parents use of income affect a child’s achievement?
- Better educated parents tend to have higher incomes and spend their income in ways that promote their children’s educational success
- They also have a better understanding of nutrition and it’s importance in child development
How did Bernstein and Young support this view on parents use of income?
- They found middle class mothers are more likely to buy educational toys, books and activities to stimulate intellectual development
- Working class homes are more likely to lack these resources and this means children start school without the intellectual skills needed to progress.
What is a subculture?
A group whose attitudes and values differ from those of the mainstream culture.
According to cultural deprivation theorists, what is the reason working class children fail, in relation to working class subculture?
Lack of parental interest in their children’s education reflects the subcultural values of the working class. Working class have different goals, beliefs and attitudes from the rest of society which is why they fail.
What are the 4 features that Sugarman identifies that act as a barrier to educational achievement?
- Fatalism, a belief in fate where there is nothing you can do to change your status in contrast with MC who emphasises you can change your position
- Collectivism, valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual.
- Immediate gratification, seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards later (present-time orientated, seeing the present as more important than the future, no long term goals)
- MC emphasises deferred gratification, making sacrifices now for greater rewards later
How does working class children underachieve?
They internalise the beliefs and values of their subculture through the socialisation process which results in under achievement.
What is Sugarman’s explanation for these value differences?
They stem from the fact that middle class jobs are secure careers offering prospects for continuous individual advancement which encouraged ambition and willingness to invest time and effort gaining qualifications. Whereas working class are less secure with no opportunities and career structure.
What is the aim of compensatory education programmes?
They aim to tackle the problem of cultural deprivation by providing extra resources to school and communities and deprived areas. They intervene early in the socialisation process.
