Social class and Education Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is material deprivation?
- Material deprivation is the inability to afford basic resources, which can impact a students educational achievement.
- Pupils are unable to afford necessities such as sufficient food, heating, clothing and educational resources leading to underachievement.
How does material deprivation work within school?
Key Statistics:
- 33% of children receiving FSM gained 5+ A*-C GCSEs compared with 61% of pupils who did not.
- Middle class children have a reading age 2.5 years ahead of working class children at age 15.
- 90% of failing schools are in deprived areas.
What is the evaluation of material deprivation?
- This may lead to silt shifting - students may off-role working class students who threaten the school’s position on league tables.
What other factors within material deprivation can affect a student?
- Housing - the quality of housing a student lives in can affect achievement within school.
How does housing affects students educational achievement?
- Child development can be impaired through lack of outdoor spaces for safe play and exploration.
- Living in temporary accommodation may involve frequent moving, resulting in constant changes in school and disrupted education.
- Families in temporary accommodation also suffer from more psychological distress.
- Children in crowded homes run a greater risk of accidents. Cold or damp accommodation can also cause ill health.
- Overcrowding means less room for educational activities, no where to do homework, disturbed sleep from sharing beds/bedrooms.
How can poverty and poor diet affect education?
Howard (2001): Poverty and Poor Diet
- Children from poor homes have lower intakes of vitamins and minerals.
- This may result in more absences from school, more time missed learning and a lack of concentration.
How can lack of capital affect education?
Bull (1980) The Cost of Education
- Lack of financial support means that children from poor families have to go without equipment and miss out on experiences t hat would enhance their educational achievement - hidden costs of free education.
How can fear of debt affect education?
Callander and Jackson (2005) Fear of Debt
- They found that working class students are more debt averse - saw debt negatively.
- Also saw more costs than benefits going to university.
- The most debt averse students were 5x less likely to apply than the most debt tolerant students.
What has been done to compensate for material deprivation?
- The government has tried to compensate for students from low-income backgrounds with EMA in the past, bursaries today, pupil premium funding and student loans for university.
What is cultural deprivation?
Cultural deprivation is the concept that working class families fail to primary socialise their children adequately
How is cultural deprivation found within education?
- Bernstein argues that ‘The speech patterns of those at the bottom of the class system are inferior.” Referring to the working class speech codes as restricted, whilst upper/middle class being elaborate.
What are the effects of speech codes?
- Elaborate speech codes benefit the middle class as teachers speak it, exams are written in it, textbooks use it, and they are rewarded for using it. (e.g speech exams)
- This disadvantages the working class as they become alienated in the classroom - this could lead to negative labelling.
What is the evaluation of speech codes?
- Bernstein recognizes the role of the school in influencing under-achievement - school fails to teach students how to use elaborate code.
- Bernstein devalues working class speech as inadequate when it works in their own habitus.
What is habitus?
Habitus refers to norms, values, attitudes and behaviors of a particular social group or class.
What are working class attitudes and values?
- According to cultural deprivation theorists, working classes have different goals, beliefs, attitudes and values from mainstream society.
- Working class children internalize the beliefs of their often deviant subcultures and underachieve.
- Working class jobs require less skills, are less secure, have fewer promotions with wages peaking early-on.
What attitudes and values around the working class does Sugarman identify?
Sugarman (1970) refers to 4 main aspects of this:
- Fatalism.
- Collectivism.
- Immediate gratification.
- Present-time orientation.
What are the criticisms of the cultural deprivation theory?
- (Keddie) - Cultural deprivation is victim blaming. Working class culture is different, not deprived.
- Working class failure is down to the systematic discrimination within a middle-class education environment.
- (Troyna & Williams) - Schools fail to challenge middle class bias in terms of language bias and negative labelling.
- (Blackstone and Mortimer) - Working class parents are intimidated by middle-class school environment.
- Less working class engagement with school partly attributed to irregular work patterns and shift work.
What is cultural capital?
Cultural capital is knowledge of values, attitudes, tastes, abilities and language of the dominant culture of society. The dominant culture is normally the middle-class culture - hence working class culture is devalued in education as rough and inferior.
How is cultural applied within education?
Middle class families have more cultural capital because they:
- Know how to help with homework.
- Can relate to teachers, so they are more likely to contact teachers with questions/complaints.
- Feel more confident to research which schools are the best and read OFSTED reports.
- Have the money to move to different catchment areas.
- See the importance of high culture and wider learning (e.g exhibits, museums.)
What is the evaluation of cultural capital?
- Cultural capital accounted for some of the class differences in attainment. Some working class children had equal amounts of cultural capital.
- Middle class children did better because of their higher levels of economic capital and aspirations.
- 7% of children in the UK are educated in private schools, receiving both the best education, but also educational capital.
