The Women's Movement: expectations of
girls achievement have raised, girls' self
esteems have been raised because of this.
More female role models are prevalent
in society today making girls more
ambitious. (Sue Sharp study in 1970's
and 1990's on changes in girls
ambitions)
Male 'Anti learning subculture' is prevalent in
classrooms today, boys get more respect from their
peers from disrespecting their teachers and not
doing their work. Working hard in lesson is seen as
"girly" and "unmacho."
Boys spend their leisure time "doing", they play video
games, and sport whilst girls spend their time talking,
this develops girls' language skills which gives them an
advantage in the classroom
Class underachievement
Cultural Deprivation
1. Intellectual development: J.W.B Douglas found that working class kids scored
lower than middle class kids in tests of ability. He says this is because parents are
less likely to help their kids with their educational achievement e.g. reading with
them, so these children are disadvantaged because of this.
2. Language: Restricted code and elaborated code.
Restricted code is often used by working class kids,
this includes abreviations and slang, elaborate code
is used by the middle class, it consists of longer, more
grammatically correct vocabulary
3. Attitudes and Values: Barry Sugarman describes 4 main
features that hinder the achievement of the working class:
Fatalism, Collectivism, Immediate Gratification, and
Present-time orientation
Ethnic Achievement
Material deprivation: people with
ethnic backgrounds often live in low
income households, meaning that kids
don't have any resources they can use
to do homework, and don't have their
own space to do their homework.
Language: for ethnic minorities often english is not
their first language so it is difficult for children to
understand things in lesson as easy as other students.
And often poor english can be mistaken for a lack of
intelligence, meaning teachers don't push ethnic
minority students to their full potential.
Teacher Labelling: often this is negative labelling but for ethnic minorities such as the
Chinese and Indian are often stereotyped for being very clever, so teachers might push them
more to achieve their potential