Class and internal/external factors

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  • Created by: Kaits03
  • Created on: 04-04-18 15:22

Pupil subcultures

Lacey (1970) looked at a group of boys who didnt get into grammar school, and wrre all successul in primary school. At grammar school, differentiation led to the more able' being placed in high streams and vice versa. 

Polarisation was the process in which the pupils responded to this streaming - the high stream ones adopted a 'pro school subculture', whereas the low stream ones adopted an 'anti school subculture', and gaining status amongst their peers through bad behaviour, traunting , not doing homework, smoking etc. 

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Marketisation

Barlett (1993): marketisation has led to popular schools 'cream skimming' (selecting higher ablity pupils who gain the best results and cost less to teach and 'silt shifting' (off loading pupils with learning difficulties, who are expensive to teach and get poor results)

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Labelling

Becker (1971): Labelling theory approach means that pupils are not treated in a 'universalistic' way, but according to the teachers preconceived ideas (middle class children often do better), which are closer to the 'ideal pupil'

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Self-Fulfilling prophecy

Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968): told the school that they had a new test specially designed to identify those pupils who would 'spurt' ahead. This was untrue, because the test was simply a standard IQ test. The researchers then picked a random group of 20% if the pupils abd said they were the 'spurters'. On returning to the school a year later, they found almost half of those identified as spurters had indeed made significant progress. The teachers' beliefs about the pupils had been influenced by the test results.

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Cultural deprivation

Bernstein(1975): restricted speech code amongst working class (limited vocabulary, based on the use of short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences. It is context-bound as the speaker assumes that the listener shares the same set of experiences)

Elaborated speech code amongst the middle class (=wider vocabulary, based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences. Context-free as it des not assume that the listener shares the same experiences, so the meaning is explicitly explained to the listener. 

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Cultural deprivation (subcultures)

Sugarman (1970): the working class subculture has four key features that act as a barrier to educationl achievement: fatalism (you cannot change your status), collectivism (valuing being part of a goup more than succeeding as an individual), immediate gratification (seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in rder to get rewards in the future- the middle class emphasis deferred gratificaion) and present time orientation (seeing the present as more important than the future and so not having long term goals

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Material deprivation

Smith and Noble (1995): having more money means buying more books, healthier diets, ICT facilities at home, private tuition and travel abroad, paying for extra music lessons and trips, and schols in more affluent areas attracting more pupls, therefore having more funding.

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Cultural captital

Bourdieu (1984): the middle classes have more cultural capital (language, cultural knowledge and social skills), which is valued in the school system, and helps them to succeed. 

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