A report released on the 25th March 2005 reveals that Britain continues to have one of the biggest class divides in education in the industrialised world. The Child Poverty and Education report reveals that far from being a classless society, Britain has one of the highest levels of child poverty in all industrialised countries. The report highlights the strong correlation between poverty, social class and poor educational attainment among children in the UK, as well as the true disparity between rich and poor in 21st century Britain.
Working class underachievement has been studied for decades in terms of social class. During the 1960’s a popular view was that the working class were deficient which caused underachievement; this lead to the theory of cultural deprivation. One of the aspects of cultural deprivation, according to Basil Bernstein, was linguistic deprivation. He claimed that middle classes used the elaborate code. This type of code makes use of a large vocabulary, provides the details, the reasons and the explanations that are often left out by the restricted code. Restricted code, or working class speech, is a kind of short hand speech. It uses a smaller vocabulary than elaborate code, and uses less adverbs and adjectives. As a result it is not well suited for spelling out less obvious, more subtle meanings and developing ideas. Due to the use of these two different codes, Bernstein believed that the class differences in speech patterns probably partly explain the differences in educational attainment.
William Labov had a very different view of class differences in speech patterns. He claimed that working class black children had speech patterns just as elaborate as middle class children. He believed that the working class children did not do as well; firstly, they speak a different dialect to the teacher. Secondly, the teacher would often criticise the children for not talking ‘proper English’. As a result of these continuous criticisms the children find the classroom hostile and threatening and refuse to say much in a classroom environment. As a result, the children are labelled by the teacher and fellow pupils as having the restricted code.
However, there are some criticisms of linguistic deprivation which are that the use of restricted codes 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 be exercised by the middle class.
According to the Marxist theory, people’s existence is defined by the economic state, where the ruling class owns wealth and the workers, who provide the labour in this relationship, are exploited in order to create profit for the ruling class. Marx analysed this relationship and developed the theory of socialism as a solution to this capitalistic existence. This theory holds the view that groups within existing societies have fundamentally different interests. This leads to the view that however education is organised in this contemporary society some people will end up benefiting from it more than others. This idea can be incorporated into saying that depending on a person’s social class origin, that person will have certain interests which would sway them into being successful in education or failures.
According to Louis Althusser, education is a state apparatus, which is used to promote capitalist (ruling class) values as common values. These values aim to maintain, legitimate and reproduce (generation by generation) class inequalities in wealth and power. Althusser and Marxist theorist Ivan Illich looked at the idea of a ‘hidden curriculum’ in schools in relation to transmitting values. They stated that it is used as an informal way of encouraging conformity and acceptance of failure and inequality especially amongst working class kids. Illich stated that schools establish what is called ‘passive consumption’ amongst the students (especially working class kids), which passes on an uncritical acceptance of the existing social order. This again shows the relationship between educational success/failure and social class. According to Althusser and Illich, schools are one cause of this; whether they do knowingly or not, they do encourage this relationship in that those children from a higher social class would be encouraged to succeed than those from a lower social class origin.
The relationship between social class and education has proven to be a difficult area of study for many. It is not easy to define and measure social class. It is possible to determine an individual’s social class origins, however they may grow up in a lower or upper class.
Many points can be taken into account when considering the relationship of an individual’s social class origin and their educational success. For example, research shows that at less-than twenty percent of young people from lower social class attend higher education and forty-five from higher social classes.
This has always been the case where pupils who come from a lower social class background most likely achieve lower success than those from a higher social class. This is because of several factors. Firstly, priorities for those in a lower class may lie elsewhere. They maybe are working to help with the family because the parents are not earning enough in their jobs alone. Secondly, a lot of time is that individuals do not have the same access to resources as those from a higher social class; resources such as having a home computer or access to the internet. These particular resources are quite essential to the success of an individual in education.
Another relationship factor in particular in higher education is that individuals from lower social class background maybe put off from the fact that they may have to move out to study at a top institution. Thus they decide to stay in the city or somewhere close by so that they can take care of their family; causing them to miss out on the best opportunity for them to gain the best level of education they could attain.
Empirical evidence from a survey conducted for the Department for Education and Employment shows that 39% of respondents from lower social classes did not wish to enter higher education because they wanted to start employment and become independent, and 28% were worried about the cost of studying. The introduction of tuition fees and abolishment grants could have an impact on the decision to participate in higher education for people from lower social classes.
Another reason is that top universities have been known to discredit students who come from low social background, therefore depriving them of educational success that they could have received. However, it is not one hundred percent certain that top universities do this. This reason can go further into primary, secondary and college but in particular at secondary level. Students from lower social classes do generally perform worse at secondary level for several reasons. Firstly the middle classes can choose better educational institutions for their children by using either independent education, or moving to affluent areas where state sector schools are better. Thus the poorer students get clustered together, and the peer group does not provide the competitive pressure to perform well, and adding to this, the educator may not be well resourced. In addition, in his column, ‘the scandal of bright children turned away by our top universities’, Lamps adds on the fact of discrimination, as he says that only one percent of the less affluent classes get accepted into the top thirteen universities each year.
Paul Gregg, a special adviser to Gordon Brown and one of the report's authors (reported for The Observer), explained that education has become increasingly important for success in the workplace, but the benefits of the expansion of universities since the late Eighties has gone disproportionately to the rich. Heather Stewart reported after a new authoritative study was undertaken and said that 'The returns to education are increasing; but the bias in terms of who's getting the education is moving against poorer families.'
The local environment/neighbourhood in which we live plays a powerful role in educational success. A child’s experience of the world around them is shaped by peer contacts, local community values and the media, all of which are outside the control of the school. According to sociologist Banks (1956), he makes the point that if there is positive support for the values of the school, then this can only help the child’s school progress, but as the values of school are largely seen as middle class, then the values of the working class neighbourhoods may clash with those of the school. For example, schools stress sacrificing short-term gain now (such as wages and jobs) for longer-term aims (A Levels, a degree and then a job).
Working class values stress immediate pleasure. Children who live in the mainly working class neighbourhoods are then faced with a difficult choice, especially when they see all their peers out enjoying themselves while they sit and study. Also there is the issue of money (if they do not get a job, their parents may not be able to support them financially), and it is unlikely that in predominantly working class neighbourhoods there are many people who are highly educated to give help and encouragement.
Functionalists argue that education is a meritocracy. David and Moore states that the role of education is to allocate people to occupations best suited them ability wise. They say that educational mechanisms such as grades, exams, references and qualifications are used to sort individuals. This is how they believe that education is a meritocracy in which people are rewarded simply on the basis of intelligence, ability and effort. If this is the case then there isn’t much chance of educational success from those who come from a lower social class origin.
Other studies have shown that social class is a significant factor in affecting educational success. Noted political scientist Diana Crane states in her research that social class origin is related to educational success and affect’s an individual’s chances of entering college rather than graduating from it, and also demonstrates the relative importance that social class and intellectual ability have on the attainment of high quality graduate level education.
According to health editor of The Guardian Sarah Boseley, research has shown that children’s social backgrounds are more important even than low birthweight in determining how well they achieve in school and later life. The study firmly points out that social deprivation and poverty are some of the most significant reasons why some children do less well than others. It finds that low birthweight, because of premature birth or a poorly nourished mother, does affect intellectual development, but this effect is not as great as social class.
Not only do theorists or educationalists but also the government agrees with the notion that social class origin is still heavily affecting educational success. Head of Ofsted Mr Bell gives a critical view in that children’s prospects are still too heavily influenced by accidents of birth and geography. Mr Bell is disturbed at the fact that so many from the sixty percent of youngsters from non-professional backgrounds lack the ambition or qualifications to go to university a quarter of a century after he became the first in his family to do so.
Over time there has been an increase in the proportions of people from all social classes of origin who reached the highest educational qualifications (that is upper-secondary and tertiary education). However, further analysis has been taken which focused on changes in the association between social class of origin and educational attainment, showed that class differences have not significantly changed over time. This means that nowadays people from middle class families are still significantly more likely to gain an upper-secondary qualification or a degree than people from working class families. Overall, the gap has not changed; educational expansion has benefited all social classes equally without reducing social inequalities. However, this again can be debated, as it shows that over time, people from lower social class origins have started to catch up with those who come from the middle classes or above. This is because the rate of the amount of the middle/higher classes that are entering higher ‘posts’ is very slowly rising, while the amount of working classes entering the top jobs is increasing much more faster.
To conclude, the statement ‘educational success is closely related to social class origins’ is true and it has been proven. From looking at the essay, it is clear to anyone that there are many factors that contribute to the fact that there is a strong correlation between educational success and social class origin. These factors will still be influential for many years to come unless the government start to enforce some policy changes to the system. For example, changing teaching styles to suit all students not just those from the middle classes. This would lead to a change in the success rate and give all students an equal chance of educational success. Another would be for universities to actually base their entry requirements on the actual application rather than the applicant, therefore giving those students who come from a lower social class origin a better chance of entering university and earning a degree.
References
Lampl, P. (2002), Poverty, Privilege & Access to the Legal Profession: Barriers to equality of Access for Law students, Welsh Journal of Education, vol. 11, no.1, pg 95-106 (12)
Knowles, J. (1995), Pity the poor student, British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 26, no. 3, pp 210-221
Archer, L., & Ross, A., Higher Education & Social Class: Issues of inclusion & exclusion, London, RoutledgeFalmer, 2003
Reid, I. Sociological Perspectives on School and Education, London, Open Books Publishing, 1978
Reid, I. Sociological Perspectives on School and Education, London, Open Books Publishing, 1978
Reid, I. Sociological Perspectives on School and Education, London, Open Books Publishing, 1978
Archer, L., & Ross, A., Higher Education & Social Class: Issues of inclusion & exclusion, London, RoutledgeFalmer, 2003
Knowles, J. (1995), Pity the poor student, British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 26, no. 3, pp 210-221
Lampl, P. (2002), Poverty, Privilege & Access to the Legal Profession: Barriers to equality of Access for Law students, Welsh Journal of Education, vol. 11, no.1, pg 95-106 (12)
Reid, I. Sociological Perspectives on School and Education, London, Open Books Publishing, 1978