Meighan, R and Siraj-Blatchford, I (2003). A sociology of Education . 4th ed. London: Continuum. p20-23.…
Paul Corrigan’s ‘Schooling the smash street kids’ takes the ever problematic issues of education and youth and provides a glimpse into it from the other side of the street. Impulsive, informal and unorthodox in writing style, Corrigan talks as if you were an old friend, pulling you in and gently nudging your opinions with personal memories. His work was based in the gritty north-east city of Sunderland, studying 14-15 year old boys in two schools with very different levels of facilities but both with undoubtedly working class pupils. This book does not start with a hypothesis and then test it but arranges each chapter around a relevant question, i.e. why do kids muck about in class, and answers that question at the beginning of the chapter using existing theories and another way at the end showing the process of the sociological research that had been completed.…
It is apparent that most of the studies carried out by numerous sociologist came to the same assumption that middle class pupils tend to do alot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more academic exams, stay on for further education and are more likely to make it into university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from little school to university, processes such as labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy take place which means the working class are always at disadvantage. Labelling is a process within schools where teachers attach a meaning to the pupil for example middle classes are labelled as the ideal pupils however this in itself acts a stereotype as it assumes all middle class fits the description of the perfect pupil but this can be a positive or negative label as those labelled negatively may aim to prove the person wrong as said in Item A. The whole idea of the self fulfilling prophecy takes the process of labelling further as based on the label the teachers make prediction about pupils which usually come true simply by the fact that they were made. The reason it relates with labelling is that it changes the pupils self image by bringing it in line with the expectation others expect him or her to fulfil.…
Sub cultures are a group of people within society who share the same norms, values, beliefs and attitude that go against the main stream in society. This is usually different from or opposed to the main stream culture, for instance an anti-school subculture is more likely to be formed by pupils in lower streams. This is backed up by “They have examined the way in which labelling is linked to other processes within schools that result in class differences in achievement” (Item A) “These processes include self-fulfilling prophecy, streaming and the formation of pupil subcultures” (Item A) Therefore working class children will underachieve and middle class children will continue to progress. This can disadvantage working class children because of the use of home and school contracts. The education triage for working class are labelled as “hopeless cases” which then produces a selffulfilling prophecy and failure, which then leads to working class children going under stereotypical ideas. However, some labelled students go against their label to prove teachers wrong, which pushes them to do just as well as middle class children.…
Using material from item A and elsewhere assess the view that working class children under achieve because they are culturally deprived. (20Marks)…
Cultural deprivation theorists, such as Douglas (1964) argued that working class parents offer less encouragement and support towards their children's education. However, others such as Tizard (1981) argue that the apparent lack of interest of working class parents may mask their lack of confidence or knowledge in dealing with schools. Nonetheless, theorists believed that there are three major factors that are responsible for working-class under-achievement: a lack of intellectual stimulation, the restricted speech code and working-class subcultures.…
“Discuss how far sociologists’ would agree that working class students underachieve in the education system is due to labeling processes that happen in school?”…
As stated in item A, “at GCSE, on average, Chinese and Indian pupils perform better than White, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Black pupils” In addition, it is found that there are major class differences in performance with many working class white pupils performing at a lower level than that of other ethnic groups. For example, Hastings (2006) sees that white pupils make less progress from 11 to 16 years of age, than black or Asian pupils and it is possible that whites may soon become the worst performing ethnic group in the country, due to the rapid improvement of minorities. Sociologists are interested in the reasons for those differences in achievements, and have put forward a number of explanations.…
An inside school factor is ‘laddish’ behaviour, and their status among their peers. Anti-school subcultures are developed mostly over working class boys – especially by the ones who are put into lower sets or streams. Hargreaves and Willis suggest boys are fatalistic in accepting their academic failure as inevitable, so they develop coping strategies, by trying to get credibility from their peers. They do this by disrupting lessons and making it look like they don’t care about their education. However, Carolyn Jackson identifies the motivations for laddish behaviour as being both social failure, and academic failure, and…
Many cultural deprivation theorists argue that the working class homes lack books, educational toys and activities that would stimulate a child’s development in the education system. J.W.B Douglas found that working class children scored lower on tests of ability than the middle class children. He argues that this is because working class are most unlikely to support their children’s intellectual development through reading with them or other educational activities in the home. Middle class…
Middle class children have a higher tendency of achieving more than pupils of the working class. A few explanations pay attention on the external factors outside school. This includes cultural deprivation – working class pupils are portrayed as having a lack of correct attitude, values, language and knowledge for educational success. Whilst material deprivation means that working class pupils are most likely to have poorer diets, health and housing and their parents are less able to meet the hidden costs of schooling. The middle class have mote cultural capital – they have a better advantage of their choices within the marketised education system.…
| This Sociologist argues the working Class Subculture has four key features that acts as a barrier educational success.…
Outline some of the ways in which material deprivation may affect educational achievement. (12 marks)…
To what extent can the period of Conservative dominance between 1951 and 1964 be viewed as ‘Thirteen Wasted Years’?…
In this essay external factors will be assessed. On average, children from middle-class families perform better than working class children. The gap between the grade percentages grow wider as children get older. It is proven that 77% of children from a higher professional background achieve five or more A*-C at GCSE. Whereas only 35% children from a routine background achieve five or more A*-C grades at GCSE. These statistics show that there is a persistent gap in the achievement levels of working class and middle class pupils.…