Social Class Differences in Education

Social class differences in educational achievement

Middle-class children generally outperform working-class children in education. Though, it should be considered that they are all interrelated.

External factors:

• Cultural deprivation
• Material deprivation
• Cultural capital

Internal factors:

• Labelling
• Streaming/Subcultures

Point 1: External

Cultural deprivation:

Working-class children are inadequately socialised by their families, leading to them being culturally deprived as they lack the cultural equipment needed to succeed in education.

Bereiter and Engelman – The language used by working-class families is deficient, due to them using a restricted language code. This places working-class students at a disadvantage as the elaborated code is used in schools, for example by teachers and in textbooks.

Evaluation -

Sure Start – Policies such as Sure Start tried to tackle cultural deprivation by improving the cultural capital of working-class students during pre-school, to reduce inequalities when they go to school. However, there was little improvement and the gap between middle- and working-class students still remains.

Perhaps this is due to cultural deprivation being a myth. Keddie argues that working-class children are culturally different, not culturally deprived Thus, policies such as Sure Start aren't tackling cultural deprivation, but are devaluing working-class culture.

Baker-Bell – argues that it's the school's linguistic supremacy that needs to be tackled as it dominates over other forms of language.

This suggests that cultural deprivation is only part of the explanation and there are perhaps internal factors at play. Arguably it is the school viewing working-class culture as inadequate by favouring middle-class values that causes underachievement.

Point 2: External

Material deprivation:

Working-class children lack the material necessities required to succeed in school, such as financial support. This results in them having to do without useful equipment such as internet access which would enhance their educational achievement.

Waldfogel and Washbrook – Discovered that 62% of the poorest groups had no internet access. Thus, working-class students risk falling behind as they experience difficulty studying at home, consequently resulting in them underachieving.

Evaluation -

Education Maintenance Allowance – Tried to tackle material deprivation by giving financial support to 16–19-year-olds in education. This decreased the gap between middle and working-class students, though the gap still remained.

This demonstrates that the EMA wasn't a large factor when improving class differences in achievement, suggesting that material deprivation is only part of the explanation and other factors are at play.

Point 3: External

Cultural capital:

Bourdieu – Both cultural and material factors contribute to educational achievement, thus they are interrelated.

Middle-class parents use their economic capital to help their children gain cultural capital so that they have a greater chance of achieving. Whereas working-class parents generally lack economic and cultural capital, placing their children at a disadvantage in an education system that favours middle-class culture.

Evaluation –

Sullivan – Surveyed pupils and found that where pupils of different classes had the same level of cultural capital, middle-class students still performed better. Thus, cultural capital only accounted for part of the class difference in achievement, suggesting that there are other factors at play.

Point 1: Internal

Labelling:

Becker 1971 - Teachers negatively label working-class students, influencing their self-concept. This causes them to experience a self-fulfilling prophecy, correspondingly become demotivated and potentially form an anti-school subculture, consequently having a negative effect on their achievement.

Evaluation -

Margaret Fuller 1984 - Studied working-class black girls who resisted their negative labels by working hard to prove their school wrong, and achieve highly.

Thus, a negative label can alternatively motivate students, so a self-fulfilling prophecy is not inevitable, ultimately suggesting that labelling theory is too deterministic.

Point 2: Internal

Streaming & Subcultures:

Lacey - Working-class pupils being differentiated through streaming can lead to polarisation, resulting in them forming an anti-school subculture as an alternative way to gain status, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy of educational failure.

Evaluation –

Ball – Found when schools abolished ability groups, pupils' polarising into subcultures declined. However, differentiation continued, as middle-class students were labelled more able, demonstrating that class inequalities can continue as a result of other factors such as teacher labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming.

Conclusion

We cannot look at internal and external factors in isolation from each other.

For example, students are placed into streams fundamentally based on their labels. These labels are determined by external factors such as their class background.

Ultimately, suggesting that the internal and external factors are interrelated and thus shouldn't be looked at separately.

However, internal factors may have played a larger role in these differences as cultural capital deprivation and capital, along with the influence it has on the achievement of working-class students may have only had an indirect impact on education and class differences in achievement.