Social Class and Education

1. Social Class and Education Loidel, Sunshine, Kyle and Ollie

2. In all social groups class plays a major role in the attainment of children in education. At all age groups in the education system it is apparent that working class children achieve lower attainment than children from a middle class background. • Children from working class backgrounds tend to experience economical hardship more so than any other class; this is often linked to material deprivation which these children are exposed to throughout their life. • A lack of money and the things that money could buy combined with a lack of skills and the absence of a good attitude contributed to a child’s achievement in school. These children are unable to acquire much needed educational items such as a computer with internet access, desks and reference and revision books which also help to disadvantage them. Research: Class and Educational Achievement

3. Hatcher (2006) argues that the education system in the UK today does not encourage working-class success and that the experience of working-class pupils differs from middle-class students. The middle-classes posses more cultural and economic capital, both key to enjoying the benefits in the UK. Social class is also an issue in terms of what type of school that a young person attends. For example, the experience of a year 10 boy at Eton College will be much different than a year 10 pupil at a comprehensive school. Power et al. (1998) studied 342 academically-able boys and concluded that those not achieving high grades showed resistance to the dominant work ethic in their schools. This finding showed similarities to Aggleton’s (1987) study of middle-class students in a sixth form where a group of able boys resisted middle-class values of academic achievement and wanted to progress without effort; they aimed for ‘effortless achievement’. This subsection has shown that the experience or schooling is related to social class, gender and ethnicity. It would be an over simplification to suggest that any one key factor is more important than another. The main thing to remember is that the school experience will be different according to an individuals social identity.

4. Social class impacts heavily on school experiences. Many early studies of school experience centred on white working class boys, who showed resistance to education & to schools, seeing their futures in the workplace (Willis, 1997). In Lee’s research (1993) academically or work-orientated girls (also described as pro-school) were typically white females from middle-class homes with strong parental support.

5. “Cultural reproduction” – this term refers to the mechanisms by which continuity of cultural experience is sustained across time. Mainly, seen in working class families e.g. if parents semi manual labour, the • Concerned about how the capitalist system manage to reproduce its political and economic domination of the lower classes from one generation to the next. • Marxist Believes that the aim of the hidden curriculum is to teach children submission to the capitalist and so that they can socialise young people into accepting the role assigned to them by the capitalist class. (Bourgeoisie) Marxist Perspective Hidden Curriculum: Is a set of norms and values which are learned in lessons but not openly intended

6. Althusseris representative of the Marxist interpretation of the educational system, arguing that "Teachers are in effect agents of capitalism, through their classroom work, they reproduce the exploitative relations of capitalism.” • Sharp and Green's study of classroom interaction (1975) supports Althusser's Marxist view of maintaining the classroom principle of hierarchisation(A group of people who form an ascending chain of power or authority • ), which socialises pupils into accepting the principles of stratification. (Categorizing people into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions) They Are classified in three types: • (1) ideal pupils who are easily controlled and self-motivated • (2) normal pupils • (3) problem children

7. Early functionalists such as Davis and Moore, believed that education had a function role of allocation, sifting and sorting the most able to ensure that they were placed in the most functionally important jobs. • Durkheim views education as an body (organic analogy) creating social harmony through community and cooperation. Durkheim also views education that transmits culture through shared beliefs and values. He also sees schools as a miniature society through cooperation, interaction and rules. This means that cooperation, interaction and rules apply to different members of our society which in other word is called “universalistic standards”. • Parson views education as being part of a meritocracy, which means a society being governed by people. Education is a secondary agent of socialisation, which bridge between family and society. Parson believes that education introduces values of competition, equality and independence. In a meritocracy everyone is given equality of opportunity. Parson also believes that achievements and rewards are based on effort and ability, and that is how we achieved status. Functionalists’ Perspective on Education

8. Does it exist? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zInIRiBOp44