Changing the way you learn

External Factors in Class Differences in Educational Achievement [Cultural Deprivation]

Language and Speech Codes
1. Hubbs-Tait et al (2002) - Cognitive performance improves when parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities, e.g. what do you think? or are you ready for the next step?
  1. Leon Feinstein (2008) - educated parents are more likely to use this type of language
    1. Educated parents are also more likely to use praise which allows and encourages their children to develop a sense of their own competence.
  2. Less educated parents are more likely to use language where children are only required to make simple descriptive statements, e.g. what's that animal called? This results in lower performance.
2. Carl Bereiter and Siegfried Engelmann (1996) - language in lower-class homes is deficient because they communicate using gestures, single words or disjointed phrases
  1. This results in working-class children being unable to develop the necessary language skills. Therefore, they grow up incapable of abstract thinking and unable to use language to explain, describe, enquire or compare.
    1. This means that working-class children are unable to take advantage of the opportunities that school offers.
3. Basil Bernstein (1975) - There are differences in the way middle-class and working-class language influences achievement.
  1. The RESTRICTED Code - typically used by the working class. The restricted code has a limited vocabulary and is based on the use of short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences. The speech descriptive, not analytic and is context-bound. It is predictable and may use only a single word or a gesture.
  2. The ELABORATED Code - typically used by the middle class. The elaborated code has a wider vocabulary and is based on longer grammatically more complex sentences. The speech is more varied and communicates abstract ideas. The elaborated code is also context-free, the speaker doesn't assume the listener shares the same experience so they spell out their meaning explicitly for the listener.
  3. Criticism - Bernstein describes working-class speech as inadequate therefore, he is a cultural deprivation theorist. However, Bernstein does recognise that the school also influences children's achievement and argues that working-class pupils fail because the school fails to teach them the elaborated code and how to use it
  4. These speech codes give middle-class children an advantage at school because the elaborated code is used by teachers, exams and textbooks. Therefore, it is seen as the 'correct' way to speak and write.
    1. Middle-class pupils feel 'at home' in school because early socialisation into the elaborated code means that they are already fluent users of the code when they start school.
    2. Working-class pupils tend to feel excluded and be less successful because they lack the code that the school uses.
Parents' Education
1. Douglas (1964) - Working-class parents placed less value on education, therefore, they were less ambitious for their children, gave them less encouragement and took less interest in their education. They also visited schools less often and were less likely to discuss their children's progress with teachers. This resulted in their children having lower levels of motivation and achievement
2. Leon Feinstein (2008) - parents' own education is the most important factor affecting children's achievement and since middle-class parents tend to be better educated, they are able to give their children an advantage by how they are socialised. This socialisation occurs in many ways.
  1. Educated parents' parenting style emphasises consistent discipline and high expectations of their children, and this supports achievement by encouraging active learning and exploration.
    1. Less educated parents' parenting style is marked by harsh or inconsistent discipline that emphasises on 'doing as you are told' and 'behaving yourself'. This prevents the child from learning independence and self-control, leading to poorer motivation at school and problems interacting with teachers.
  2. Educated parents are more aware of what is needed to assist their children's educational progress. Therefore, they engage in behaviour such as, "reading to them, teaching them letters, numbers, songs, poems, and nursery rhymes, painting and drawing, helping with homework and being actively involved in their schooling."
    1. Educated parents also recognise the educational value of activities such as visits to museums and libraries. They are also better able to get expert advice on childreaing, more successful in estalishing good relationships with teachers and better at guiding their children's interactions with school.
  3. Better educated parents not only tend to have higher incomes, but they also spend their income in ways that promote thier children's educational success.
    1. Bernstein and young (1967) - Middle-class mothers were more likely to buy educational toys, books and activities that encourage reasoning skills and stimulate intellectual development. Working-class homes were more likely to not have access to these resources, therefore, children from these homes started school without the intellectual skills needed to progress.
    2. Educated parents also had more understanding about the value of nutritional food and its importance to the development of their children and had a higher incometo buy it with.
  4. Middle-class parents tend to be both better paid and better educated than working-class parents. Feinstein argues that parental education also has an influence on children's achievement despite class and income. This is may help to explain why not all middle-class children are equally successful and why not all working-class children are equally unsuccessful.
Working-Class Subculture
1. Cultural deprivation theorists - Sections of the working class have different goals, beliefs, attitudes and values from the rest of society and this is why their children fail at school
  1. Barry Sugarman (1970) - Working-class subculture has four key elements that act as a barrier to educational achievement.
    1. Fatalism - believe in fate and that 'whatever will be, will be' and there is nothing you can do to change your status. This is a contrast from middle-class values which emphasise that you can change your position through your own efforts
    2. Collectivism - Valuing being part of a team or group more than succeeding as an individual. This contrasts to the middle-class value that an individual should not be held back by group loyalties.
    3. Immediate Gratification - look for pleasure now rather than making sacrifices to get rewards in the future. This contrasts to the middle-class whose values emphasise deferred gratification, making sacrifices now for greater rewards later.
    4. Present-time Orientation - see the present as more important than the future and therefore, don't have long-term goals or plans. This is a contrast to the middle-class culture which has a future-time orientation that sees planning for the future as important
    5. Sugarman argues that these differences occur because middle-class jobs are secure careers offering prospects for continuous individual advancement. This encourages ambition, long-term planning and a willingness to invest time and effort in gaining qualifications. But working-class jobs are less secure and have no career structure through which individuals can advance. There are few promotion opportunities and earnings peak at an early age.
  2. Cultural deprivation theorists argue that parents pass down their values to their children through primary socialisation. Therefore, middle-class children are equipped for success through middle-class values whilst working-class children are not due to working-class values.
2. Compensatory education programmes aim to tackle the problem of cultural deprivation by providing extra resources to schools and communities which are most deprived. They intervene early in the socialisation process to compensate children for the deprivation they experience at home.
  1. An example of this is Operation Head Start which was a multi-billion dollar scheme of pre-school education in the US in the 1960s. OHSs' aim was 'planned enrichment' of the deprived child's environment to develop skills and instil achievement motivation. It included improving parenting skills, setting up nursery classes and home visits by educational psychologists.
  2. In Britain, we have had Educational Priority Areas, Education Action Zones, and Sure Start.
    1. Sure Start is a nationwide programme aimed at pre-school children and their parents. It was part of the New Labour governments social policies to tackle poverty and social exclusion. Sure Start aimed to work with parents to promote the physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children, particularly those who are disadvantaged, so that they can flourish at home and when they go to school and therefore, break the cycle of disadvantage. By 2010, there were arund 3500 local Sure Start Children's Centres, with all young children in the most disadvantaged areas having access.
3. Nell Keddie (1973) - Cultural deprivation is a myth and it is a victim-blaming explanation. She argues that a child cannot be deprived of its own culture and that working-class children are simply culturally different, not culturally deprived. They fail because they are disadvantaged by an education system which is dominated by middle-class values. She argues that rather than seeing working-class subcultures as deficient, schools should recognise and build on its strengths but also challenge teachers' anti-working-class prejudices.
  1. Barry Troyna and Jenny Williams 91986) - the child's language is not the problem, but rather the school's attitude towards it. Teachers have a 'speech hierarchy' where they label middle-class speech highest and then working-class speech then black speech.
  2. Tessa Blackstone and Jo Mortimore (1994) - Working-class parents attend fewer parents' evenings not because they lack interest but because they work longer or irregular hours or are put off by the schools middle-class atmosphere. They may want to help their child progress but may not know how to do so because they lack the knowledge or education. Schools with mainly working-class pupils also tend to lack effective parent-school contact systems so parents can't keep in touch about their children's progress.

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External Factors in Class Differences in Educational Achievement [Cultural Deprivation]

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	Created by Drasti Patel over 6 years ago