Using material from Item A and elsewhere assess the view that social class differences in educational achievement are the result of school processes such as labelling.
According to Bynner and Joshi (1999) class differences have persisted since the late 1950’s. It can be seen that all studies carried out by various theorist came to the same conclusion that middle class pupils tend to do a lot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more exams, stay on at school for longer and are five times more likely to go to university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from nursery school to university, processes like labelling or the self fulfilling prophecy take
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The other two groups were seated further away and mainly consisted of working class pupils They were given lower level books to read and fewer opportunities to demonstrate their abilities for example when the teacher asked the pupils to read, those labelled the cardinals and clowns had to read as a group and not as individuals.
David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell’s study (2001) adopts a different approach and instead shows how the school uses the belief of the teachers to decide which pupils have the ability to achieve the 5 A*- c grades at GCSE’s. Working class and black pupils are perceived to lack the required ability therefore ending up being entered in lower tier GCSE’s. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity to gain good grades as even if they get 100% of the test right they will still only achieve a C in lower tier exams.
Both these studies emphasise how labels can put some groups of people especially the Working class at an enormous disadvantage. Once labelled the working class will lack the necessary encouragement and help needed to have any sort of success in exams. This leads to the gap widening in achievement as without the extensive vocabulary which working class don’t receive from lower level books or the abstract high status knowledge needed for explanations in the exam they will never be able to compete
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
Thus, globalization forces researchers to understand the influence of mobility, in addition to education, on social class (Banks & Banks, 2013). This articles I chose to investigate social class and its implications for educational outcomes are Social class and the hidden curriculum of work by Jean Anyon and Reappraising the importance of class in higher education entry and persistence by John Field and Natalie Morgan Klein.
Lubrano explains how middle-class children understand the importance of receiving higher education, while working-class children fail to see the purpose of preparing for a higher level in the short term. According to Lubrano, “Middle-class kids are groomed for another life” (534). Author Patrick Finn states, “Working-class kids see no such connection, understand no future life for which digesting Shakespeare might be of value” (534). In answering this question, Lubrano must look at the various circumstances that account for the poor performances among working-class individuals, the supportive relationships middle-class students have with their parents and teachers, and how children of working-class parents struggle when preparing for later life. In the address, Alfred Lubrano must address the difference in treatment between working-class and middle-class children attending
NAPLAN, the assessment program launched almost 9 years ago and already a subject of criticism and controversy, is becoming increasing intertwined with education in NSW. The NSW Education Standards Authority has attempted to address what they call “falling standards” in the NSW education system, implementing harsher standards that mean preventing students failing to receive a Band 8 from receiving a HSC. These “minimum standards”, backed by former minister for education Adrian Piccoli, have already garnered considerable attention and criticism. Already many parents believe that their children will no longer be able to obtain a HSC, and they will do anything to try and “push up” their child’s result- adding to the environment of already competitive pressure which we see in schools throughout NSW, and further fuelled by so-called “NAPLAN practice books” and aggressive private tutoring.
In the article “From Social Class to the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” written by Jean Anyon, he argues that the working-class and affluent communities both receive a learning-based education, the working-class lacks the fundamentals. Supporting this claim is Diane Ravitch in “The Essentials of a Good education” stating affluent communities provide classes beyond the essentials, including extra-curricular classes and activities with well-equipped material for their children to obtain. Contrastively, the working class community only receives the “basic” courses that consist of mathematics and English for their children. It has become evident that working-class communities in comparison to affluent communities cannot afford an open-handed and
In Gillian Evans’ book of ‘Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain,’ she mainly draws attention between the link of social class and education. Children, who have been brought up in a working class background, do not really have much of a head start in education in comparison to children who come from middle/upper-class backgrounds (Evans, 2006). Educational and economic status of parents plays an essential role on the road to success for their children. What’s more, her chapter proposes that children from working class backgrounds are innate to possess a low level of intelligence, but it can still be argued that a minority of children who come from working class backgrounds do tend to get great results (Evans, 2006). The author has illustrated an outlook on the social structure of intelligence and the way in which a child’s and parents relationship can have an impact on their level of understanding (Evans, 2006). It is commonly known that children tend to always pick things up and the learning process is
When writing my M1 essay assignment, I had a difficult time explaining how social class and education help define the similarities and differences. The biggest problem I had was not being able to explain how social class and education is defined of the expectations that we make of it.. When I was writing my M1 essay assignment, I had a difficult time trying to not repeat myself and I had a hard time trying to make argumentation that was appropriate for the essay. The argumentation wasn't explained with enough details. I had a difficult time trying to use examples for my argumentation and be very specific. When writing my M2 essay assignment, I recognize that I had to compare and contrast between assigned identities or chosen identities. When
Bowles and Gintis argue that education is the reason that this does not happen, as it legitimising class inequality by producing ideologies that justify why this inequality is fair and inevitable. Bowles and Gintis describe education ‘as a giant myth-making machine’ like the myth of meritocracy, which means that it is untrue that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve, that rewards are based on effort and so on. A reason for achieving high income is argued to be determined more from your family and class background rather than ability or educational achievement. This serves the higher classes as it makes it appear that they gained their roles in the workforce by an equal opportunity but in reality, that is not the case, they use this to trick working class pupils to accept inequality. This means that the education system exists not only to allocate and train young people for their future work roles but also to accept the roles they are given and for the bourgeoisie to keep their power.
Over the board, middle class students generally do better than working class students in educational achievement. Some sociologists argue that this is due to three key factors. Labelling, subcultures and marketisation. This focuses on things that occur internally.
Another defining factor for social class is education especially since education is seen as an achievement toward the American Dream. (Lareau, 235). Younger generations seem to place more emphasis on achieving higher education and the occupational opportunities provided for those who are well-educated (Cherlin, 113). The socioeconomic stratification corresponds to those with differing levels of education such as upper/middle class individuals have a college education while working/lower class have some college and/or minimal high school education (Cherlin, 118-119). These individuals and their given circumstances based on education and income have different values and trends about marriage, family and socialization/rearing of children. (Cherlin, 114-117). Family inequality is then based on direct obtainment for individuals who are head of these households such as employment of fathers and mothers (Cherlin, 111), which in turn affects the childhood/family experience of child within the socioeconomic status of their parents. (Lareau,
Brown (1997) argues that middle class families impose values onto their children regarding education from a young age; they place high importance on educational qualifications as they are aware that the job market is becoming increasingly competitive (cited Ball and Vincent, 2001). This suggests that middle-class pupils value school and try to get as much as they can out of it, thus have higher levels of attainment than working-class pupils.
A highly significant change to the national curriculum made at the 2014 update for KS3 is the introduction of assessment without levels (Department for Education, 2014). The system by which children were assigned a numerical level based on their attainment was ceased on the commencement of the new curriculum in September 2014 for all subjects, including science (Department for Education, 2013). This action was implemented based on a report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum review, which suggested that due to changes made to the curriculum over various reassessments, the concept of attainment targets, on which level descriptors were based, had been clouded, making levels difficult to understand and apply (Department for Education, 2015). This meant that level descriptors were no longer clear and should be removed to allow assessment to focus more closely on an individuals’ specific strengths and weaknesses on the content within the curriculum, rather than simply focus on ensuring that a child achieved a certain arbitrary level (Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review, 2011). The abolition of levels has given schools more freedom to design their own assessment framework and address the perceived issue that emphasis of levels as a tool for measuring school performance had led to negative influence on the way individual pupils were assessed (Department for Education, 2015). Bell (2014) suggests that the introduction of assessment without levels is a
Efforts to reach this are the provision of schools, with entry on a meritocratic basis. Following the 1944 Education Act in Britain, the removal of fees from secondary schools and the provision of student grants, certain financial barriers to educational attainment were minimised. Whether we measure equality of access fairly is a debateable topic, however there is overwhelming evidence which confirms that social class origins are strongly and clearly implicated in educational success or failure. Halsey, Heath and Ridge (1981), in a study of 8529 males educated in England and Wales, found that a boy who was considered middle class, compared to a boy in working class had fourth more times of attending a public school, eighteen times more chance of attending a minor independent school and twelve times more chance of attending a direct grant school and three times more chance of attending a grammar school (Journal of Social Policy, 1981). So this study heavily implies that the pattern of unequal access to the more prestigious secondary schools remained, despite the post war education reforms ‘the probability of a working-class boy receiving a fair education in the mid-fifties and sixties were very little different from that of his parents’ generation thirty years earlier’ (Halsey,
1. How may a student's social class origin and related factors impact on her/his learning outcomes and how can teachers intervene to effectively address any resulting disadvantages and injustices for students?
Education is something often seen as an equalizer in the face of social injustice. The concept of using school and information to put different people on a level playing field is a noble but misguided attempt at social equality. Education undoubtedly affects the position of people in society positively, while creating an outlet to educate the ignorant, it becomes problematic when education is not an equal opportunity for everyone. In Adrienne Rich’s essay, “Taking Women Students Seriously”, she speaks of the inequality mainly affecting women while subtly hinting at the inequality present in education in regards to race and class. Gender, race and class are three characteristics that work together to create either a positive or negative profile for one’s education.