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Poverty is the Main Cause of Social Class Differences in Educational Achievement

Decent Essays

Poverty is the Main Cause of Social Class Differences in Educational Achievement

This essay will assess the view that poverty is the main cause of social class differences in educational achievement. There are many causes of these differences which can be linked to cultural deprivation, and will be discussed in this essay.

Material deprivation is lack of money and things which money can buy, and is the main cause of poverty. Item B suggests that that this is the main cause of social class differences in educational achievement as it says that most truants come from poor working class backgrounds and are less likely than their middle class counter parts to obtain a good formal education. …show more content…

Douglas 1964, claimed that middle class children received more attention and encouragement from their parents which was the single most important factor affecting their attainment whereas working class pupils received little encouragement and lacked the motivation to succeed at school.

Also sugarman believed that the working class subculture was fatalistic, concerned with immediate gratification and present time orientated. This meant that they wanted to earn money straight away rather than sacrifice for the future. Middle classes were however prepeared to sacrifice for the future-they were future time orientated and concerned with deferred gratification. However a criticism of immediate gratification in this case is that the students aren’t usually sacrificing as the first year of uni is enjoyable.

In addition to this Basil Bernsteins research shows that schools can contribute to social class differences in educational achievement and his research did not support the view that poverty is the main cause. He claimed that there were two forms of speech patterns-restricted code and elaborated code. The restricted code was a kind of shorthand speech which was used by working class children and the elaborated code spelled out meanings and details. Middle class children are socialised in both forms of speech-teachers use the elaborated code

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