EDUCATIONAL%20ACHIEVEMENT%20AND%20UNDER-ACHIEVEMENT

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EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AND UNDER-ACHIEVEMENT
Sociology Revision Lectures
Explanations This lecture focuses mainly on
class but touches on gender and race.
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Explaining Under-Achievement 2
EXPLAINING UNDER-ACHIEVEMENT

• Many different explanations of under-achievement
  have been put forward over the last 50 years.
• The under-achievement of a group can involve more
  than one factor.
• Individuals are members of three groups class,
  gender and ethnicity, e.g. a white working class
  male. He/she will be affected by all of these.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 3
TYPES OF EXPLANATION
There are 4 main explanations for
under-achievement. Explanations for class and
race are often similar.

• NON-SOCIOLOGICAL
• Psychological (20th century) or
• Biological (19th century) intelligence or
  natural differences between the sexes

• SOCIOLOGICAL
• Home background (cultural or material
  deprivation, or natural differences between the
  sexes)
• Schooling (the hidden and formal curriculum)
• Wider inequalities

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Explaining Under-Achievement 4
NON-SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

• The earliest explanations were not sociological,
  but psychological and biological.
• Psychologists argued that some groups were
  simply more intelligent than others, therefore
  they did better in IQ tests and at school.
• The groups doing best in IQ tests were white,
  male and middle class.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 5
CRITICISMS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

• These explanations have been criticised.
• There is little evidence to support them, e.g.
  Douglas found that upper middle class pupils
  obtained twice as many O Level passes as lower
  working class children with the same measured IQ.
• Some groups have improved their performance, e.g.
  girls and black pupils. Psychological theories
  cannot explain how this happens.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 6
HOME BACKGROUND CULTURAL DEPRIVATION

• The earliest sociological explanation of
  under-achievement blamed the home background of
  the working class.
• It focussed on the values and attitudes of the
  working class (more recently on black
  single-parent families).
• This was called CULTURAL DEPRIVATION.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 7
HOME BACKGROUND CULTURAL DEPRIVATION

• This explanation argued that the working class
  lacked the necessary attitudes for educational
  success. A number of factors were cited, but
  particularly a lack of parental interest in their
  childrens education.
• The most famous research here is Douglas
  longitudinal study.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 8
HOME BACKGROUND MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

• This explanation has been very influential.
• However, Douglas work has been criticised
  because of the way he measured parental
  interests whether parents visited the school.
• Both cultural factors (lack of confidence) and
  material factors (e.g. shift work) could prevent
  parents from doing this.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 9
HOME BACKGROUND MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

• An alternative explanation is that MATERIAL
  DEPRIVATION (lack of money, poor health or
  housing) would disadvantage certain groups.
• Halsey set out to test the relative importance of
  cultural and material factors in a survey of the
  working class.
• He found material factors central to whether
  pupils stayed on at school beyond 16.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 10
CRITICISMS OF HOME BACKGROUND EXPLANATIONS

• These theories were very influential until the
  1970s, but came under attack
• Interactionists argued that they ignored the
  meaning of education to groups of pupils.
• Many writers also argued that they ignored what
  went on in schools.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 11
THE FORMAL AND HIDDEN CURRICULUM

• The study of schooling involved looking at both
  the formal and hidden curriculum.
• Initially researchers were more interested in the
  hidden curriculum.
• In the 1970s interactionists began to study what
  went on in classrooms.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 12
HIDDEN CURRICULUM INTERACTIONISTS

• They found that teachers stereotyped (labelled)
  pupils in lower streams in grammar schools,
  secondary mods, and comprehensive schools.
• This tended to produce low expectations of
  pupils.
• They argued that pupils accepted these labels and
  developed anti-school cultures.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 13
HIDDEN CURRICULUM CRITICISMS

• This explanation pointed out that pupils were
  affected by what went on in school and not just
  at home.
• Marxists criticised these explanations for not
  explaining why the WORKING class were in lower
  streams and why they were the group which was
  labelled.
• They argued that interactionists ignored power.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 14
FORMAL CURRICULUM

• Marxists agreed that the hidden curriculum
  affected pupils, but argued that it reflected the
  values of the ruling class.
• They argued that this also applied to the FORMAL
  curriculum, which was a SELECTION of knowledge
  based on what the ruling class considered
  valuable.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 15
FORMAL CURRICULUM

• Because of this working class children found
  themselves learning knowledge which they did not
  feel was relevant, and which was not based on
  what they already knew.
• As a result working class children lacked
  CULTURAL CAPITAL and did less well in school.
• This legitimated their lower position in the
  class structure.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 16
STRUCTURAL EXPLANATIONS (WIDER INEQUALITIES

• Functionalist and Marxist explanations have both
  argued that working class children are bound to
  do less well in school.
• This is a preparation for their future role in an
  unequal society. These are structural
  explanations.
• For functionalists this is inevitable and
  meritocratic. Schools select the best for the
  most important jobs.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 17
STRUCTURAL EXPLANATIONS

• For Marxists, this is essential to the capitalist
  system failure at school justifies a role at the
  bottom of the social class structure.
• Bowles and Gintis argue that the schooling you
  get corresponds to your future role in
  production.
• Willis however argues that working class boys see
  through all of this.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 18
STRUCTURAL EXPLANATIONS

• Willis lads realise that schooling is
  irrelevant to them, and muck about.
• They develop anti-school cultures, but not
  because of teacher labelling.
• This is more of an interpretist explanation
  because it looks at schooling through the eyes of
  the lads.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 19
CONCLUSION

• There are 3 sociological explanations here home
  background, schooling and wider inequalities.
• These explanations have criticised each other,
  and each has been influential at different times.
• Now researchers would accept that all three have
  played a part in the under-achievement of the
  working class, which continues in 2000.

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Explaining Under-Achievement 20
REVIEW QUESTIONS 1 - 3
Answer 1

• 1. Identify the three sociological explanations
  of under-achievement.
• 2. What was the most important factor in working
  class failure for Douglas?
• 3. According to Halsey, what was the role of
  material deprivation?

Answer 2
Answer 3
Repeat Lecture
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Explaining Under-Achievement 21
REVIEW QUESTIONS 4 - 6

• 4. How did teacher labelling affect working class
  children according to interactionists?
• 5. What does it mean to say that working class
  children lacked cultural capital ?
• 6. What is a structural explanation?

Answer 4
Answer 5
Answer 6
Repeat Lecture
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Explaining Under-Achievement 22
REVIEW QUESTION 1 ANSWER

• The three explanations are
• Home background (cultural and material
  deprivation)
• Schooling (the formal and hidden curriculum)
• Wider inequalities (structural theories)

Back to Question 2
Repeat Lecture
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Explaining Under-Achievement 23
REVIEW QUESTION 2 ANSWER

• According to Douglas, the most important factor
  was a lack of parental interest in how their
  children did in school.
• This was usually, but not always, associated with
  the working class.
• This explanation was called CULTURAL DEPRIVATION

Back to Question 3
Repeat Lecture
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Explaining Under-Achievement 24
REVIEW QUESTION 3 ANSWER

• Halsey argued that material deprivation prevented
  working class children from staying on beyond 16.
• He wrote this before the 1990s, when there has
  been a big increase in the percentage of working
  class children staying on, possibly because of a
  lack of alternatives i.e. no jobs.

Back to Question 4
Repeat Lecture
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REVIEW QUESTION 4 ANSWER

• According to interactionists, working class
  pupils developed negative attitudes to school
  anti-school cultures, because of negative teacher
  attitudes and labelling.
• Research on ethnic minority pupils and girls has
  not found that these groups always accept teacher
  labels.

Back to Question 5
Repeat Lecture
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Explaining Under-Achievement 26
REVIEW QUESTION 5 ANSWER

• Working class children did not have the same
  knowledge in their home background that they
  found at school and did not do as well as they
  might.
• Middle and ruling class children did better
  because they were already familiar with the kind
  of knowledge required.

Back to Question 6
Repeat Lecture
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Explaining Under-Achievement 27
REVIEW QUESTION 6 ANSWER

• A STRUCTURAL explanation is one which argues that
  education reflects wider inequalities in the
  structure of society.
• Schools prepare people for their future role in
  society. For the working class, this is a role
  at the bottom of an unequal society.
• This seems fair to them because they fail.

Back to Question 1
Repeat Lecture