Outline and assess cultural explanations of social class differences in educational achievement PDF

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Essay - Outline and assess cultural explanations of social class differences in educational achievement
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Ellie Smith

Outline and assess cultural explanations of social class differences in educational achievement (50 marks) Social class differences in education do exist. There is a significant difference in attainment of children with parents who are in professional jobs than unskilled manual jobs, a 40% difference was found. Also children with parents in professional jobs get more GCSE’s and A Levels at A* to C and are more likely to go to university than others. Sir Cryil Burt’s research showed that intelligence was largely inherited and that to measure intelligence children needed to take a test which would then determine what type of school they went to in the tripartite system. The eleven plus exams had a strong correlation between intelligence and social class, as most people that passed were middle class. Arthur Jensen argues that intelligence is abstract reasoning ability and only one portion of the whole human brain and therefore IQ tests are not a valid measure especially regarding the intelligence of different groups as the tests are culturally biased in favour of the middle and upper classes. There are numerous cultural factors affecting the educational achievement of different social classes, especially the working class. Hyman argues that the values of the lower classes prevents them from improving position, this is due to working class people placing a lower value on education as well as achieving a high occupational status and compared to their middle class counterparts the working class believe there is less opportunity for personal advancement. However he found that this did not account for all working class members but was views held by the majority. In 1970 the British sociologist Sugarman argued that differences in educational achievement could be due to the fact that working class cultures contain different attitudes and orientations. He claims that working class people emphasise fatalism which is the acceptance of the situation they’re in instead of trying to improve, thus diminishing high achievement in the classroom. They also emphasise immediate gratification which is the enjoyment of here and now pleasures not the sacrifice for future rewards, meaning they leave school earlier to get an immediate wage packet, this is linked with present-time orientation which can reduce motivation for further academic achievement. The final one is collectivism, this emphasises loyalty to the group and not individual achievement. Sugarman then concludes that these orientations and attitudes place the working class at a disadvantage when it comes to educational achievement. However it could be argued that the attitudes of the working class are not fatalistic but rather realistic. Douglas conducted a longitudinal study on 5,362 British children that were born in 1946. They followed their achievements till the age of 16. He found that the length of stay for pupils at school was linked to their social class; working class pupils were more likely to leave in their fifth year. He related educational attainment to a number of factors but found that the single most important factor was the degree of which parents were interested in their child’s education. Middle class parents tended to show a bigger interest than working class parents, he also found that parental interest and encouragement became increasingly important as a spur to high attainment as the child grew older. Feinstein agreed with Douglas that the most important factor for a child’s educational achievement was parental interest and support, he goes on to suggest that the positive effects of parental interest operate through motivation, discipline and support. However Blackstone and Mortimore (1994) argue that working class parents may be just as interested in their child’s education as middle class parents, but they may struggle to come to parent’s evenings due to unsocial working hours and may be put off school by the way teachers communicate with them.

Ellie Smith Bernstein argued that middle classes succeed in education not because of greater intelligence but merely because they use the preferred way of communicating through speech and writing compared to the working class. He came up with two codes; the restricted code which is that of the working class, it comprises of short sentences, limited vocabulary and few adjectives. The second is the elaborated code which is that of the middle class, it comprises of long sentences that are rich in vocabulary and complicated structure of phrases that depend upon and link with each other. As the elaborated code is generally accepted in schools and education it means that the working class students are less experienced and not used to the environment that middle class students have been brought up with at home, thus creating social inequality and differences in educational achievement. Policies in the USA and the UK have tried to tackle the effects of cultural differences in social class on education attainment. The USA had Operation Head Start, it provided pre-school education in low income areas across America and was there to instil motivation into children to do well and achieve in education. The UK’s version of this was called Educational Priority Areas (EPA), this was conducted in Liverpool, London, Yorkshire and Birmingham. It gave children pre-school education and provided additional measures in primary schools to help raise literacy standards. There were problems with both of these policies, one being that the results were generally very disappointing and it acted as a smokescreen to disguise the real factors of educational achievement differences, as well as placing the blame on the child for their education failures instead of the possible problems with the education system itself. Bourdieu a Marxist sociologist argues that the education system is culturally biased towards the culture of the dominant upper classes. The cultural capital theory does not assume the higher social classes are in any way superior to the working class but Bourdieu argues that the education system is systematically biased in favour of them and they devalue the knowledge and skills of the working class. The knowledge of the working classes is going to keep being devalued because of the cultural reproduction of the dominant classes. These groups are able to impose meanings and impose them as legitimate and worthy of being taught in the education system, this then supports the upper class and helps them maintain their powerful positions as working class people struggle to get to the top. Bourdieu then developed his ideas in terms of the concept habitus, this refers to the lifestyles, the values, the dispositions and expectations of particular social groups and our habitus is developed through experience. It can lead to people making certain types of choices and they are seen as ‘normal’ in their culture or group, for example a middle class student perusing education to get good qualifications and then go onto university, whereas a working class student may leave the education system when they can to find a job. In 1974 Boudon came up with the positional theory, it is the distinction between primary and secondary effects of social stratification on equality of opportunity. Primary effects comprise of things like our attitudes and values to education which differ between cultures and social class. Secondary effects are the positions of individual pupils such as socio-economic status. Boudon states that if there were no primary effects there would still be educational inequality as working class children face greater material sacrifices and difficulties when facing an unknown world, which their middle class counterparts face none of these problems. Social democrats agree with this as they believe we all have a start line that is different to others and material factors can hold students back in education. Reay, David and Ball did research in 2005 and looked at the influence of social class on the choices of higher education institutions. Habitus for example leads working class students to see elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge as ‘not for the likes of them’. Also students who are

Ellie Smith thinking about higher education ask ‘will I belong there?’ as their choices in life are based on social classifications of themselves and the institutions. However middle class students see elite universities as appropriate for ‘people like them’ and progression to elite universities is seen as normal and natural for them. Ball et al in 1994 argues that middle class parents use their cultural capital to play the system, so they can ensure that their children are accepted into the schools of their choice. Ball says their strategy is to make an impression with the head teacher on an open day and they know how to create an appeal if their child is not let into their chosen school. In his later research in 2003 he found that middle class parents can also use their material capital to pay for extra tuition or gain contacts that will help them get into good educational institutions such as governors and head teachers. Material deprivation has been shown to impact upon choice of universities for working class students. Reay et al in 2005 found that many working class students intend to apply for universities closest to them, not due to them being the best but due to them not being able to afford accommodation and the costs of living away from home. It was also found that only 32% of working class students were considering leaving home, compared to 70% of middle class students. Furthermore a survey found that once at university students from the poorest backgrounds had to have jobs to afford material goods but worked longer hours than other students, thus made them hand work in late or even miss lectures, which would consequently affect their education. However now due to the availability of loans it is becoming increasingly better for working class people to attend university to get a good education. In research by Smith and Nobel on the effects of poverty on schooling they list some barriers to learning which can result from a low income. These include inability to afford school uniforms and books, they are not able to afford private tuition to aid in their child’s learning, and they may not be able to provide their child with a computer and the internet which is used widely in education now. McKnight et al also points out the poverty penalty which is the negative effects of poverty on education attainment, this poverty penalty appears higher for whites than for other ethnic groups, and however for Chinese pupils the poverty penalty seems to have little or no effect. This shows that poverty has a big impact on student’s educational attainment as you are unable to aid your learning with other resources or have enough time for your studies, which links in with economic capital, this I where working class students are more likely to have part time jobs to fund their accommodation. It has also been found that working class students are four times less likely to go to university due to the fear of debt, this then means students who do miss deadlines and lectures due to term time working to help pay off their loans. A survey found that 90% of students studied took out a student loan, 70% of students said they were struggling financially and were worried about debts, 50% had term time jobs to help pay for the basics such as food and rent. Another factor influencing social class differences on educational attainment is school. Self-fulfilling prophecies can have a big impact on educational achievement, Jacobson and Rosenthal found that when teachers were told that a random sample of pupils was expected to make rapid progress they showed greater gain one year later. This suggests that children’s achievement was based on labelling by teachers using stereotypical views and this caused a self-fulfilling prophecy and further suggests that the underachievement of working class children is due to the stereotypical views that teacher’s hold and not the fault of the child. However this is too deterministic as Fuller found that black girls often break their stereotypes. A subsequent school factor is the banding of pupils which leads to underachievement in working class children. In 1981 Ball conducted some research at Beachside Comprehensive and found that

Ellie Smith teachers had lower expectations of lower band students and they were then directed towards practical subjects and lower level exams. This suggests that working class students underachieve due to the school putting them in lower bands where they are not pushed to do their best education wise. Streaming also causes underachievement in working class students, Keddie found that abstract knowledge seen as worthwhile and what knowledge that was made available to the pupils was dependent on the teachers decision as to whether their pupils could ‘handle’ the knowledge and understand it. This suggests that teachers would not give certain knowledge to working class pupils as they may struggle to understand it whereas middle class pupils in the higher sets had the availability to the top knowledge and thus means that upper class children are more likely to achieve better grades. In conclusion middle and higher class children do better in education due to a number of factors. They do not have any material factors holding them back and so can progress onto university while still being able to afford books and utilities that will aid their learning. Also middle class parents have a better understanding of the education system and can help their child out when it comes to exams such as the eleven plus exam which was geared towards middle class culture. Furthermore the existence of private schools means that middle and higher class people can get the best education as they have the money for the yearly fees which working class people would be unable to pay, this can then lead to an old boy network as they create ties with higher up people to help them get into the best universities and then jobs. Due to private schools and private tuition the gap between working class and middle class educational achievement is forever increasing and this can even be down to simple factors such as setting in secondary schools as teachers focus more on pupils that are doing well so they can achieve the highest grades....