Material Deprivation and Its Impact on Education

Material deprivation is a significant external factor contributing to working class underachievement in education. This concept encompasses various aspects of poverty and its effects on educational opportunities and outcomes.

Key factors of material deprivation affecting education include:

1. Poor Housing: Overcrowding or substandard living conditions can negatively impact a student's ability to study and complete homework. Homelessness or temporary accommodation may lead to frequent school changes, disrupting education.

2. Poor Diet: Inadequate nutrition can result in illness, school absences, and lack of concentration in class due to hunger.

3. Limited Educational Resources: Poorer families often cannot afford educational opportunities such as trips, computers, or private tuition.

4. Social Stigma: Children from low-income families may face bullying or stigmatization due to their inability to afford proper uniforms or fashionable items.

Example: Callender & Jackson found that working-class students are more debt-averse, perceiving more costs than benefits in pursuing higher education.

Marxist sociologists, like Bourdieu, argue that middle-class pupils are more successful due to their parents possessing more capital or assets. This capital comes in two forms:

1. Economic Capital: The wealth owned by middle-class families.
2. Cultural Capital: The attitudes, values, and skills of the middle class, including educational qualifications.

Definition: Cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means.

Understanding the impact of material deprivation on education is crucial for developing effective strategies to address working class underachievement in education sociology.

School Factors and Their Influence on Educational Achievement

Internal factors within schools and the education system play a significant role in shaping student achievement. These factors include interactions between pupils and teachers, as well as institutional practices that can either promote or hinder educational success.

Labelling and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Definition: Labelling in education refers to attaching a meaning or definition to a student, often based on stereotyped assumptions.

Becker argues that teachers tend to label middle-class children as 'ideal pupils' and prefer teaching them over working-class children. This labelling can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the prediction about a person comes true simply because they believe it.

Highlight: The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy is crucial in understanding how teacher expectations can influence student performance.

Streaming and Its Effects

Streaming is the practice of separating children into different ability groups or classes and teaching them accordingly. This practice can have significant impacts on student achievement and self-perception.

Example: Douglas found that the IQ of pupils labelled as less able and placed in the bottom stream actually decreased over time.

Pupil Subcultures

Pupil subcultures are groups whose beliefs, values, and attitudes differ to some extent from wider society. In the context of education, two main types of subcultures emerge:

1. Pro-school Subculture: Formed by pupils in higher streams who accept the school's values and goals.
2. Anti-school Subcultures: Formed by those in lower streams who reject the school's values.

Lacey argues that lower stream pupils join or form anti-school subcultures because school deprives them of status by labelling them as failures.

Vocabulary: Habitus - A social class's way of thinking, being, and acting, including lifestyles and expectations about what is normal for 'people like us'.

Woods identifies four additional responses to streaming and labelling:

1. Ingratiation: Being the 'teacher's pet'
2. Ritualism: Going through the motions and staying out of trouble
3. Retreatism: Daydreaming and disengaging
4. Rebellion: Outright rejection of everything the school stands for

Understanding these internal and external factors affecting education is crucial for addressing the persistent issue of working class underachievement in education and developing effective strategies to promote educational equity.

Cultural Deprivation and Working Class Underachievement

Cultural deprivation theory is a significant concept in understanding working class underachievement in education. This theory posits that class differences in children's development and achievement appear very early in life, primarily due to differences in primary socialization within families.

Definition: Cultural deprivation refers to the lack of cultural equipment needed for educational success, which, according to theorists, is more prevalent in working-class families.

The theory makes several basic assumptions:

1. Working-class children underachieve due to their own deficiencies and those of their parents.
2. This perspective has been criticized for "victim blaming" and influencing policies that wrongly assume working-class underachievement is simply a result of low aspirations and dysfunctional families.

Highlight: Archer et al. argue that policies based on cultural deprivation theory incorrectly assume that working-class underachievement is solely due to low aspirations and family dysfunction.

Sugarman identifies four key features of working-class subculture that act as barriers to educational achievement:

1. Fatalism: The belief that one cannot change their social status.
2. Collectivism: Valuing group membership over individual success.
3. Immediate gratification: Seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices for future rewards.
4. Present-time orientation: Prioritizing the present over the future.

Language is another crucial aspect of cultural deprivation theory. Feinstein's research shows that parents with higher qualifications are more likely to use the elaborated code, which is considered more beneficial for educational success.

Vocabulary:

• Elaborated Code (Middle Class): More analytic, with a wide range of vocabulary and complex sentences.
• Restricted Code (Working Class): Less analytic, more descriptive, with limited vocabulary and simpler sentences or gestures.

However, it's important to note that some researchers, like Trayna & Williams, argue that the problem lies not in the child's language but in the school's attitude towards it.