Sociology

Differences in Class in Education Achievement.

External Factors

Cultural Deprivation
 Students need basic cultural equipment to be successful at school. These refer to
values/attitudes and skills. We acquire these through the socialisation process.
 Primary socialisation – the process by which you learn norms and values.
 However, according to cultural deprivation theorists, working class families fail to
socialise their children adequately and they grow to be culturally deprived.

Cultural Deprivation

Intellectual development Language Attitudes and values

Lack of educational toys and Deficient W/C parents place

activities to stimulate intellectual language spoken less value on
development. in W/C homes education

Douglas

 Found that W/C scored lower on tests of ability than M/C

 W/C parents did not spend as much time reading to children.

Bernstein and Young

 Argued that M/C parents chose toys that educationally stimulate rather than toys for
play. Toys encouraged thinking and reasoning.

Bernstein

 Restricted code: used by working classes. Short, unfinished sentences that are
predictable and often context bound, e.g. the speaker assumes that the listener
shares the same experiences as them.
 Elaborate code: used by the middle classes. Wider range of vocabulary,
communicates abstract idea and does not assume that the listener shares same
experiences. More explicit.
Douglas

 W/C parents placed less value on education and were less ambitious for their
children. Less encouragement and less interest in education. Visited school less and
less likely to discuss child’s progress.

Feinstein

 Main factor affecting child’s educational success was parental support. Children with
parents who had parents that were educated beyond the minimum age achieved
less than those with support.

Hyman

 Self imposed barrier: parents transmit the idea that there is no point in education
and encourage children to leave school and get a job. No emphasis on better paid
jobs.

Working Class Structure

Sugarman

 W/C subculture has 4 features that act as a barrier to education achievement:

o Fatalism: Nothing you can do to change your status. Whatever will be will
be. M/C place emphasis on changing your position through effort.
o Collectivism: W/C place emphasis on being part of a group rather than
succeeding as an individual. M/C believe you shouldn’t be held back by your
own loyalties.
o Immediate gratification: W/C seek pleasure now rather than later. They are
less willing to make sacrifices in order to gain rewards later in life. M/C place
emphasis on deferred gratification.
o Present time orientation: W/C see present as more important than the
future. They are less likely to make future plans and have long term goals.
M/C culture had future time orientation and make plans.

Keddie

 CD is a myth
 Education system dominated by M/C values.
 W/C culturally different not deprived, cannot be deprived of own culture.

Blackstone and Mortimore

 Parents do not attend parents evening due to work not lack of interest. May be put
off my M/C atmosphere.
Compensatory Education

 Many governments have put policies in place to tackle the problem of cultural
deprivation.
 Operation Head Start: aim was planned enrichment of the deprived child/’s
environment to develop learning and motivation.
 Included improving parenting skills, setting up nurseries, health visitors and intensive
learning programmes.
 Sesame Street: transmits attitudes and values needed for educational success.
Punctuality, numeracy, literacy and general knowledge.
 Several compensatory education programmes: Priority Areas, Education Action
Zones, Sure Start

Material Deprivation
 Refers to poverty and lack of material necessities such as adequate housing and
income.
 In 2006 only 33% of children receiving free school meals gained 5 or more GCSE’s A*-
C against 61% of children not receiving free.
 Jan Flaherty links money problems in the family as a significant factor in non-
attendance at school.
 Nearly 90% of failing schools are located in deprived areas.

Direct Effects

 Overcrowding makes it hard for a child to study

 Disturbed sleep – lack of concentration
 Lack of space to play
 May move more frequently – constant changes in school.

Indirect Affects

 Health may be effected by damping

 Accidents may occur in overcrowded accommodation
 More absence from school.

Howard

 Noted that young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins
and minerals. Poor nutrition affects health.
o Weak immune system
o Poor attendance
o Poor concentration
 o Children from poorer homes have a higher rate of hyperactivity, anxiety and
conduct disorders.

Financial Support and the Cost of Education

Tanner

 Found that the cost of items such as transport, uniform, books, calculators and art
equipment places a heavy burden on poor facilities.
 As a result many children have to make do with hand me downs leady to bullying.
This affects a child’s self esteem.

Flaherty

 believes the fear of being stigmatised leads to many children who are eligible for
school meals referring the entitlement.
 Lack of funds means that children have to work – babysitting, newspaper round,
cleaning.
 Explains why many pupils leave at 16 and do not continue with education
 Less working class children go to university because they cannot afford to go.

Bourdieu

3 types of capital: economic, cultural ad educational.

M/c generally possess more of all 3

Cultural capital: knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities.

M/C more likely to develop intellectual interests

M/C more likely to understand and express ideas within the school system. They will have
better understanding of what the education system requires for success.

W/C pupils feel that school devalues their culture as rough and inferior. Many w/c pupils
get the message that education is not meant for them and respond by taunting or giving up.

Educational and economic capital: more to do with wealth

Private schools, tutors, might have a home in a better catchment area.

Sullivan

 Those who read complex fiction and watched serious TV developed a wider vocab
and greater cultural knowledge, indicating greater cultural capital.
 The pupils with this capital, were children of graduates.
 Far more likely to succeed at GCSE, M/C backgrounds.
Gerwitz

Marketisation of schools: 3 types of parents

 Privileged skill choosers: knowledge, professional.

 Disconnected local choosers: W/C choices restricted, don’t know how to work
system
 Semi-skilled choosers: ambitious but lack knowledge.

Internal Factors
Labelling: many teachers often attach labels regardless of a pupils ability or aptitude.
Instead they base them on stereotyped assumptions about their class background. Labelling
M/C positively W/C negatively.

Becker

 Carried out an important interactionist study of labelling.

 Carried out 60 interviews with Chicago high school teachers. He found that they
judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of an idea pupil.

 Pupils’ work, conduct and appearance were key factors in influencing teachers’
judgements.

 M/C backgrounds closest to the ideal and W/C furthest from it because they
regarded them as badly behaved.

Cicourel and Kitsuse

 Education councillors in an American high school. When students had similar ability
students from m/c were placed in higher level courses.

Student Subcultures

 One of the ways that students react to failing/underachieving in school is to form a

subculture.

 A subculture have their own distinct norms and values they usually take the school
values and subvert them.

Willis

 12 working class boys, rejected school and formed their own subculture.

 Boredom relieved by mucking around and breaking rules: subculture based on

opposition of authority.
  Similarities between the boys and the behaviour of those on the shop floor at work.

Polarisation

 Process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of the opposite
poles or extremes

 Lacey found that higher streams are mainly M/C

 They tend to be committed to school

 The pro-school subculture

 Those placed in lower streams – mainly working class felt they were labelled as
failures

 Low self esteem

 Truanted, cheeky and broke school rules

 Anti- school subculture

 Self-fulfilling prophecy – where you believe something will happen so it influences it

happening.

Differentiation

 Teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability, attitude
and or behaviour.

 If deemed more able given higher status

 If deemed less able given a lower status

Rist

 Labelling occurs from the start within the education system

 Studied pupils and teachers in American kindergarten

 Teacher used information about a child’s home, background and appearance to

place them in separate groups. Each group was set at a different table

Sharp and Green

 Studied a child centred school

 Children were allowed to choose activities themselves and develop at their own
pace.
  Teacher’s felt that when a child was ready to learn they would seek help

 Those who were not ready to learn should be engaged in compensatory play

 M/C children who generally start reading earlier, gained the help they needed and
W/C were ignored

 They argue that negative labelling of W/C children is also the result of inequalities in
the wider society margin

Rosenthal and Jacobson

 Self fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply by being made.

 Step 1 : teacher labels pupil

 Step 2: teacher treats pupil accordingly

 Step 3: pupil takes expectation and act towards them

 Told teachers that a group of randomly selected pupils would spurt ahead of the
others. 47% of this identified group moved forward significantly. Effect was greater
on young pupils.

Woods

 Argues that these are other responses that occur:

o Ingratiation: teacher’s pet

o Ritualism: going through the motions keeping out of trouble

o Retreatism: daydreaming and messing about

o Rebellion: outright objection of everything that the school stands for.

Furlong

 Not committed permanently to one response

 Can depend on peers, teachers, subject, time of day, age

Ball

 When a school abolished banding in schools pupils tended to polarise to subcultures

much less. Influence of anti subculture declined.

 Differentiation continued, M/C pupils still labelled as more cooperative and still
gained better results.
 Marketisation

 Gillborn and Youdell Schools ration time and effort constantly on A-Cs

 Call it the educational triage, how they sort the students:

o Those who will pass anyway

o Borderline C/D – more help given

o Hopeless cases

 Many W/C children are labelled as hopeless due to being labelled as lacking in
ability.

Differences in Ethnic In Achievement

External Factors
How do we define an ethnic group?

 Lawson and Garrod

 ‘people who share common history, customs and identity as well as in most cases,
language and religion and who see themselves as a distinct unit’

Asian Families and Educational Attainment

 Driver and Ballard argue that Asian family structures bring about educational
benefits

 They have most positive attitudes towards education and higher aspirations for their
children. As a result they are very supportive

 Lupton argues that adult authority in Asian families is similar to the model in
schools.

 Respectful behaviour towards adults was expected from children. This had a knock
on effect in school, since most parents were more likely to be supportive of school
behavioural policies.

White Working Class Families

 A large number of white working class pupils underachieve

 A MORI survey found that 80% of 11-16 year old ethnic minority pupils aspired to go
to university as against only 68% of white pupils
  Lupton studied 4 predominantly w/c schools

 Predominantly white: poorer discipline, little parental support, negative attitude

towards education from children and parents

 Serving large Pakistan community: parents more supportive, better discipline and
parents see education as a ‘way up in society’

 Serving mixed ethnic community: parents more supportive, better discipline and
parents see education as ‘way up in society’

 Gillian Evans argues that street culture in white working class areas is brutal

 This way of withstanding intimidation and learning how to intimidate others on the
streets, are played out again in the classroom. This leads to obvious disruption and
makes it hard for pupils to succeed.

Criticisms of cultural deprivation

 Driver believes that many black Caribbean families are far from dysfunctional.. They
provide girls with positive role models of strong independent women. Black girls
tend to be successful in education that then black boys

 Lawrence challenges Pryce’s view that black children underachieve because their
culture is weak and lack self-esteem. He believes black children underachieve due to
racism.

 Keddie argues that ethnic minority children are culturally different and not culturally
deprived. They underachieve in schools because schools are biased in favour of
white culture and against minorities.

 There are many that criticise compensatory education because they see it as an
attempt to impose the dominant white culture on children who already have a
coherent culture of their own.

 They propose two main alternatives: multicultural education (a policy that recognise
and values minority cultures and includes them in the curriculum) anti-racist
education (a policy that challenged the discrimination that exists in schools and
wider society

Lawson and Garrod

 “ people who share common history, customs and identity as well a in most cases,
language and religion, and who see themselves as a distinct unit.” – ethnic group

 Cultural deprivation: intellectual and linguistic skills, attitudes and values, family
structures.
Intellectual and Linguistic Skills

 Cultural deprivation theorists see the lack of intellectual and linguistic skills as a
major cause of under achievement

 Bareiter and Englemann – language spoken by low income black families as

inadequate for educational success

 Bowher – a lack of standard English is a major barrier in progress in education

 Swann report and Gillborn/Mirza language not a major factor in under achievement

 Gillborn and Mirza note that Indian pupils do well despite the lack of English in
homes.

Attitudes and Values

 Many black children lack motivation according to some sociologists black culture
instils a fatalistic line for today attitude

Family Structure and Parental Support

 Cultural deprivation theorists argue that failure to socialise children properly is the
result of a dysfunctional family structure

 Moynihan – a large number of black families are headed by a lone mother their
children are deprived of adequate care, as mom has to work in order to provide.
There is no positive male model which affects a child’s attitude. This becomes a
vicious circle within the black community. These beliefs are echoed by the New
Right, Murray

 Flew believes that ethnic differences in achievement stem from cultural differences
outside the education system not discrimination within it.

 Pryce sees family structure as contributing to underachievement of black Caribbean

pupils in Britain

o Comparison of black and Asian pupils he claims that Asians are higher
achievers because their culture is more resistant to racism and gives them a
greater sense of self worth

o Black Caribbean less cohesive and less resistant to racism

o As a result black pupils have low esteem and underachieve

 Scruton – low achievement levels f some ethnic minorities as a result of a failure to

embrace mainstream British culture.
Material Deprivation

Statistics

 Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are 3 times more likely than whites to be in the poorest
fifth

 Unemployment is 3 times higher for African and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis than
whites

 Pakistanis are twice as likely to be in an unskilled or semi skilled job compared to

whites, Ethnic minority workers are more likely to be engaged in shift work.

 Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are more likely to be engaged in low paird
homeworking

 15% of ethnic minority households live in overcrowded conditions

 Mason ‘discrimination is a continuing and persistent feature of the British citizens of

ethnic minority children’

 Rex shows that racial discrimination leads to social exclusion. In housing, for
instance, discrimination means that minorities are more likely to be forced into poor
housing compared to their white counterparts

 There is evidence that discrimination exists within employment

 Noon sent identical application letter to 100 companies. One signed by Patel and
the other by Evans. The companies were more encouraging to the white candidate.

 Gillborn and Youdell , in one local education authority, African Caribbean were the
highest achievers on entry to secondary school, yet they had the worse GCSE results
of any ethnic group.

 1, Labelling and teacher racism, 2, pupil responses and subcultures, 3, ethnocentric

curriculum, 4, institutional racism, 5, selection and segregation.

 Teachers were more likely and quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the
same behaviour

 They talk about racialised expectations

 When teachers acted on this misperception, pupils responded negatively and further
conflict resulted.

 They expected black pupils to be disruptive/aggressive

 This may explain higher level of exclusions from schools of black pupils
  Similarly Foster found that teachers stereotyped of black pupils led them to being
placed in lower sets than pupils of similar ability

 Over represented

Asian Pupils

 Wright studied multi ethnic primary schools. She found that teachers held
ethnocentric views. They left Asian pupils out of class discussions or used childish
language as they thought their English would be poor.

 They saw Asians as a problem they should ignore and pupils, particularly girls, were
marginalised.

Pupils responses and subcultures

 Fuller and Mac en Ghaill, found that many pupils responded in a positive way to
negative labelling. Fuller studied a group of black girls in a year 11 of a comp. they
were high achievers. They challenged their anger at being stereotyped into
educational success. They did not seek out their approval of teachers.

 They conformed only as far as school work, they showed a deliberate lack of concern
over routines.

 Pupils may succeed when they refuse to conform

 Negative labelling doe not always lead to failure. There was no self fulfilling
prophecy.

 Mac en Ghaill studied black and Asian pupils at a sixth form college. He found that
students who believed teachers labelled them negatively did not always accept these
labels.

 Mirza found a less positive response to teacher racism and negative labelling. She
found that racist teachers discouraged black pupils from being ambitious through
advice they gave them and pupils responded to this by accepting these labels.

 Found that the majority of teachers held racist attitudes and divided them into 3
main categories:

o The colour blind – all pupils equal but allowed racism to go unchallenged

o The liberal chauvinists – believe black pupils are culturally deprived and have
low expectation

o The overt racists – believe black students are inferior and actively
discriminate against them.
  The girls responded by avoiding the effects of these teachers they selected staff to
ask for help, didn’t take part and chose not to take certain options.

 Sewell found a variety of boys responses

 Looks at the strategies that young boys adopt to cope with racism within secondary
schools

 He found many teachers had a stereotype of black machismo.

 Identifies 4 ways in which the boys respond to racist stereotyping

o Rebels (ignore school rules, contempt to whites, sexual, macho, most

influential, rejected goals.)

o Conformists (want to succeed, conform to school, accepts school rules and

goals, not part of subculture, make up largest group)

o Retreatists (isolate themselves, withdrew from school, rebels hated them)

Ethnocentric Curriculum

 Tronya and Williams describe curriculum in British schools as ethnocentric, it gives

priority to one culture whilst disregarding others – white culture and English
language.

 David agrees.

 Ball criticises the national curriculum for ignoring cultural/ethnic differences

promoting an attitude of Little Englandism

 Coard explains that this type of curriculum may produce underachievement

 Criticisms: Not true, Asian, Indian and Chinese above average. Stone disagrees that
the ethnocentric curriculum affects black children’s self esteem.

Institutional racism

 Schools routinely discriminating ethnic minorities

 The ethnocentric curriculum is one example of institutional racism

 Hatcher looked at school governing bodies and found that little priority was given to
race issues and pupil racist behaviour. There were no formal channels of behaviour
between school governors and ethnic minority parents.
  Gillborn believed that marketisation puts pupils from ethnic backgrounds at a
disadvantage. Selection gives more scope for negative stereotypes to influence
decisions about schools admissions.

 Davenport found that selection procedures in American schools led to ethnic

segregation with minority pupils failing to get into better schools. They used primary
school reports to screen out pupils with learning or language difficulties, while the
application process was difficult for less educated or non English speaking parents to
understand.

 procedure favoured white middle class pupils

 The Commission for Racial Equality identified biases in British education: primary
school reports stereotype minority pupils, racist bias in interviews for school places,
lack of information and application forms in minority languages

 Ethnic minority parents often unaware of how the waiting less system works and the
importance of deadlines.

Differences in Gender in Educational Achievement

Feminism

 Strive for equal rights since 1960s

 Improved women's rights and opportunities through changes in the law

 Challenges stereotypical role of mother and housewife

 Improved self esteem

 Media images of women have changed McRobbie

 Changes in the families

 Increase in divorce rates

 Increase in the number of lone parent families

 Increase in cohabitation/decrease in marriage

 Smaller families

 These changes are effecting girls' attitudes toward education. More

women need to be independent and act as positive role models to their
daughters. They need well paid and good qualifications
Changes in women's employment

 1970 Equal Pay Act. It is now illegal to pay women less than men for
work of equal value

 Since 1975 the paygap between men and women has fallen from 30% to 17%

 women in employment has risen from 47% in 1959 to over 70% in 2007

 Some women are breaking the glass ceiling

Girls' changing ambitions

 Sharpe interviewed a group of girls in 1970's and then some in the 90's

 Even in 1974 girls had low aspirations they felt educational success was unfeminine
and if they appeared ambitious they would be unattractive. Their priorities were
love, marriage and children

 In 1990 ambitions had changed. Priority was put on career and education. Girls
wanted to support themselves and be independent

 Francis' study in 2001 backed up Sharpes findings

External Factors

Impact of feminism

 Changes in the family

 Changes in women's employment

 Girls's changing perceptions and ambitions

Internal factors
 Kelly

 Bowler

 National curriculum was introduced in 1998. It made boys and girls study mostly
the same subjects

Equal Opportunities Policy

 GIST Girls Into Science and Technology

  WISE Women Into Science Engineering

 Both of these encourage girls to pursue careers in these non

traditional areas

 Female scientists visited schools acting as role model

 There has been an increase in the proportion of female teachers and

female heads

 These women may act as role models for girls showing them women can
achieve positions of importance

 Teachers show the importance of education in two ways

o By teaching their subject

o The fact that they will have gone through a lengthy education process
themselves

GCSE and coursework

 1988/89 GCSE introduced the brought with it coursework

 Many argue this favours girls more than boys

 Mitos and Browne found that girls are:

o More organised
o Better with deadlines
o Spend more time on work
o Take more care with presentation
o Bring the required equipment to lessons
o Mature quicker
o Can concentrate for longer

 Much of this is determined by the socialisation process

 Elwood disagrees. She analysed the weighting of coursework and exams and found
that exams have more influence on final grades

Teacher attention

 Spender found that teachers spent more time with girls than boys

 French found that teachers interacted with boys when they were naughty
  Francis found that boys received more attention but were treated more
harshly than girls

 Swann and Graddol found that boys are generally more boisterous than
girls and so received more attention. However girls received more
positive attention

Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum

 Many sociologist argue that the removal of stereotypes from books,

reading schemes and other learning materials recently has removed many
barriers for girls

Selection and league tables

 Girls are seen as more desirable recruits as they achieve better exam results

 Jackson notes that the introduction of exam league tables has improved
opportunities for girls, high achieving girls are attractive to schools whereas low
achieving boys are not - self fulfilling prophecy

 Slee argues that boys are less attractive to school because they are more likely to
suffer from behavioural difficulties and are 4 times more likely to be excluded. Boys
are seen as liability students.

2 Views of Girls’ Achievement

Liberal Feminists

 Celebrate progress made so far in improving achievement

 Believe that further progress can be made through more positive models, the
continuation of equal opportunities policies and by overcoming sexist
attitudes/stereotyping

Radical Feminists

 Take a more critical views

 Believe that the education system as the rest of society is patriarchal

 Sexual harassment of girls continues at school

 Education still limits their subject choices and career options

 There are still more male heads than females

  Women are under represented in many areas of the curriculum.

Boys and Achievement

External Factors

 Poorer literacy

 Decline of traditional men’s jobs

Boys and Literacy

 According to the DCSF the gender gap is the result of boy’s poorer literacy and
language skills. Some see reading as a feminist issues

 Mother’s read at a young age to them

 In addition boys have specific leisure pursuits which don’t lend themselves to the
development of literacy and language skills

 Computer games/football as opposed to bedroom culture

Globalisation and traditional men’s jobs

 Traditional men’s jobs: mining, engineer, steel, soldier, builder

 Globalisation is industries relocating to developing countries such as China to take

advantage of cheap labour.

 According to sociologists this has led to an identity crisis for men

 They believe they have little prospect of getting a proper job. This undermines their
confidence, self esteem and motivation. They give up on achieving.

Peer Pressure

 Refers to the influence exerted by a peer group encouraging a person to change

his or her attitudes, values or behaviour in order to conform to groups ‘norms’

 Subject choices can be influenced by peer pressure, an example of this would be

boys opting out of music or dance because they fall outside of the gender
domain. This would gain a negative response from their peers.

 Girls in single sex schools are more likely to choose traditional boys subjects, with
the absence of bys there is less pressure to conform to stereotypes.
  Paetcher found that pupils see sport mainly within the male gender. Sporty girls
have to cope with an image that contradicts the conventional female stereotype.
This may be why girls opt out of such subjects.

 Dewar found that male students would call girls lesbian or butch If they
appeared to be more interested in sport than boys.

Gendered Career Opportunities

 Some sociologists say that employment is highly gendered. This means that certain
jobs are seen as either men’s jobs or women’s jobs, e.g. fireman and nurse

 Women’s job’s are usually an extension of what they do in the home such as
childcare or cleaning

 Over half of women’s jobs fall into four different sectors: clerical, secretarial,
personal services, cleaning

 Only a sixth of male works work in these sectors

 This affects boys and girls perceptions about which jobs are possible or acceptable

 For example if boys get the message that nursery nurses are women then they will
be less likely to opt as one for a career

 Vocational courses are a lot more gender specific , like hairdressing is female

Gendered subject images

 The image that some people perceive from certain academic subject, this can affect
the proportion of certain genders studying certain subjects

 English and cooking are seen as girls subjects whilst science and maths is seen as a
boy’s subject.

 Colley notes that boy subjects are masculine because they often involve heavy
machinery and the way that the subject is taught because boy subjects are often
more formal and less discussion

 A study carried out by the DfES found that in same sex schools they are less likely to
form a gendered stereotype

 Leonard found that in relation to the study above pupils are less likely to choose
traditional gendered subjects, when choosing A Levels, girls chose the sciences and
boys chose Modern languages and English
  This also continued to university where girls were more likely to choose male
dominated subjects to study so they could earn higher salaries.

Early Socialisation

 Early socialisation shapes children’s gender identity, this is where they learn the
values and beliefs of the family.

 Gender role socialisation is the process of learning behaviour expected of males and
females in society.

 According to Ann Oakley ‘sex’ refers to inborn physical differences between males
and females, whereas ‘gender’ refers to the learned cultural differences between
them. Gender role socialisation is the process of learning the behaviour expected of
males in society.

 Norman said that from an early age, boys and girls are dressed differently, given
different toys and encouraged to take part in different activities. Parents reward
boys for being active and girls for being passive.

Byrne

 Teachers encourage boys to be tough show initiative and not be weak or behave like
‘sissies’

 Girls are expected to be quiet, helpful clean and tidy and nor rough or noisy.

Murphy and Elwood

 Show how these lead to different subject choices. Boys read hobby books and
information texts while girls are more likely to read stories about people.

 Boys prefer science subjects whilst girls prefer subjects such as English.

 Brown and Ross argue that children’s beliefs about gender domains are shaped by
their early experiences and expectations of adults.

 Mending a car is seen as male whereas looking after a sick child is not.

 Children are more confident when engaging in tasks that they see as part of their
gender domain.

Murphy

 Boys and girls interpret tasks differently

  Murphy set primary and secondary pupils open ended tasks where they were asked
to design boats and vehicles and to design a an estate agent’s advert for a house.

 Boys designed vehicles and boats with elaborate weaponry, sports cars and houses
with garage space.

 Girls designed cruise ships and family cars and focussed on decor.

 Boys and girls look at different aspects even when they are doing the same tasks . In
general girls focus more on how people feel whereas boys focus on how things are
made and work.

 Girls choose humanities and arts subjects

 Boys choose science subjects

Gender Identity

 Pupils experiences in school reinforce their gender and sexual identities.

o Verbal abuse

o Male peer groups

o Teachers and discipline

o The male gazes

o Double standards

Verbal Abuse

 Connel calls ‘rich vocabulary abuse’ one of the way in which dominant gender and
sexual identities are reinforced. For example, boys use name calling to put down
girls if they dress or behave in certain ways.

 Lees found that boys called girls ‘slags’ if they appeared to be sexually available and
‘drags’ if they didn’t

 Paetcher sees name calling as helping to shape gender identity and maintain male
power. ‘Gay’, ‘queer’ and ‘lezzie’ are way in which pupils police one another’s sexual
identities.
  Parker found that boys were labelled as gay for simply being friendly with girls or
female teachers.

 Both Lees and Paetcher note that these labels bear no relation to pupil’s actual
sexual behaviour.

Male Peer Groups

 Male peer groups also use verbal abuse to reinforce their definitions of masculinity.
Willis showed that boys in anti-school subcultures often accuse boys who want to do
well of being gay or effeminate

 Mac en Ghaill examines how peer groups reproduce a range of different class based
masculine identities. Working class ‘macho lads’ were dismissive of other working
class boys’ who worked hard. The middle class ‘real Englishmen’ tried to project and
image of effortless achievement or succeeding without trying.

 Redman and Mac en Ghaill found that the dominant definition of masculine identity
changes from that by the sixth form. As it is based on intellectual ability.

Teachers and Discipline

 Haywood and Mac en Ghaill found that male teachers told boys off for behaving like
girls and teased them when they gained lower marks in tests than girls. Teachers
tended to ignore verbal abuse towards girls and even blamed girls for attracting it.

 Askew and Ross show that male teacher’s behaviour can subtly reinforce message
about gender. E.g. male teachers often have a protective attitude towards female
colleagues.

The Male Gaze

 Visual aspect to the way pupils control each others identities.

 Mac en Ghaill refers to this as ‘the male gaze’, the way male pupils and teachers
look girls up and down and look at them as though sexual objects and making
judgements about their appearance.

 Sees the male gaze as a form of surveillance through which dominant heterosexual
masculinity is reinforced and femininity devalued.

 Boys who do not this often are at the risk of being labelled as gay.
Double Standards

 Lees identifies a double standard of sexual morality in which boys boast about their
sexual exploits but calls a girl a ‘slag’ if they do.

 Feminists see this as an example of patriarchal ideology that justifies male power
and devalues women. Keeps females subordinate to males.

Educational Policy in Britain

 Industrialisation increased the need for an educated workforce

 In the late 19th century the state became more involved in education

 In this period the education a child received depended on their class background

 M/C children were given an academic curriculum whereas w/c children received
basic numeracy and literacy and learnt to be obedient in factory work

 Tripartite System

 In 1944 education began to be shaped by the ideas of meritocracy

 Which is the idea that you will achieve based on merits and skills

 1944 the Education Act brought on the tripartite system

 The needs and aptitude of these pupils were identified by the 11 plus

 3 schools:

o Grammar Schools

 Academic curriculum

 Non-manual jobs

 Passed the 11 plus

o Secondary Modern

 Non-academic practical curriculum

 Access to manual work

 o Technical schools

 Only existed in certain areas

 Rather than promoting meritocracy the tripartite system and 11 plus produced class
inequality

The Comprehensive System

Introduced in 1965 onwards

Aimed to overcome the class divide legitimised by the tripartite system

11 plus abolished along with grammar and secondary modern schools

Comprehensives replaced them, that all children in the e=area could attend

Class inequality still existed

 Streaming: streamed into ability groups

 Labelling – w/c negative m/c positive

 Comprehensives legitimised inequality. All pupils now went to the same schools so it
appeared they all had equal opportunity regardless of class background

 Still 164 grammar schools in England

Marketisation and parentocracy

 The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced by Thatcher established the principle of
marketisation in education favoured by the New Right

 Created an education market by reducing state control over education and

increasing competition between schools and parental choice of school

 New rights favour this as they argue that state control leads to low standards and
inefficiency. By contrast schools are now more run like businesses that have to
attract customers

 David describes this phase as parentocracy – rule by parents

 Supporters of marketisation argue that the shift moves from the producers to the
consumers. This promotes diversity, gives parents more choice and raises standards

 Policies to promote marketisation:

o Publication of league tables
 o Business sponsorships
o Open enrolment
o Formula funding
o Being allowed to opt out of LEA control
o Competing to attract students
o Educational vouchers.

Criticisms of marketisation and parentocracy

 Increased in equalities

 M/C parents are better placed to take advantage of the choices available. Ball and
later Whitty look at how league tables and funding formula reproduces inequality

Exam League Tables

 Schools with good results are more in demand. Schools can be more selective and
can recruit high achieving pupils mainly m/c. Consequently these pupils get the
better education. For schools in a poorer position, the opposite is true.

Funding formula

 Schools are allocated money on how many pupils they attract. As a result popular
schools get more funding

o Attract better teachers

o Attract better pupils

o Better facilities

 Again the opposite is true for less popular schools

The Myth of Parentocracy

 Marketisation justifies inequality

 Ball believes that marketisation gives the appearance of creating a parentocracy. He

argues that is myth. It appears that all parents have the same freedom to choose
what school to send their children.
  Gerwitz above, but m/c parents have more economic and cultural capital and so can
take better advantages of the choices available

 Compton and Leech show how m/c parents even move to a different catchment
area for better school

New Labour policies in reducing inequalities

 New Labour is a political party that focuses on promoting equality. They believe that
achieving these goals would make Britain more competitive in the global economy
by turning the nation into a high skill, high wage society.

 In 1997 Labour introduced several policies aimed at reducing inequality and in

achievement by targeting support on disadvantaged groups these include providing
some deprived areas with additional resources and designating them as ‘Education
Action Zones’. The aim higher programme to raise the aspirations of groups who are
under represented in higher education.

 Educational Maintenance allowances (EMA’s) payments to encourage students from

low-income backgrounds to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications. A Proposal
to raise the school’s leaving age to 18 by 2015 so that there would be no longer be
any 16 – 17 year olds ‘neets’ (those not in education, employment or training). This
group is largely working class and unqualified.

 Labour also introduced policies to raise achievement and standards such as

o National Literacy Strategy

o Literacy and Numeracy hours

o Reducing primary school class sizes

 It is claimed that these policies reduce inequality and benefit the disadvantaged
groups.

 Labours policies favour the ideas put forward by postmodernists promote diversity
and choice

 Thompson argues that in a postmodern society, schools are able to break free from
the ‘oppressive uniformity’ of the old ‘one size fits all’ education system

 Oppressive Uniformity is where all schools were exactly the same and there were no
differences in the way they were ran.

 Thompson argues that due to this being taken away education has become
‘customised’ and can better meet the needs of the diverse society
  An example of this is the growth of ‘faith schools’ that support different religious
groups and schools that specialise in certain subjects

 Usher has a similar view to Thompson and he contrasts modern and postmodern
against each other to clearly show the differences (mass education/diverse and
customised, controlled by state/ locally by communities, set period in a child’s
life/lifelong learning)

 They argue that the extent of diversity in education is exaggerated

 They believe that postmodernism neglects the continuing importance of inequality in

education.

New Labour Policies

 Under New Labour governments after 1997, spending on education increased

substantially.

 They promoted diversity and choice by maintaining the education market. Policies
include competition between schools, creating Specialist Schools and setting up
Academies

Examples

 Catch up and one to one tuition for pupils who start primary schools behind

 One to one tuition for any pupil still not making progress at age seven

 Catch up help including one to one tuition, provision for any pupil starting secondary
school having not mastered the basics in primary

 Schools who currently fall below maximum bench mark 30% of children receiving 5
grades at A* to C including English and Maths, are being given extra funding and
support

Specialist Schools

 Schools were encouraged to apply for a specialist status, by 2007 about 85% of all
secondary schools had become specialist schools

 Some evidence that has raised standards , results for specialist schools have
outstripped those in none specialist schools

 In 2006 59.9% of their pupils gained GCSE grades A* to C unlike non specialist
schools with only 47.6%

Academies
  Labour promoted academies as policy for raising achievement and plans to have 200
academies by 2010

 Many of these are former comprehensives with poor results and mainly working
class pupils.

 Claimed that creating academies will raise their achievements, however results have
been mixed as some have worsened.

Criticisms of New Labour Policies

Whitty
 New Labour policies are a contradiction between the polices to tackle inequality and
its commitment to marketisation.
 And example of a criticism would be that EMA is good for encouraging your people
to stay in education but the high fees for university may put them off
 New Labour are not solving the problem for class inequalities but are hiding the
problem. Says that polices are ‘merely cosmetic’ to paint a positive picture when the
class inequalities have not been solved.
Curtis
 Labour governments have not removed the charitable status that reduces the
amount of tax they have to pay.
 Estimates this to be worth £100 million per year.
 Also believe that whilst it is a good thing for New Labour to stop building new
grammar schools they are not actually abolishing existing ones therefore they still
exist.

 Others believe that both selective grammar schools and fee paying private schools
exist so class inequalities still stand and middle class children are favoured with
better education still.

Policies on Ethnicity
  There have been policies that have been introduced that aim to raise the
achievements and futures of children from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Assimilation
 1960’s and 70’s policies focused on the needs of pupils from ethnic minority groups
to assimilate into mainstream British culture. This was to raise their achievement
and to help whose first language was not English
 But critics argue that minority groups such as African Caribbean pupils are at risk of
underachieving. These minority groups already speak English and that the cause of
their under achievement lies in poverty or racism.

Multicultural Education
 In the 1980’s and right through to the 1990’s the policy of having a multicultural
came into practise
 Their aim was to acknowledge different cultures and for the pupils who came from
ethnic minority groups to raise their self-esteem and confidence by having their
cultures valued.
 The Multicultural Education has been criticised for several reasons:
o Stone argues that black pupils do not fail due to lack of self esteem
Others argue that the MCE is more tokenism. It points out stereotypes of
minority cultures for inclusion in the curriculum, but fails to tackle racism,
which some see as the real cause of under achievement
o New Right criticises the MCE for cultural divisions. They take on the view that
education should teach a shared national culture and identity do that all
individual minorities should be assimilated

Social Inclusion
Since the late 1990's the focus has been on people from ethnic minority groups and policies
to raise their achievement. Policies include:
o Monitoring exam results by ethnicity
o To place a legal duty to schools (Race Relations Act has been amended)
 o In the black community there has been help for 'saturday schools'
o Continued funding of English as an Additional Language programme
 However, Mirza sees little change in policy and argues tha instead of tackling causes
of ethnic inequality such as poverty and racism, the educational policy take a soft
approach that focuses on behaviour, culture and the home.

 E.g. schemes for motivational and personal development, breakfast clubs, projects of
parenting skills. Mirza argues that these might only make small differences as they
are short terms and are unlikely to make an impact.