Some criticisms of linguistic deprivation are that the use of restricted code does not mean a lack of intelligence, just as Labov claimed. Another criticism of this is that, it is a generalisation that anyone who is working class and/ or uses restricted code has a lack of intelligence. This mass labelling would usually exercised by the middle class.
Another aspect of Cultural Deprivation is that working class children are deprived of; ambition, motivation, stimulus, educational outings and parental interest. DOUGLAS found that the degree of a parent’s interest in their child’s education was the single most important factor affecting educational progress. He measured parental interest in terms of how often a child’s parents visited the school and how the teachers viewed the parents. The biggest flaw with this method was that not all parents could go to their child’s school frequently due to their jobs with long hours, not a lack of interest.
Some criticisms of the Cultural Deprivation theory are that some working class children do achieve good grades at school and that it is difficult to measure the values and attitudes of a culture, whether they are middle class or working class. The biggest criticism is that the Cultural Deprivation theory makes the middle class sound better than the working class, when in fact they are probably equal in intelligence but have different motivations and different ways of expressing themselves.
Another sociological explaination for the difference in educational attainment between the middle class and the working class, is the difference in their values and norms. In the 1960’s/70’s Herbert Hyman, an American, and Barry Sugarman, a British man, in separate studies argued that some of the values from the working class sub culture are inherited and that within their sub culture they did not expect each other to get to high levels of education. They argued that these values existed largely because of the nature of working class and manual jobs. In contrast – the values inherited by in the middle class sub culture are also derived from the nature of the middle class, non-manual jobs. These non-manual jobs usually lead to a high level of achievement.
According to Sugarman and Hyman; the working class place a low value on education as a means of personal attainment and stress the importance of a “good trade” meaning a stable job with few risks. They also stress Immediate Gratification as well as seeking improvement in pay and conditions through collective actions, maybe a trade union. In contrast to this Sugarman and Hyman believed that the middle class place a high value on education and stressed the importance of a career. They said that the middle class stress Deferred Gratification and seek improvement by promotion and individual actions.
The main criticism of Sugarman’s and Hyman’s arguments are that these statements are purely stereotypical and that not all middle class people want a career and that some working class may.
It is not always the home factors that affect working class achievement; it could also be in school factors. Interactionists’ explanations of differential educational achievement – based on the “labelling theory” look at what goes on in schools themselves, and in particular, teacher – pupil relationships. These theories had a major impact on the development of both the comprehensive system and the idea of “progressive” education. Labelling theories suggest that teacher judge pupils not only by their ability or intelligence but also by their characteristics that relate to gender and ethnicity, such as attitude, appearance and behaviour. BECKER showed how teachers perceive the “ideal pupil” to be one who conforms to the middle class standards of behaviour.
HARGREAVES argued that by labelling a pupil badly you could in fact be giving them a self-fulfilling prophecy. This may happen to a pupil if they are constantly told that they are “dim” or “stupid” by a teacher or a fellow pupil. If it is said often enough the pupil may start to have a low opinion of themselves and start to think that they are “dim” and “stupid” and then start to act “dim” and “stupid”.
Labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy theories suggest that a teachers’ reaction to an individual pupil can effect their educational attainment. It is also possible that whole groups of pupils, not just an individual, can be treated in different ways. The fact that under the comprehensive system all pupils should get the same education does not mean that all pupils receive the same type of education. In most comprehensive schools pupils are placed, even for just a short time, in groups with other pupils who supposedly matches their intellectual ability.
STEPHEN BALL spent a short time at a comprehensive school that introduced a system of banding for its first years. The pupils were split into three different bands based on the information given by their primary schools. The first band supposedly contained the brightest and best behaved children where as the third band contained the least able pupils. Ball noticed the change in the pupil behaviour change after they had been placed in the bands. Before the banding, Ball observed that most of the pupils were conformists and eager when the first started, but gradually the behaviour began to change. According to the teachers, they saw band one as hard working and well behaved, even band three was well behaved but had learning difficulties. However band two were the most disruptive out of the three. They had a low attendance record, the pupils showed non-conformist behaviour and poor effort on homework.
Ball noticed that due to the teachers’ different expectations for different bands, the pupils were taught differently. Band One was encouraged towards doing real academic subjects and take them up to A Level standard, where as the counterparts in band two were pushed towards doing more practical subjects and to do CSEs.
In criticism to this Ball admitted that not all the band two pupils failed. He found that some were able to overcome the difficulties that they faced. Nevertheless there was a strong relationship made between banding and performance. Given that there was also a strong relationship with social class and banding (the middle class pupils tended to be in the higher band and the working class in the lower), Ball claimed, ”working class pupils tend to percolate down wards in the processes of academic and behavioural differentiation.
Although steaming is accepted by many schools as the most sensible way of organising the provision of education, most sociologists find that, when they look at the system in depth, that it does not help or hinder the middle class pupils who are supposedly “brighter” than the working class, whether they are in bands or not and that it can affect the working class pupils by giving them self fulfilling prophecies and by giving them bad labels.
Some people claim that it is not cultural but material factors that explain under achievement. It is said that the working class suffer from material deprivation and this means that they are unable to have the money or resources for a successful education. It is also said that the working class lack; a good diet which means they would be unable to concentrate in school due to hunger, good housing which could lead to illness and the opportunity to stay in school over the age of 16, due to economic reasons.
DOUGLAS found that the differential effects of regional and of the L.E.A provision, the housing and environmental factors and the lack of access to top streams were all factors that affected the under achievement of the working class.
HALSEY found that both material and cultural factors influenced the type of secondary school – Grammar or Secondary modern – that a pupil went to. However once at a secondary school, cultural factors appear to have little effect on their educational attainment. Students from working class backgrounds who stayed on after the age of 16 were almost as successful in examinations as those from service class backgrounds.
In conclusion to all of these sociological explanations for working class under achievement, they sow that there are many factors working against the working class students, but with some hard work and determination, they are able to succeed just as well as any pupil from the middle class.