AQA AS Sociology Education Summary

External factors in class differences in achievement

1.                  Cultural Deprivation, Lacking of basic skills, knowledge and attitudes, through:
-intellectual development- toys- Basil Bernstein
-Language- restricted+elaborated codes- Basil Bernstein.
-Attitudes and Values- working class parents don’t value education-Sugarman

2.                  Material Deprivation, lacking of material necessities to succeed. For example:
-Housing- overcrowding, harder to study, health effects.
-Diet and health- poor nutrition, lower energy levels, more prone to illness- Howard.
-Financial support- lack of equipment, unable to go on trips, stigma attached to free school meals- Flaherty.

3.                  Cultural Capital, the knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities of the middle class.
-cultural capital- socialisation of the middle class, develop intellectual interests to help with education, puts them at an advantage- Bourdieu.
-educational and economic capital- middle class children are better equipped to meet the demands of the school curriculum- Leech and Campos- ‘selection by mortgage’.
Marketization
­-Gerwitz- middle class parents are privileged school choosers, used their economic and cultural capital to get educational capital. They know how schools work + importance of meeting deadlines.
-disconnected local choosers- working class parents- didn’t understand school admissions, didn’t know the choices and were restricted by travel costs so sent kids to local comprehensive.
-semi-skilled choosers- ambitious working class parents, lacked cultural capital so relied on help from others.

Internal factors in class differences in achievement

1.      Labelling- attach a meaning or definition to someone
-Becker- teachers would label pupils on what they thought was the ‘ideal pupil’, this was usually a middle class pupil.
-Rist- primary school teacher used information from a child’s home background to put them in separate groups, the working class ones were sat furthest away with fewer books and less opportunities.
-Keddie- although curriculum is the same, teachers give positively labelled pupils more abstract knowledge.
-However- Marxists- labels stem from the fact teachers work in a system that reproduces class divisions.
-Labelling theory isn’t always true, eg. Mary Fullers study

2.      Self-fulfilling prophecy- a prediction that comes true just because it was made.
-Rosenthal and Jacobson- mad a false test that identified some children that were going to do well, it came true because the teacher treated these pupils accordingly which helped them improve.
-Becker- working class pupils are put in a lower stream as they aren’t seen as ideal pupils, they feel like they have been given up upon so create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Douglas- pupils put in a lower stream aged 8 had a decline in their IQ score by 11.

3.      Pupil Subcultures, a group of pupils who share similar values and behavioural patterns.
-Colin Lacey- differentiation- teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability.
                     -polarisation- how pupils respond to streaming, moving to one extreme or the other.
-pupils placed in higher streams (usually middle class pupils) created a pro-school subculture + abided by the rules and regulations.
-pupils placed in lower steams (usually working class pupils) created an anti-school subculture, which led to a self-fulfilling…