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Summary AQA A-Level Sociology- Education COMPLETED NOTES
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EducationClass differences in achievement
- Children from MC families on average perform better than WC children and stay in long term
education
- Internal factors are within schools and external factors are outside the education system
External factors
Cultural deprivation
- WC families fail to socialise their children adequately which is why they grow up culturally
deprived
- Intellectual development: it is believed that WC families lack the equipment that would
stimulate a child’s development
- Douglas found WC pupils score less on tests as parents do not support helping their
development at home
- Language: Bereiter and Engelmenn claim language used in WC homes is deficient so as a
result, they fail to develop necessary language skills
- Bernstein identifies elaborated code and restricted code which gives the MC an advantage at
school as they are already fluent users of the elaborated code
- Attitudes and values; parent’s attitudes and values are a key factor affecting achievement
- WC parents lack of interest causes under achievement, but MC parents provide motivation,
discipline and support
- The lower-class belief they have less opportunity therefore they place little value on
achieving
- Sugarman states 4 key barriers
1) Fatalism- a belief in fate; whatever will be cannot be changed
2) Collectivism- valuing being part of a group more than success for yourself
3) Immediate gratification- seeking pleasure short term rather than long term
4) Present time orientation- seeing the present as more important than the future
- Theorists argue parents pass their values to children through primary socialisation
- Compensatory education; policy designed to tackle cultural deprivation by providing
resources to schools in deprived areas
- Programmes E.G. operation head start and educational priority areas
Evaluation
- Neil Keddie believes children are culturally different not culturally deprived
- Schools need to work on challenging victimisation
- Troyna and Williams believe WC are not language deficient, but schools have a speech
hierarchy
- Critics state compensatory education conceals the real cause of under-achievement which is
material deprivation
Material deprivation
- Housing: overcrowding means less room to study and disturbed sleep- the child’s health and
welfare can be affected too
- Also moving houses constantly can disrupt education
, - Diet and health; Howard believes lack of nutrition can affect health and energy levels which
means pupils can’t concentrate or may take absences from school if they fall ill
- Income: lack of financial support places a heavy burden on families as it means pupils can’t
buy the right equipment, pay for transport and uniform
- Flaherty states fear of stigmatisation means those illegible for free school meals do not take
up their entitlement
- Fear of debt means pupils do not go to university
Methods Link: using official statistics
- The government collects official statistics on education which sociologists use to save time
and money. This allows them to establish correlations between social factors
- However, statistics cannot answer the causes of why things happen. Also, the government
does not always collect statistics that may be of interest to sociologists
Evaluation
- Not all poor people fail- too deterministic
- Deprivation may lead to motivation to become better and succeed
- Nevertheless, Robinson believes tackling poverty is the best way to boost achievement
Cultural capital
- Bourdieu uses the concept of capital to explain why the MC are more successful
- Cultural capital= language, knowledge, attitudes, values and abilities which the MC all have
- The lack of cultural capital leads to WC exam failure
- Educational and economic capital; they are interrelated as MC can use their economic
capital to go to private schools and afford to live in catchment areas for better schools
- Sullivan’s questionnaire in schools found greatest cultural capital were children of graduates
- Gewirtz marketisation and parental choice; the education reform act created parental choice
where parents had the choice to choose where to send their children
- She identified 3 main types of parents
1) Privileged skilled choosers- professional MC parents who use their cultural capital to
gain educational capital for their children
2) Disconnected local choosers- WC parents restricted by their lack of capital and are less
confident with dealing with schooling
3) Semi-skilled choosers- WC parents who are ambitious for their children however still
lack the capital to support their children
Methods Link: using documents
- Gewirtz studied the ways in which schools responded to being part of an ‘education market’.
She collected a range of school documents which gave her an insight to the increasing
amount of resources schools were now devoting to ‘selling’ themselves to potential
‘customers’
- However, documents need to be treated with caution. Their content may give a selective
and distortive picture
Class differences in achievement: Internal factors
Labelling
- Becker found teachers judge based on ideal pupil in secondary pupils
, - MC usually seen as ideal pupil
- Rist’s research in kindergarten shows teachers judge based on pupil’s background to
separate groups
- Sharpe and Green found the negative labelling of the WC led to inequalities in wider society
and in schools
- Keddie: low and high-status knowledge assigned to MC and WC
- Gillborn and Youdell; WC placed in lower sets which denies them opportunities
The self-fulfilling prophecy
- Rosenthal and Jacobson; their study found teacher’s belief of pupils influences their
behaviour towards them and how the student reacts
- Students accept the prediction teachers bring about them
- It brings under-achievement
- Streaming; separating students into ability groups
- It is hard to move up in streams; WC are placed in lower streams
- Therefore, MC pupils are placed in higher streams, so they achieve
Methods Link: using experiments
- Rosenthal and Jacobson used a method known as the field experiment. This allows them to
manipulate a real, naturally occurring social situation to discover cause and effect
relationships
- They were able to manipulate a classroom interaction by labelling some pupils as ‘spurters’
to see whether this would cause a self-fulfilling prophecy
- However, the researcher cannot control all the possible factors that might have led to the
‘spurting’, so they cannot be certain they have discovered a real cause
Pupil subcultures
- A group who share similar beliefs and values
- Lacey: concept of differentiation- categorising pupils according to how they perceive their
ability and polarisation- how pupils respond to the streams (extreme poles)
- Pro-school subculture: pupils placed in high streams through academic success
- Anti-school subculture: pupils placed in low streams who searched for alternative ways to
gain status
- Abolishing streaming: Ball’s study showed class inequalities resulted from teacher’s labelling
even without subcultures or streaming
- Pupil responses to labelling and streaming
1) Ingratiation; being the teacher’s pet
2) Ritualism; going through the motions and staying out of trouble
3) Retreatism; daydreaming and messing about
4) Rebellion; outright rejection
- Pupils move between responses
Methods Link: using observation
- Lacey used a variety of methods, including participant and non-participant observation. He
immersed himself in school life and was able to gain insight on social relations in the school
that showed how students polarised to subcultures
- However, this can be very time consuming and may not be representative of other schools
so the study cannot be generalised
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