Causes of school underachievement

1. Causes of school underachievement • This activity is designed to promote visual and kinaesthetic learning • Print or photocopy slides 2 and 3 onto A3 size paper. • One page represents the home, the other represents the education system. • Print or photocopy slides 3 and 4 onto A4 paper • Students are expected to cut out the boxes and paste them around the images to create revision posters. • They should decorate the posters to increase visual interest. • They should add other points created from their own learning and research.

4. Pierre Bourdieu Parents of middle class children pass on cultural capital and know how the systems work Working class children are genetically inferior and so fail Pierre Bourdieu There is a hidden curriculum that works to control children Tony Sewell Schools are racist and Black children suffer Connell Boys are experiencing a crisis of masculinity Gewitz et al Middle class parents are far better at working the system to benefit their children and get them into the best schools Labov Working class children can think well, but do not express themselves in the language of the school Paul Willis Working class boys choose to fail as a way of resisting the pressure of schools Schools with intakes from poor and deprived families often have bad reputations for success Abraham Working class children are more likely to be punished for bad behaviour Hargreaves Working class children are in low sets Lacey Children in low sets tend to behave in a more unruly manner Macbeath and Mortimore Once the background of pupils is taken into account, many working class schools produce excellent results All schools have an anti-racist and anti-sexist policy. Comprehensive schools aim to give children equal opportunities

5. Bernstein Working class children speak a different type of language from middle class children and schools Boudon Middle class children have higher expectations and aspirations Charles Murray Children from the lowest social class, the underclass, develop a culture where they expect to depend on benefits. Cultural deprivation Children from poor households fail because of inadequate socialisation in the home and lack of role models Shropshire and Middleton Working class children learn to tailor their ambitions to suit their family problems Material deprivation Children living in poor households are disadvantaged in practical terms: no extras, nowhere to work, poor diet Correspondence theory What happens in school mirrors what happens in society Correspondence theory What happens in school mirrors what happens in society Rosenthal and Jacobson Teachers label children and so working class children fail through self fulfilling prophecy Gewitz et al Middle class parents are far better at working the system to benefit their children and get them into the best schools Heidi Safia-Mirza Black girls resist labelling by teachers and succeed in school Murphy and Elwood Girls and boys arrive in school with gendered behaviour and this is simply reinforced in school