Social Class and education

1. Social Class and education The Facts of disadvantage Andy Walker Learning Online

2. Some key facts about working class children • Even when compared to middle class children with the same IQ, working class children are: • less likely to be found in nursery schools • more likely to be poor readers when they start school • more likely to be in low sets and streams in secondary school • more likely to underachieve at GCSE and A level • less likely to go to University • more likely to leave school early • more likely to be suspended and excluded Andy Walker Learning Online

3. Explanations: Intelligence • Sociologists and psychologists such as Eysenck suggests that working class children have lower innate intelligence that middle class children. • Intelligence is inherited from parents which explains the child’s educational performance and the lowly social status of their parents. • Problems • Intelligence is a cultural construct • Most regard factors such as poverty and time spent in school as far more meaningful than raw IQ scores Andy Walker Learning Online

4. Explanations: Cultural Deprivation • Working class culture viz. parental attitudes, child rearing practice and language used, is to blame for underachievement. • JWB Douglas argued working class parents do not value education. • Bernstein argued the restricted code of the working class handicapped children’s language development. Education being delivered in the elaborated code of middle class standard English. • The Newsons suggested middle class parents are measurably more child centred than the working class. Andy Walker Learning Online

5. Criticisms of Cultural Deprivation Theory • It fails to consider material deprivation. Factors such as poverty are arguably far more significant – working class children do not get access to nursery education or expensive educational toys and games. • It has a rather suspect methodology e.g. Douglas’ counting of parental visits to parents evenings is seen as unscientific. Andy Walker Learning Online

6. Explanations: Marxism • School is seen as a middle class institution run by middle class teachers using middle class language and perpetuating middle class values, attitudes and power. • Marxists such as Bourdieu suggest that working class pupils lack the cultural capital to achieve in such an environment. • Marxists see school as part of the state machinery which is designed to condition the working class to failure and drudgery. Working class failure is therefore guaranteed as this is one of the systems desired outcomes. Andy Walker Learning Online

7. Explanations:The interactionist view • Interactionist sociologists us labelling theory to explain working class underachievement. • Negative labels of the working class child are constructed by middle class teachers which are in turn communicated to pupils who internalise them and become self fulfilling prophecies of failure. • Positive labels are communicated to the middle class child as ideal pupils who work hard and keep quiet – they too become self fulfilling prophecies this time successful ones. Andy Walker Learning Online

8. Examples of labelling theory • Rosenthal and Jacobsen – self fulfilling prophecy. • Keddie who characterised streaming as institutionalised labelling. Top sets are treated more favourably whilst bottom sets are blamed for their own failure. • Hargreaves who studies the counter sub- cultures that pupils develop in response to labelling Andy Walker Learning Online

9. Criticisms of labelling theory • It ignores important structural factors such as class inequality. • It underestimates counter school culture. Paul Willis claims working class boys choose to fail because school achievement isn’t valued in their culture. • There is little empirical evidence to back it up. Andy Walker Learning Online

10. Important point to note • Intelligence, cultural deprivation theory and labelling theory have also all been used to attempt to explain the relative underachievement of certain ethnic groups. Andy Walker Learning Online