The Long Tail Of Underachievement Essay

One of the major causes of underachievement is the lack of economic capital, proposed by Pierre Bourdieu (1984), that a working class family possess. As item A states, ‘sociologists claim that factors outside the school, such as parental attitudes and parental income, are the main causes of working class underachievement.’ Children who belong to a working class background may not be able to afford the necessary equipment or meet the

Psst... What's the answer to number four?” High school students hear things such as this all too much.“We live in the Age of Comparison. Too often, we deem our own achievements worthless if they fall short of others' standards. Our best isn't good enough if it's not as good as someone else's best” Alexandra Robbins, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. It is this type of elitist thinking that compels so many young students to copy work from pers or “cheat”. It is my belief that all work requires original thoughts to complete it.

Michelle Gardner Cooper AP Language 16 July 2014 Purloining Adolescence The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins combines students’ struggles with little-known facts in order to convey her distaste for the current state of education in the United States. Personal stories of teenage overachievers form the bulk on this novel. Robbins is an authority on the affect extreme pressure has on high school students from having researched it thoroughly.

Kenway’s article Challenging Inequality in Australia: Gonski and Beyond is a critical analysis of how Australian governments have evaluated and responded to the issue of educational disadvantage. The piece primarily focuses its critique on how the Review of Funding for Schooling Final Report (Gonski et al, 2011) recognises, and presents solutions for, educational disadvantage within the national education system. The central argument is that, despite the report’s shortcomings, it should be supported as it emphasises issues of socio-educational disadvantage which urgently need to be addressed. It is noted that the Gonski Report, in its description of the “imperatives” of addressing educational disadvantage, reminds the reader that Australian

Schooling in Australia reproduces and exists to reproduce the structure of inequality we see in class and sex. Social stratification is endorsed by the secular, free and compulsory schooling that is provided in Australian society (Connell, et al., 1986). There is a lack of social mobility through education, especially in capitalist economies, this can be attributed to Government policy and how it tends to increase educational inequality rather than reduce it.

After reading the first portion of three inspiring books, Finnish Lessons 2.0, 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten American Schools and Jules on Schools, I noticed a common theme. I noticed that each book emphasizes the importance of providing equal academic opportunities for every student no matter their background. The first book 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten American Schools written by Berliner and Glass, explains the disconnect of educational opportunities for all students of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States. Our society has been more concerned with bettering themselves instead of funding public education. Schools are becoming segregated, children of wealth are separated into private or charter schools and children living in poverty or children with special needs separated into public schools, “This continuing trend does little to improve educational opportunities for the middle and low-income students ‘left behind’ in public schools.

Firstly, the book pinpoints on the high levels of inequality associated with our Education System. Markedly, the author was inspired by the experiences that a group of ten of his students faced as they progressed through the system. Paradoxically, a look at the American Education System depicts a system with many entry points that serves the interest of every child in a balanced way.

There is an ongoing debate of whether it is morally legitimate to financially favour some schools over others with tax payers money. The aim in providing extra finance to less privileged schools is to minimise social stratification which has the biggest effect on division and educational outcomes. Public school’s are not alone in their need for financial assistance in order to rebalance educational equality and thus it can be said every private or public school should be eligible for government assistance. Lack of resources for rural students, family assistance for low socioeconomic families and mental health for a range of students are all inequality issues that can be improved with government funding, regardless whether the school is private or public. As all other professions, teachers aim for the most esteemed work place and often public, low socioeconomic and rural schools find themselves with limited and poor teachers positioning these students behind others from the get go. In order to close the student achievement gap, the teacher-quality gap must close (Riley 2012) which can only be done by rural and public incentives or accessible teacher training and improvement programs. Australian Education is becoming increasingly privatised with more than “40% of secondary children attend[ing] private schools” (Zyngier 2015) which is why it is one of the very few countries in The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, “that publicly funds private

The pattern of attainment is measured at both primary and secondary education, on the basis of a comparison between different groups of pupils, achieving an expected standard (Gov, 2015:3). The expected standard being a level 4 in reading, writing and maths at the end of their primary education and 5 good passes including English and maths at GCSE, which is their secondary education (Gov,2015:3). This is important to my research because by acknowledging the patterns of attainment within both early years and secondary education, allows one to recognise differences in attainment achieved by the two different groups; pupils from economically deprived areas and their peers. This difference in attainment gives an insight into which group does better, thus allowing one to further research the variation in patterns of attainment and to address matters where some groups of young people at school show as attaining below expectation. This literature review will focus on the particular reasons why pupils from economically deprived backgrounds do worse than their peers, in both early years and secondary education. Also, to examine the responses set by the government on tackling this attainment gap. We must also recognise the reasons for these attainment gaps, reasons as to why pupils from economically deprived backgrounds do worse than their peers. One reason will be covered in this literature review, that reason being cultural

The arrival of the Europeans caused many changes to the Māori society between 1642 and prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Europeans brought with them many things to trade; however, they contributed to fatal impact in New Zealand as they brought with them weapons which killed a lot of people and enslaved many more as more and more Māori competed for weapons. By 1830 the Māori had learnt a lot about the world. They had learnt the skills of trade with Europeans and the Māori had missionaries that taught them how to read, write and communicate with the outside world. New Zealand was no longer an unknown and isolated land

Regardless of the financial costs of education, statistics show in the years from 1983 to 1996 numbers of students in tertiary education doubled and retention rates within secondary schooling reached new heights, rising from 40.6% in 1983 to 71.3% in 1996 (Jamrozik, 2009), clearly placing education as a high value within the Australian society and becoming a lifetime pursuit for many people. However historically, the changes that have occurred over the years, have reinforced Australia’s problem with social inequalities within the education system.

The Maori, “Children of Heaven”, are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It has been thought that Polynesian navigator Kupe, discovered New Zealand in 950 AD, and named the island Aotearoa, “Land of the long white cloud”.1 The Maori migrated to New Zealand from the tropical islands of

This essay will be discussing the social inequalities within New Zealand. These inequalities can include unequal income, education and healthcare. Through extensive research of academic resources, I will be discussing how educational, family, social and political factors contribute to the development of these inequalities. I will also be providing a line graph that shows the unequal income between classes and a second line graph that demonstrates the difference in student success between high decile and low decile schools.

Under-achievement is a threatening position to educators and can be a disruptive force throughout education systems. The idea of under-achievement suggests that the systems is at fault because students do not reach their potential under the guidance of that system. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the idea or terminology of under-achievement in the context of my specific teaching scenario. I will present my argument by first, introducing literature that has been specifically enlightening towards the subject. This essay will then highlight my personal experiences with this phenomenon in my own class room and how certain experiences have helped me define what under-achievement actually is and can help me recognize its features in the future. Lastly, this essay will offer some guidelines in fixing the problems that will be indentified in examining under-achievement, and focus on strategies that may be useful in improving this particular area of education and learning.

permanent European settlers. The Treaty of Waitangi paved the way for greater European settlement in New Zealand and by 1858 the settler population outnumbered Maori. In 1870 the non-Māori population passed 250,000. With this growth came greater demands for Maori land and settler control of politics.