A different approach which is a new scheme first announced by the labour government in 2008, and is being continued to be rolled out. This is for poorer children in society to be given a free laptop. This is due to a recent study from the institute of fiscal studies suggested having a laptop at home could lead to a two grade improvement in a single GCSE subject. The announcement comes as recent research suggests that over 1 million families don’t have a computer or broadband connection. Additionally 200 schools and colleges suggested 80% were seeing cuts to their IT departments (BBC, 2010). this type of scheme would benefit younger less privileged children and help them with educational achievement.
A labour MP Frank Field from Birkenhead has brought attention to a recent study suggesting that a child can be significantly disadvantaged by the age of five years old. This drawback in background from the more privileged children can lead them into an adult life of poverty and unemployment. Mr Field has recently been recruited by the coalition as “poverty tsar” and is calling for more support to parents for their children aged 0-5yrs old. The idea behind this is to close the gap between the rich and poor in education (Fitzgerald, 2010). Frank has recommended on the findings that more public money should be focused on helping children from poorer families in their earlier years. He recommends parent courses should be regarded as normal and not remedial (Kirkup, 2010). The idea behind this is that if the child can have a better upbringing and stable family life they will be able to achieve better results in school.
The main factors than can affect educational attainment are class, gender, and ethnicity. Class can have a greatest influence on school attainment. Traditional patterns of class attainment are difficult to alter and vice-versa poor children find it harder to break away from poor attainment. There is a strong relationship between parental occupations and education of children’s success or failure in school.
Through the government definitions of class table 2001 onwards you can see it is mainly focused on occupations. For example company directors are ranked in first category while long term unemployment or ranked at the bottom in class eight. The youth cohort study revealed in 2006 higher professionals’ children 81% got 5 GCSE’s A*-C where routine workers children only got 42%. This shows how the higher class you are the better chance of better grades.
The government does want to tackle issues of working class underachievement. The reasons for this are that if people have better numeracy and literature skills, they will be able to get off benefits or unemployment and provide for themselves which will benefit society. Reasons for class underachievement are the area you are born in and the people around you. The school you go to and the peer pressure you may receive. The status you are born into like parental occupation if you are born into a very wealthy family, you will try and keep up the success by achieving at school, to continue being successful in society.
Class has the most important effect on educational attainment. It is three times greater than ethnicity, although ethnicity comes second and has around twice the effect as gender. The Sutton trust has recently came out with a study that states that Pupils on free school meals are fifty five times less likely to go to Cambridge or Oxford than those from private school. This is showing the class difference between those students that go to private school and those in state school. As children on school meals mainly come from the families of the poorest background. It shows how the poorer you are the less likely you are of getting into a top university.
A recent study suggests 19% of White British pupils eligible for free school meals do not obtain 5 or more GCSEs. This is a much higher proportion than that for any other ethnic group. Combining gender and ethnic group, 23% of White British boys eligible for free school meals do not obtain 5 or more GCSEs. This is a much higher proportion than that for any other combination of gender, ethnic group and eligibility for free school meals (Palmer, 2010).
This also shows the inequality of education given to those from less privileged backgrounds and the help they are not able to access. This unfortunately does not fall in line with the functionalist view where the education system is a ladder of opportunity. People can achieve the best they can in line with their ability. This belief is known as meritocracy, where you are merited and gain from your achievement.
The idea of meritocracy from functionalist view was rejected by Bowles and Gintis that capitalist societies are meritocracy, providing genuine equality of opportunity. Children from the wealth and powerful obtain high qualifications and well rewarded jobs irrespective of their abilities, the education system disguises this with its myth of meritocracy. People denied success blame themselves rather than the system. Inequality in society is then legitimated and is made to appear fair (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009).
The children of parents in higher social classes are more likely to stay in post-compulsory education. These children are more likely to achieve examination passes when at school and more likely to go to university. This difference in education achievement has been the same throughout the twentieth century and remains significant of today. (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009).
Reasons that could help influence this is that these children are able to mix with the wider world “see the bigger picture” e.g. they will travel abroad more. Their parents can afford better learning equipment and resources to help them or even private tutors. The youth Cohort study in (2004) found that only 33% of children from routine workers and 77% of children from higher professional background’s gained five or more GCSE’s A*-C Passes. This shows how a difference in background can affect your educational achievement.
Another way that can affect pupils achievement in schools is where by the self-fulfilling prophecy argues that predictions made by teachers will tend to themselves come true. The teacher may label a child in a particular way, such as “clever” or “thick” the teacher will then respond in teaching to the pupils as they believe they are capable of, thus verifying the label and fulfilling the prophecy.
The hidden curriculum is another factor in educational achievement. Through the capitalist perspective we can see that society requires a hard-working obedient workforce, which is too divided to challenge the authority of management. The education system is used as a tool to create this workforce for society to do this it uses the hidden curriculum. It consists of the things pupils learn through going to school rather than the standard aims of the school. This system produces a subservient workforce a study conducted by Bowles & Gintis found that students who were more obedient received higher grades than those who were creative and independent (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009).
The hidden curriculum encourages pupils to obey and except the hierarchy. Teachers give orders and pupils obey, students have no control over what and how they study. This prepares them for what work will be like, where they will also need to obey hierarchy of managers and owners. Pupils learn through the hidden curriculum and learn to be motivated by other things. The pupils will work for qualifications they hope to achieve.
There is also little satisfaction from school work. This is in the same way work is normally classed as unsatisfying because it is structured more for the owners and managers. This is to maximise profits and not the needs of the workers. This means that the only motivation the workers are getting is through pay.
Additionally the school curriculum is broken down into subjects which are fragmented knowledge packed into separate areas. This is done in a similar way to jobs as they are broken down into separate tasks for people, with little connection. The jobs people perform have different tasks and never really mix or get the full picture of what is going on.
A recent article by The Independent revealed how under performing schools will be turned into Academies. The education Secretary stated local authorities should step in if a school is constantly under achieving and failing to improve or the school has low Ofsted ratings and attainment. These schools should be considered for academy status. He said. Academies were introduced by the Labour government, under Tony Blair, to replace failing schools and bring up standards (Independant, 2010).
Academies are semi-independent state schools they work by raising money through business sponsorships and charities, faith groups and city councils. Labour planned to make 200 academies’ by 2010. Since then 32 schools have been converted in September 2010, with a further 110 converting over the coming months. This is in now addition to around 200 academies stated under Labour. Labour also introduced the controversial National Challenge initiative, announcing that every secondary school that failed to have 30% of its pupils gaining five A*-C grades, including English and maths, at GCSE by 2011 faced closure or being turned into an academy (Independant, 2010).
Educational achievement can be effected by ethnicity as well as class there are large variations between ethnic groups, with some ethnic groups consistently out performing other ethnic groups. The youth cohort study (2006) found that in England Indian pupils were most likely to gain five or more A*- C GCSEs, followed by other whites, Bangladeshi Pakistani and black pupils.
Ethnicity is the second most influential factor on educational attainment; ethnicity has around twice the effect of gender (gillborn & Mirza 2000). Ethnicity is belonging to a group that shares the same characteristics, such as country or origin, language, religion, ancestry and culture. It may further be described as biology and history and not always the culture that a person grows up in.
A study by the youth cohort study shows the gain in attainment of 5 GCSE’s A*-C by ethnicity. It shows how from 1992-2006 white people gone from 37% to 58% and Bangladeshi people had gone from 14% in 1992 to 57% in 2006. This is the greatest improvement a difference of +43. While all other ethnic have improved Bangladeshi have made a much greater improvement. Additionally white students have made the smallest improvement. Furthermore black students have the smallest percentage of A*-C grades. Despite the fact that all ethnics have all made improvements there are still significant differences in attainment.
Overall Chinese are the most successful ethnic group in the British education system. Over recent years Bangladeshi student grades have improved to the national average, but black African/Caribbean students grades have remained way behind the national average (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009). A recent report by the Guardian explained some of the reason why this may be Black boys and their parents should accept greater responsibility for their education to help tackle their underachievement in schools, the National Union of Teachers have reported students needed to understand that they were "authors of their own success", while parents should insist on them showing proper respect to teachers.
By the late 1980’s under achievement by females was attracting more concern than underachievement by class. Girls were not very ambitious and very rarely took higher status subjects such as maths, physics and chemistry. At the time girls were less likely than boys to obtain one or more A-levels and were less likely to go to higher education. Some of the reasons for this could be through sex-stereotypes girls are given dolls and other types of toys which may affect girl’s educational aspiration. Meanwhile boys may be given more constructional toys which may help scientific and mathematical concepts. Another reasons was everyone fighting for themselves no longer jobs for life, this was due to the changes in society. This may have leaded to women wanting more independence (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009).
Since the 1980’s both genders began to improve their school performance significantly although the improvement of girls was more rapid. By the mid 1990’s there was a strong reversal. Changes in achievement statistics’ showed how attention switched to male underachievement. The educational attainment of both males and females has been increasing over recent decades. However the performance of females has performed faster than males. According to Miltsos & Browne (1998) the woman’s movement and feminism have raised have raised the expectations and self-esteem of women.
By 2006 45% of females but 35% of males obtained two or more A-levels. In 2004/5 57% of people in higher education were female. On average now women are getting better degrees than men, this is now known as the gender gap.
Francis & Skelton (2005) found middle-class parents were becoming increasingly conserved about the education and career of their daughters. Furthermore the increasing service sector and part-time work had opened up employment opportunities for women. Francis & Skelton further found in a study in 2005 that more girls aspire to jobs which require degree qualifications (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009).
In conclusion you have been able to see how educational achievement can be affected in different ways. You can see how the educational system can limit an individual’s achievement especially through the class differences. Society has limited women’s capabilities although in today’s society where it is more equal women are outperforming men. Evidence also points out that the government has a strong influence on what an individual can do by lowering their possibilities for example by removing EMA. Furthermore you have seen how gender affects it in today’s educational system women are outperforming men. By ethnicity Chinese Asians and doing the best and Chinese girls are doing the greatest.
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