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Gaine & George (1999)
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These sociologists criticise Bernstein for exaggerating and oversimplifying the differences between working-class and middle-class speech patterns, which have also probably reduced further since he conducted his research.
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Barry Sugarman (1970)
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This cultural deprivation sociologist argues that working-class subculture has 4 key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement: -Fatalism: a belief in fate - that 'whatever you will be, will be' and there is nothing you can do to change your status. This contrasts with the middle-class values, which emphasise that you can change your position through your own efforts. -Collectivism: valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual. This contrasts with the middle-class view that an individual should not be held back by group loyalties. -Immediate gratification: seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future. By contrast, middle-class values emphasise deferred gratification, making sacrifices now for greater rewards later. -Present-time orientation: seeing the present as more important than the future and so not having long-term goals or plans. By contrast, middle-class culture has future-time orientation that sees planning for the future as important. This sociologist argues that the differences in values among classes exist as they stem from the fact that middle-class jobs are secure careers offering prospects for continuous individual advancement. This encourages ambition, long-term planning and a willingness to invest time and effort in gaining qualifications. By contrast, working-class jobs are less secure and have no career structure through which individuals can advance. There are few promotion opportunities and earnings peak at an early age. Cultural deprivation theorists such as him argue that working-class parents pass on these beliefs and values to their children through primary socialisation. Their children internalise them and this results in them underachieving at school. For example, valuing immediate gratification may encourage early leaving as to start earning money. |
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Charles Murray (1984)
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This New Right Sociologist argued that there is an "underclass" in society who are welfare-dependent, lacking in motivation, and have a culture that perpetuates poverty. His work has been criticised for promoting the idea of a permanent, genetically determined "underclass" rather than acknowledging the role of structural and systemic inequalities in perpetuating poverty.
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Louise Archer (2007)
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This sociologist suggests that middle-class students are more likely to experience a smooth transition between home and school, as school may appear like an extension of earlier home experiences. By contrast, working-class students are more likely to experience a break/clash between home and school, resulting in a sense of alienation and distance from school. Middle-class students therefore arrive at school with cultural capital enabling them to be more tuned into the demands of schooling. Working-class students face a difference and conflict between home and those of school, a culture clash.
She also mentions that the school's middle-class habitus stigmatises working-class pupils' identities. This made many working-class pupils feel unable to access 'posh', middle-class spaces such as university and professional careers, seen as 'not for the likes of us'. Therefore, they felt they would have to change how they talked and presented themselves to be educationally successful, thus they often experienced 'losing yourself'. Those who do not change in order to 'fit in', have performances of style which are a struggle for recognition. While the middle-class see their 'Nike' identities as tasteless, to the young people they are a means of generating symbolic capital and self-worth. Nike styles also play a part in working-class pupils' rejection of higher education, which they saw as both unrealistic and undesirable, as they saw themselves as poorer, dumber people who could not afford it (risky investment). Nike identities also express working-class pupils' positive preference for a particular lifestyle. As a result, they may choose self-elimination or self-exclusion from education. |
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Leon Feinstein (2008)
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This sociologist found that more highly qualified parents (who are more likely to be middle-class) are more likely to use language which challenges children to evaluate their own understanding. He also found that they are also more likely to use praise, which encourages their children to develop sense of their own competence. By contrast, parents with fewer qualifications (who are more likely to be working-class) tend to use language in ways that only require children to make simple descriptive statements (for example, 'what's that animal called?'). This results in a lower performance. |
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Troyna & Williams (1986)
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These sociologists argue that the problem is not the child's language but the school's attitude towards it. Teachers have a 'speech hierarchy': they label middle-class speech highest, followed by working-class speech and finally Black speech.
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Gillborn & Youdell (2001)
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A study of 2 London secondary schools by these sociologists shows how teachers use stereotypical notions of 'ability' to stream pupils. They found that teachers are less likely to see working-class (and Black) pupils as having ability. As a result, these pupils are more likely to be placed in lower streams and entered for lower-tier GCSEs. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity needed to gain good grades and widens the class gap in achievement. These sociologists link streaming to the policy of publishing exam league tables. These rank each school according to its exam performance - for example, in terms of the percentage of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSE grades A* to C (9-4). Schools need to achieve a good league table position if they are to attract pupils and funding. Publishing league tables creates what they call an 'A-to-C economy' in schools. This is a system in which schools focus their time, effort and resources on those pupils they see as having the potential to get 5 grade Cs and so to boost the school's league table position. This links with their other process called 'Educational Triage'. |
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Basil Bernstein (1975)
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This Marxist sociologist defined 2 types of speech code: -Restricted Code: This is typically used by the working-class. It has a limited vocabulary and is based on the use of short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences. Speech is predictable and may involve only a single word, or even just a gesture instead. It is descriptive, not analytic. It is context-bound, the speaker assumes that the listener shares the same set of experiences. It is understood between friends and family, with the middle-class also using it, but the working-class is limited to the use of it. -Elaborated code: This is typically used by the middle-class. It has a wider vocabulary and is based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences. Speech is more varied and communicates abstract ideas. It is context-free: the speaker does not assume that the listener shares the same experiences, and so they use language to spell out their meanings explicitly for the listener. Typically used by strangers in a formal context, as well as teachers in explanation, textbooks, business letters and job interviews. He argues this gives the middle-class an advantage at school, as the schools use textbooks, teacher language and essays as a means of achieving success. As well as this, their usage of this speech code at home are more confident to use this in school. |
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Answer
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Hint
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Nell Keddie (1971, 1973)
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In 1971, this sociologist applied the idea of labelling (developed by Becker) when looking at the operation of streaming in schools. She found that teachers were more likely to label children from middle class backgrounds as ‘ideal pupils’ and, as a result, they tended to be treated more favourably than working class pupils: -Such positive labelling resulted in middle-class children being more likely to be put into the higher streams where teachers tended to have higher expectations of the students. -The working class students in the lower streams were treated more negatively and were more likely to have higher level knowledge withheld from them.
In 1973, this sociologist argued that a child can't be deprived of its own culture and argues working-class children are simply culturally different - put at a disadvantage by an education system dominated by middle-class values. |
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Stephen Ball (1981)
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This sociologist found that there was a strong correlation between the bands that students were placed in schools and the occupational backgrounds of their parents: -Students with parents who had middle class occupations were more likely to be placed in the higher bands whereas children from whose parents had working class jobs were more likely to be in the lower bands. -He linked this situation to the process of positive and negative labelling by teachers - that teachers tended to have higher expectations of children in the higher bands and streams which resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy and differential educational achievement.
He found that when banding was removed in comprehensive schools, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of anti-school subculture declined. However, he found that differentiation continued. |
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Hubbs-Tait et al (2002)
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These sociologists found that where parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding, cognitive performance improves.
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Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968)
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These sociologists did a study on Oak community school, a Californian elementary school, to show the self-fulfilling prophecy at work. They told the school that they had a new test specifically designed to identify those pupils who would 'spurt' ahead. This was untrue, as the test was simply a standard IQ test. Importantly, however, the teachers believed what they had been told. They tested all the pupils, but then picked 20% of them purely at random and told the school, again falsely, that the test had identified these children as 'spurters'. On returning to the school a year later, they found that almost half (47%) of those identified as spurters had indeed made significant progress. The effect was greater on younger children.
They suggest that the teachers' beliefs about the pupils had been influenced by the supposed test results. The teachers had then conveyed these beliefs to the pupils through the way they interacted with them - for example, through their body language and the amount of attention and encouragement they gave them. |
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Marilyn Howard (2001)
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This sociologist argues young people that come from poor housing accommodation have lower intakes of energy and minerals and this can affect their health and can weaken their immune system. This can all lead to them missing school or having difficulty concentrating but also they can have behavioural and emotional problems.
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James Douglas (1964)
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This sociologist argued that parental interest was the most important factor in shaping a child’s level of educational success: -He concluded that working-class parents placed less value on education. Therefore, they were less ambitious for their children, gave them less encouragement and took less interest in their education. They visited schools less often and were less likely to discuss their children's progress with teachers. As a result, their children had lower levels of motivation and achievement. Whereas middle-class parents were the opposite of this, likely to encourage their children to stay on beyond the minimum school leaving age.
He also argued that there was a significant link between poor housing conditions (such as overcrowding) and lower educational attainment: -He found that children of manual workers were more likely to live in unsatisfactory housing and that they tended to perform worse in school tests measuring mental ability. -He also found poorer children were more likely to come from big families (overcrowding), attend poorer schools and to be less healthy (low attentiveness in school). -Children whose parents had non-manual jobs or came from a middle-class background were more likely to live in better housing and tended to perform better in the school tests at age 8 and 11.
Evaluation: The study conducted by this sociologist used IQ tests to divide participants into groups based on ability, to which they are seen as unreliable, cultural capital misrepresents ability of working-class children. |
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Howard Becker (1963, 1971)
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This interactionist sociologist came up with 'Labelling Theory'. He explains how we see a person as a certain 'type'. We label them. Once somebody is labelled, it can become a 'master status', for example overriding all other statuses such as father, brother, son. Someone with a negative label might find it difficult to get work or make new friends. So their label ends up in a self-fulfilling prophecy, which explains how some parts of society may be responsible for socialising some people into identities.
In the context of working-class underachievement, studies have shown teachers often attach labels regardless of the pupil's actual ability or attitude. Instead, they label pupils on the basis of stereotyped assumptions about their class background, labelling working-class pupils negatively and middle-class pupils positively.
This is how 'Labelling Theory' works in the context of education: Behaviour is observed → Label is attached → Behaviour is reinforced → Label is reinforced → Student internalises label → Student accepts or rejects label
In 1971, based on interviews with 60 Chicago High School teachers, he found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the 'ideal pupil': -Pupil work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers' judgements. The teachers saw children from middle-class backgrounds as the closest to ideal, and working-class children as furthest away from it as they regarded them as badly behaved. |
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