Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Class differences in educational attainment.

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Lucie Jelfs TIP: use examples and make sure the answer links to the question. 1. Becker put forward the term ?Ideal Pupil? to show how teachers have a preference for a certain kind of pupil that they would like to teach. The pupil usually has the characteristics of a middle class child, for example they have a desire to learn and are hardworking and quiet. 2. Students from the upper social classes and those who have attended independent schools are more likely to gain places at elite universities such as LSE and Oxbridge even when they have the same A-level grades as students from state schools because: - They speak with elaborated code. This means that they do not assume that the listener knows what they are talking about and they include as much detail as they can. This means that they are more formal in their speech and will speak better at an interview than someone of a lower class. Thus giving them more of a chance of getting into the elite universities because they will be liked more than someone who uses a restricted code and slang. ...read more.

Middle

Both internal (factors within schools) and external (factors outside of schools) play a part in the difference in attainment between social classes. One internal factor that has a major impact on working class children is labelling. Instead of judging children by their ability and intelligence they judge them on their social class and background. Becker explains that teachers have an ?ideal pupil?, a pupil that has middle class characteristics such as obedience and conformity. Therefore anyone that does not fall into this category is ?labelled? and treated differently. This can then lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The teachers have judged the children and labelled those who are not middle class as failures or not going to do well. Because of this and the different treatment they receive, the working class children start to believe that they will not achieve. Thus meaning that they do not want to work hard and don?t see the point in achieving so will fail. What the teacher expected happens. However it is not just this that causes the child to fail. The working class have a sub-culture that is different from the ?right? dominant white/middle class of Britain. ...read more.

Conclusion

The child may then fall behind because they have missed out on something that all the other children in their class have had. For example there may be a school trip to a museum that a working class family cannot afford to send their child on. In future lessons the teacher may refer to something seen on that trip so the child that didn?t get to go will be lost and won?t know what they teacher is saying whereas the other students will. Because of this we cannot blame the curriculum for the underachievement in working class pupils, it offers some of the experiences needed for education but the material deprivation means that the child cannot experience it. On the other hand a lot of schools offer help and support to the children from a working class background who cannot afford a lot, and help financially with the cost of a trip. Therefore you could say that it is not the curriculum or material deprivation that causes the child to underachieve. Overall internal factors have an impact of the achievement of working class students. However these internal factors are caused by the external. Therefore it is arguable that they would have little effect if the external factors were taken away. Thus meaning that they external factors are the greatest influence on social-class differences in educational achievement. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our AS and A Level Sociological Differentiation & Stratification section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related AS and A Level Sociological Differentiation & Stratification essays

  1. Explain the influence of social class and gender on educational achievement

    comprehensives still show class differences, and obviously as long as there are still public schools which parents may pay for, there will still be class inequalities and perhaps the government should reintroduce assisted places to compensate for this. Putting Class differences aside if this is at all possible, there are still many other inequalities within education.

  2. Which has the greatest impact on educational attainment – gender, social class or ethnicity?

    Further investigations suggest that the reasons behind this division in interest shown by the classes are that middle class parents are more aware of the importance of education. Also that they are usually in a better position to encourage and advise as they are well educated themselves and can offer assistance in homework etc.

  1. Discuss in what ways social class impacts on educational experiences.

    group would allow those with less ability to go unnoticed and therefore never being able to show or reach their full potential. This is the reason why the Conservative Government form 1979 to 1997 introduced New Right policies such as assisted places, national curriculum, league table and parent's charter which

  2. An investigation into people(TM)s belief about Hell

    believe the researcher wanted, this would have the affected the validity of the study as the answers given would not have been completely true. Another issue with this study is that the results cannot be generalised past sixth form students at Sandown High School, Isle of Wight as no other

  1. Black Male perception, of Secondary School Attainment and Opportunities. "Explore reasons for the academic ...

    Thomas (1996, p.770) [9], points out, qualitative methods enable the researcher to investigate, meaning, human value, social processes and the perceptions and traditions of social groups. I do believe that my questionnaire allow my project to be successful in understanding black males educational experiences.

  2. Social factors effecting educational attainment.

    class, the working class children will do worse than the middle class children. Hyman theorizes that this is down to the values and morals of the different classes and they would be dictated these classes by the home factors mentioned earlier so there is a strong argument that home factors

  1. To what extent are school factors responsible for social class differences in educational attainment?

    Streaming partly explains why schoolings seems to have little effect on existing social inequalities. Like Becker said before a teacher is less likely to think of working class student as the ideal pupil as a result they are more likely to be lower stream.

  2. Cultural deprivation and class differences in achievement

    In contrast the elaborated code is made up of a wider vocabulary used within longer grammatically correct sentences, furthermore the speaker does not assume that the listener shares the same experiences and therefore shows a better use of analytical language which enables the listener to understand the context and ideas the speaker is trying to show.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work