Education Theory

Bernstein and Young (1968)

Chubb and Moe – Consumer Choice – New Right; Removing guaranteed funding from school and granting vouchers to parents which in essence means schools only receive money depending on the number of pupils they have. This forces schools to be more responsive to parental influence and attract ‘customers by improving their ‘product’.

Flaherty (2004)

John Flaherty (2004) says that the money problems in a family were a factor when it came to children not attending school. The children that became excluded from schools were very unlikely to return to education in any shape or form and come out with no qualifications what so ever. 'Nearly 90% of failing schools are located in deprived areas'. The link that is made between both poverty and social class is very close and it is known that working-class families have lower incomes and unstable houses, these types of factors have a big impact on a child's education.

Sugarman (1970)

Sugarman - Gratification – Subculture; instant and deferred gratification which is a study by Sugarman that displays WC as pupils more likely to leave school early and try getting a job at a young age. Whereas MC children are more likely to stay in education and attempt to get into universities. They are present time orientated and thereby having no long-term goals. They also carry fatalistic values believing they are powerless to change their status as well as believing being part of a group is more important than the individual i.e. collectivism.

Williamson (1996)

Williamson said that a gang is a substitute to a family, meaning they gain all of their norms and values from the gang and are ultimately deviant.

Feinstein (2008)

Feinstein (1998): working class parents lack of interest was the main reasons for kid’s underachievement. It was found more important than financial hardships or factors within school. He argues middle class are more successful as parents provide them with necessary motivation, discipline and support.

Blander and Martin (2007)

Children from low income families are more likely to engage in externalising behaviour such as fighting and temper tantrums.

Douglas (1964)

WB Douglas 1964 - Parental Interest - Class Subcultures; JWB Douglas in a longitudinal study of UK school pupils asserted that the greatest impact on a student's progress was the level of interest shown in the child's education. MC parents gave greater attention to children’s education than WC. MC parents expected more from their children and gave more rewards. The WC seen is “culturally deprived”.

Althusser

  Althusser 1972 – Ideological State Apparatus – Marxists; argued that the educational system was an 'ideological state apparatus' concerned with the cultural reproduction of capitalism. He argued that the main function of education is to ensure that the privileges of one generation are passed on to the next, through the ideological conditioning to be found in schooling which helps to reproduce and legitimize class inequality.

Hubbs-Tait et al (2002) `

Found that the use of challenging language helps children to evaluate their…