Education Key Research
Social Class:
Feinstein - Found that diet has a direct impact on children’s ability to think in both the short- and long-term. Argues the main reason working class children underperform is because of their parents lack of interest in their education. Found that educated parents are more likely to use ‘challenging’ language with their children compared to less educated parents who use ‘simple, descriptive statements’.
Bull - The cost of free schooling; lack of financial support means that children from poor families do without equipment and experiences that would enhance their educational achievement.
Sugarman - The working class form subcultures with the following attitudes: fatalism, collectivism, immediate gratification, present-time orientation.
Bernstein - The middle class have an elaborated speech code whereas the working class have a restricted one.
Keddie - Argues that cultural deprivation is a myth and is a victim-blaming explanation; working class children are culturally different, not deprived.
Gibson and Asthana - The higher the level of deprivation, the slimmer the chance of a student achieving 5 A*-C grades at GCSE.
Douglas - Parental engagement is the most influential factor in educational achievement.
Gerwitz and Ball - Cultural and economic capital give the middle class better choice and opportunities in education.
Bordieu - The middle class have cultural capital (and the working class are culturally deprived) because the education system is tailored to the middle classes habitus.
Willis - Working class lads form anti-school subcultures.
Becker - Middle class pupils are the closest to teachers versions of the ‘ideal pupil’.
Blackstone and Mortimore - Working class jobs require shift patterns so parents may not be able to attend parents’ evenings.
Reay - Working class parents lack the confidence and assertiveness in interactions with teachers meaning they can’t turn their interest into practical support.
Rosenthall and Jacobson - Told teacher 20 random pupils were going to be higher achievers, 1 year later these 20 pupils were outperforming other pupils.
Lacey - Streaming polarises boys into either pro- (mostly middle class) or anti-school (mostly working class) subcultures.
Gillborn and Youdell - The A-C economy has lead to an educational triage meaning that the working class are often labelled as ‘failures’ so teachers won’t spend the same time and effort with them as they do middle class pupils.
Harvey and Slatin - White middle class pupils were more likely to be identified as ‘good pupils’.
Ethnicity:
Gillborn - The high attainment of Indian pupils suggests that having English as an Additional language is not always a barrier to success.
Driver and Ballard - By age 16, Asian children (who’s main home language was not English) were at least as competent in English as their classmates.
Department for Education - Pupils who had English as a second language outperformed classmates who had English as their mother tongue in the EBacc.
Nehaul - Black Caribbean parents do value education just as much as other ethnic groups.
Murray - Lone-parenthood leads to the underachievement of some ethnic minorities.
Lupton - The adult authority in Asian families mirrors the model that operates in schools meaning that Asian pupils are more likely to be respectful.
Gillborn and Youdell - Teachers hold racialised expectations leading to labelling and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Wright - In multi-ethnic primary schools, Asian pupils were marginalised.
Sewell - Black boys adopt a range of different subcultures (conformists, innovators, retreatists and rebels).
Fuller - Black girls revised in private (pro-education, anti-school).
David - The National Curriculum is ‘specifically British’.
Keddie - Cultural deprivation takes a victim-blaming approach.
Gender:
Sharpe - Girls prioritise school more now than in the 1970s.
Fuller - Educational success is a central aspect of many girls’ identities.
McRobbie - Girls magazines have gone from a focus on ‘being left on the shelf’ (1970s) to assertiveness and independence (now).
Mac and Ghail - The male gaze.
Leonard - Girls in single-sex schools are more likely to take up maths and physics at A-level.
Gorard - The gender gap in achievement is a ‘product of the changed system of assessment rather than any more general failing of boys’.
Mitsos and Browne - Girls are more successful in coursework because they are more organised and conscientious than boys.
Elwood - Exams have a bigger impact on overall grade and coursework is being filtered out so this can’t explain why boys underperform compared to girls.
Barber - Teacher pupil interactions; girls feedback focuses on work over behaviour and vice versa for boys.
Mitsos and Browne - Decline in male manual work has led to a crisis of masculinity, lowering their self esteem and motivation.
Francis - Boys have career aspirations that often require few formal qualifications.
Epstein - Boys are more likely to be harassed, bullied and subject to homophobic verbal abuse for working hard in school.
Sewell - Boys are falling behind because education is feminised.
Jackson - Girls also show ‘ladette’ cultures.
Murphy and Elwood - Gender socialisation is the cause of differences in subject choice.
Connell - Hegemonic masculinity leads to boys using name-calling to put down boys and girls who do not behave the ways they are expected to.
Theory:
Durkheim - Education allows for social solidarity and economic training.
Parsons - Education is used for secondary socialisation and is meritocratic.
Davis and Moore - Educations purpose is role allocation.
Althusser - Education acts as ideological state apparatus.
Bowles and Gintis - Believe in the correspondence principle and claim that meritocracy is a myth.
Policy:
Chubb and Moe - Consumer choice.
Ball - Myth of parentocracy.
Bartlett - Marketisation leads to popular schools choosing higher ability students (cream skimming) and forces those from disadvantaged backgrounds into unpopular schools (silt shifting).
Gerwitz - The middle class have cultural and economic capital allowing them to choose better schools.
Ford - There is very little mixing of classes in comprehensive schools.
