High School and Education Essay

1a) Cultural Deprivation -Intellectual Development: development of thinking and reasoning skills.

Theorists would argue that many WC homes lack educational books, toys and activities that would help stimulate a child’s intellectual development. Douglas- WC pupils scored lower on test of ability, as their parents are less likely to support their children’s intellectual development. Bernstein and Young- mothers choose toys that influence intellectual development.

Criticism: WC may not be able to afford these toys etc. -Language: children fail to develop necessary language skills and grow up incapable of abstract thinking and unable to use language to explain, describe, enquire and compare. Restricted & Elaborated code; Bernstein. MC have an advantage as the elaborated code is used by teachers, text books and exams. Also MC pupils are already fluent speakers (socialisation) so they ‘feel at home’ in school and are more likely to succeed.

Criticism: Bernstein describes WC speech inadequate. -Attitudes and Values: Parents attitudes and values are a key factor affecting educational achievement. Douglas- WC parents place less value on education. Feinstein- the lack of interest is more important than financial hardship or factors within school.

Many WC subcultures have different goals, beliefs, attitudes and values from the rest of society. Hyman- WC subculture is a self-imposed barrier to educational success. Sugerman- Fatalism, Collectivism, Immediate Gratification, Present-time Orientation. WC children internalise the beliefs and values of their subculture through the socialisation process meaning under-achievement. -Compensatory Education: Policy designed to tackle the problem of CD by providing extra resources to school and communities in deprived areas. E.g.

Sure Start, Education Action Zones etc. Criticism: Don’t see the real cause of under-achievement (poverty and material deprivation). -Criticisms: Keddie; CD is a myth and blames victims. A child cannot be deprived of their own culture they are just culturally different. Troyna and Williams; teachers have a ‘speech hierarchy’ where MC speech is highest.

Blackstone and Mortimore; parents attend fewer parent evenings as they may work longer hours/less regular hours or put off by school’s MC atmosphere. Also may not help their children’s progress as they lack the knowledge. -Studies show that WC children are more likely to leave school from the age of 16 and are less likely to go on to sixth form and university. Also working-class children are more likely to start school unable to read, and are more likely to fall behind in reading, writing and number skills. 1b) Material Deprivation -Referred to poverty and lack of material necessities (housing/income). -Stats; 32% of WC students were considering moving out of the family home to attend university. 90% of failing schools are in deprived areas.

33% of those receiving free school meals got 5 or more A*-C GCSE grades. 90% of ‘failing’ schools are located in deprived areas. -Housing- overcrowded housing means less space to do work, play, sleep etc, and greater risk of accidents. -Diet and health- lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals. Poor nutrition ->weaker immune system ->lowering children’s energy levels ->get ill easier (poor attendance at school). WC children are more likely to have behavioural or emotional problems. -Financial Support- WC children lack equipment and miss out on school trips.

They also make do with hand-me-downs (results in being stigmatised/bullied). Children living in poverty take on jobs (baby sitting, cleaning, paper rounds) which has a negative impact on their school work. Also very few go on to university. The government has tried to tackle this problem, e.g. EMA, raising the school leaving age and providing free-school meals. -Criticisms: Ignores internal factors and cultural deprivation.

1c) Cultural Capital -Bourdieu suggested MC culture is as valuable in educational terms as economic capital. The forms of knowledge, values, ways of interacting and communicating ideas that MC children possess are developed further and rewarded by the education system (qualifications).WC have a lack of cultural capital which leads to exam failure. They also ‘get the message’ that education isn’t meant for them thus they truant/leave school early/provide no effort. -Education, economic and cultural capital can be converted into one another. E.g.

MC children with cultural capital are better equipped to meet the demands of school and gain qualifications. Wealthier parents can convert their economic capital into educational capital by sending their children to private schools, and paying extra tuition. -Gewirtz: sees how greater parental choice of school has benefited one social class more. Study; 14 London schools with interviews from parents and teachers. She found that differences in economic and cultural capital lead to class differences in how far parents can implement choice of secondary school.

She identifies three main types of parents; privileged-skilled choosers (MC parents who used their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children), disconnected-local choosers (WC parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital), and semi-skilled choosers (mainly WC who were ambitious for their children but lacked cultural capital). Internal Factors (class difference) 2a) Labelling -Attaching a meaning to someone. Teachers often attach labels regardless of their ability or attitude. -Howard Becker- Did a study based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers; they judge pupils to what they think is the ‘ideal pupil’.

WC children were furthest (regarded as badly behaved). -Cicourel and Kitsuese- Did a study of educational counsellors in an American high school; they claimed to judge students according to their ability, however, they judged students on their social class/race- MC have more potential than WC children. -Rist- Did a study of an American kindergarten; the teacher used information about children’s background and appearance to place them into separate groups. At the front was the ‘tigers’ (MC, given complex work), ‘cardinals’ and then the ‘clowns’ (given easy work like drawing). -Sharp and Green- Did a study about a ‘child-centred’ primary school; children picked their own activities, teachers felt when a child is ready to learn they will seek help.

However, teachers believed that children who weren’t ready should engage in ‘compensatory play’. Their findings support the interactionist view that children of different class background are labelled differently. They argue that the negative labelling of the WC is also the result of inequalities in wider society. 2b) Self-Fulfilling Prophecy -A prediction that comes true because it has been made. Step 1: Teacher labels pupil and makes predictions.

Step 2: Teacher treats the pupil accordingly. Step 3: Pupil internalises the teacher’s expectation which becomes part of their self-concept/image, and becomes the kind of pupil the teacher believed (prediction is fulfilled). -Streaming: involves separating children into different ability groups (streams). Each group is taught differently. Studies show that the self-fulfilling prophecy is likely to occur once streamed. WC children are usually put in a lower stream as they aren’t ‘ideal pupils’.

It is difficult to move up into a higher stream thus are locked into their teachers expectations ->self-fulfilling prophecy as the youngsters live up to all their teachers targets by under-achieving. 2c) Student Subcultures -A group of students who talk about similar ideals and actions patterns. They emerge like a response to the way in which pupils had been labelled (reaction to streaming). -Lacey: Differentiation- process of instructors categorising learners according for their ability/attitude/behaviour. Polarisation- process through which pupils reply to streaming by moving toward one of the two opposite extreme conditions.

Pro-school subculture- placed in bigger streams, stay committed to the values of faculty and gain status through academic success. Anti-school subculture- placed in reduce streams, have got inferior status. -Hargreaves: You will discover two distinctive subcultures: Conformists and Non-conformists delinquents (a delinquent subculture that helped guarantee their particular educational failure). -Woods: argues that instead of seeing pupil subcultures because either conformist or deviant, it is more realistic to get a variety of feasible adaptations/responses towards the schooling method.

Pro-school: Ingratiation (pupils who have try to generate the prefer of teachers), Opportunism (those who vary between tutor and expert approval), Compliance (pupils who conform pertaining to instrumental reasons), Ritualism (pupils who feel the motions), Colonisation (pupils who also avoid trouble, but will deviate if there is significantly less punishment). Anti-school: Ritualism, Retreatism (not opposed to school beliefs, but not concerned with achieving success), Colonisation, Intransigence (deviate and aren’t irritated about the consequences), Rebellion (pupils possess little consider to school ideals and decline school teachings). -Ball: discovered that when the college abolished fixing, the basis intended for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely eliminated and the affect of the anti-school subculture rejected.

However , difference continued. Consequently, class inequalities can continue due to teachers labelling. -Limitations: Deterministic: assumes that when pupils are labelled, they may have no choice but to fulfil the prophecy and can inevitably fail. Ignores larger structures of power: blames teachers for labelling pupils but fails to explain how come. 2d) Marketisation and Collection Policies -Marketisation is a plan that features market makes of source and require into areas run by state.

Marketisation has brought in; Funding formula (giving a college the same amount of funds for every single pupil), Test League Furniture (ranking universities based on their exam performance), Competition between schools to attract pupils. -A-C Economy: Schools need to achieve a good league table situation to attract students and funding. However , this kind of widens the class gap in achievement. The A-C economic system is a program in which educational institutions ration all their time, cash, effort and resources to the people who will obtain 5 A*-C GCSEs to obtain a high list. -Educational Choix: sorting pupils; ‘those that will pass anyway’, ‘those with potential’, ‘hopeless cases’.

Those classed while hopeless instances are disregarded (self-fulfilling prediction and failure). -Competition and Selection: Schools with a good little league table location will be positioned to attract different able/MC learners. Thus enhances the school’s results besides making it widely used which increases funding. Well-known schools are able to afford to display screen out much less able plus more difficult learners, unpopular schools are obliged to take the, get worse results, and get less funding.

Cream skimming: selecting larger ability students, who gain the best benefits and are cheaper to teach. Silt-shifting: off-loading students with learning difficulties, whom are expensive to train and obtain poor effects. -Attraction: creating school legal agreements to attract father and mother, buying things such as pipe organs to get a ‘traditional’ image of the school (attracting the MC), offer maintained and city technology colleges provide vocational education in partnership with business employers (another route to elite education).

Ball ou al shows that schools dedicate more on marketing themselves to parents, and spend less in special requirements in other areas. -Marketisation and selection – created a polarised education system, with powerful, well-resourced colleges at one particular extreme, and failing un-resourced schools with the other; blurry hierarchy. -Intellectual and linguistic skills: Main cause of under-achievement. Many children from low-income black family members lack perceptive stimulation and enriching experience. This leaves them badly equipped to get school because they have certainly not been able to develop reasoning and problem-solving skills. Also the chinese language used by dark-colored children in inadequate for educational achievement.

Also individuals who don’t speak English at home may be slowed down educationally. Nevertheless , Mirza and Gillborn remember that Indian learners do very well despite not having English as their residence language. -Attitudes and Beliefs: Lack of determination is a main cause of the failure of black kids. Many youngsters are socialised within a mainstream culture of aspirations, competitiveness and willingness to create scarifies to achieve long-term desired goals.

Black children are socialised to a fatalistic subculture. -Family composition: Failure to socialise children adequately is the result of unable to start family framework. Many dark families are headed by a lone-mother; their children are miserable of satisfactory care because she has to struggle economically due to the a shortage of the male breadwinner. The a shortage of the father likewise leads to the absence of good role unit. Charles Murray: would lead to the under-achievement of a few minorities. Pryce: Asian students are larger achievers because their traditions is more resists racism and provides them a larger sense of self-worth.

Dark-colored culture is less cohesive and fewer resistant to racism. Thus they may have low self-esteem and under-achieve. -Asian family members: Driver and Ballard: that they bring educational benefits while the parents have an overabundance positive perceptions towards education, higher dreams and are for that reason more supporting. Lupton: sincere behaviour towards adults was expected from kids, and had a knock-on effect in educational institutions. Khan: mother and father are ‘stress ridden’, bound by tradition, and controlling. -Criticisms: Driver: ignores positive effects of ethnicity on achievement.

Lawrence: black pupils under-achieve as a result of racism not self-esteem. Keddie: victim-blaming theory. They under-achieve because schools are ethnocentric and prefer white traditions. Compensatory Education: it is an try to impose around the dominant white culture upon children who may have a lifestyle of their own. Critics propose two alternatives: Modern education: recognises values of minority ethnicities and contains them in the curriculum.

Anti-racist education: problems the prejudice and discrimination that is present in universities and wider society. 3b) Material Deprivation -Stats: 1) Pakistani and Bangladeshi girls are more likely to have low-paid jobs. 2) 15% of ethnic minority people live in overloaded conditions. 3) Unemployment is three times bigger for African and Bangladeshi/Pakistani people. -Gillborn and Mirza argue that cultural class factors don’t ignore the influence of ethnicity. Whenever we compare pupils of the same interpersonal class but different cultural origins, we all still discover differences in success.

3c) Racism in Wider Society -David Mason: ‘Discrimination is a continuous and persistent characteristic of the experience of Britain’s citizen’s of ethnic minority origin’. -Rex: displays how ethnicity discrimination brings about social exclusion and how this kind of worsens the poverty faced by ethnic minorities. E. g. enclosure; minorities are more likely to be forced in substandard accommodation than whites. -Noon: two people with the same qualifications and experience sent applications for a job. Yet , the white person received the job, rather than the Indian.

Thus shows that ethnic minorities are more likely to face lack of employment and low pay. Inner Factors (ethnic differences) 4a) Labelling and Teacher Racism -Interactionists: They will see that educators picture an image of the ‘ideal pupil’. But they see that grayscale Asian not even close to the ideal scholar. This qualified prospects them to labeled black learners as disruptive and intense, and Oriental pupils since passive and a problem they will ignore. -Gillborn and Youdell: due to racialised expectations, educators were quicker to self-discipline black students than others for the same behaviour. -Black pupils: Teachers misunderstood their actions as threatening/challenge to specialist.

Pupils then responded adversely and further discord resulted. This may be why various black pupils are excluded, and their stereotypes may cause these to be in reduced sets (under-achievement). -Asian pupils: Teachers believed that they could have a poor understand of English and left them out of class conversations or used simplistic idiotic language. They also felt separated when teachers mispronounced their particular names or perhaps teachers expressed disapproval of their customs. 4b) Pupil Responses and Subcultures -Fuller: Research of a number of black young ladies in 12 months 11.

Found that the ladies conformed as far as school work was concerned. They worked regularly, but offered the appearance of not doing so (positive attitude to educational success, yet preferred to rely on their own efforts than teachers). Bigger sees that pupils may still succeed even when they will refuse to adapt, and negatively labelling doesn’t always bring about failure (no self-fulfilling prophecy). -Mirza: Analyze of ambitious girls whom faced tutor racism. The study failed as their coping approaches restricted their particular opportunities and thus under-achieved.

She found that racist teachers discouraged dark pupils coming from being driven through the kind of career tips that was given to them. The colour sightless: teachers who believe almost all pupils happen to be equal nevertheless allow racism got unchallenged. Liberal chauvinists: teachers whom believe dark-colored pupils happen to be culturally starving and had low expectations of these. Overt racists: teachers who also believe blacks are poor and discriminate against them. -Sewell: Several ways in which boys respond to hurtful stereotyping: Rebels (rejected both the goals and rules of school, conforming towards the stereotype in the ‘black macho lad’.

Saw white boys as effeminate), Conformists (keen to succeed, acknowledged the school’s goals and avoided stereotypes from teachers or their peers), Retreatists (disconnected via both school and dark subcultures), Trailblazers (pro-education although anti-school). 4c) The Ethnocentric Curriculum -Ethnocentric: attitude/policy which gives more value to just one culture and ignores the rest. -The programs is very ethnocentric (favouring light culture). Electronic. g. in teaching ‘languages’; non-European languages are overlooked (also other cultures in literature, artwork and music).

However , in history, black record is taught, but it is focused on slavery. This may generate lower self-esteem to dark-colored pupils because this picture of black people as substandard undermines them and may cause failure. 4d) Institutional Racism -Institutional racism: discrimination that is certainly built into how institutions run. -Schools are likely to set strategies for the gifted and talented, and vocational schemes for the less educational e. g. black and Asians. -Feminism: McRobbie shows that journals in the 1970’s emphasised the importance of getting married.

Whereas, nowadays, they include images of assertive, impartial women. Likewise soap plays now spotlight the importance of self-esteem and personal choice intended for young females. -Family: Sine the 1970’s there have been key changes in the friends and family. For example: a rise in divorce costs, increase in melange and a decrease in the quantity of first marriages, increase in the quantity of lone-parent family members (female-headed) and smaller family members.

These alterations affect girl’s attitudes to education. Such as: the increase in female lone-parent families may mean more women need to take on the breadwinner position. This produces a new mature role style for girls- the financially independent.

To accomplish this, women will need well-paid jobs, and thus good qualifications. As well the increase in divorce prices suggests that young ladies can make their own living. -Employment: 1970 Similar Pay Action (illegal to pay girls less for the similar job while men), Sex Discrimination Act. Women’s job has gone up due to the support sector and flexible part-time work.

1975- The pay space between men and women has increased. Females are now disregarding through the ‘glass ceiling’ (keeps them out of high-level professional managerial jobs). -Ambitions: Sharpe- research involved conducting interviews with girls inside the 1970’s and 1990’s. Inside the 1970’s girls felt that education with unfeminine and if they were interested, it would get them to unattractive.

Inside the 1990’s, the girl’s ambitions had transformed, and thought careers will be more important as they can support themselves. 5b) Young boys -Equal options policies: Guidelines such as GIST and WISE encourage young ladies to go after a career in nontraditional areas. The National Curriculum offers removed a single source of gender inequality by looking into making girls and boys examine mostly a similar subjects.

Likewise schooling has become meritocentric. -Positive role versions: The increase in female educators shows that ladies can achieve positions of importance and giving them nontraditional goals to aim for. -GCSE and coursework: Girls are usually more successful in coursework because they are more careful and better organised. Sociologists argue that these types of characteristics and skills are the result of early on gender socialisation. E. g. girls will tend to be encouraged to become neat, clean and sufferer. This puts girls within a better place as they attain greater accomplishment. Elwood- not the only cause of the sexuality gap. -Teacher attention: Instructors paid more attention to kids as they are interested in reprimands.

This could explain why teachers have more positive attitudes to ladies, whom they see while cooperative, than to kids, whom are noticed as troublesome. This may lead to self fulfilling prophecy through which successful interactions with educators promote girls self-esteem and raise the success levels. -Challenging stereotypes inside the curriculum: Sexist images have already been removed from learning materials. This may help increase girl’s accomplishment levels- more positive images of what women can perform. -Selection and league tables: Girls are more likely to be hired from great schools because they are more attractive to schools.

This might create a self fulfilling prophecy. -Feminists: Liberal- See that further progress will be made by the continuing developments of equal possibilities, and see education is a meritocracy. Radical- System still is still patriarchal. At the. g. sex harassment proceeds, education continue to limits their particular subject choice and job options, females are less very likely to become head-teachers.