As well as the professors, the parents are a huge success in the children’s success in an institution. According to Rachel Williams, writer of “Middle-class Children Do Better at School Because Of Parents,” claims middle-class pupils do better because parents and schools put more effort into their education; thus children from poorer backgrounds were not predisposed to work less hard, but parents’ attitudes were most important, making more of a difference than schools
Publishing schools exams results in league tables ensure that the school has to achieve phenomenal results if they want to attract likes of the consumers. With good league tables in allows the schools to be selective in those pupils they give a confirmed place to with recuiting the high achieving middle class pupils. As a result of this middle class pupils get the best education because of the social class inequality with the education system. So for those with poor league tables they are not in the position to be selective with their pupils and have to offer places to the less able, mainly working class. So their results being unattractive to the middle class parents,
The closer the relationship, the more likely they are to be influenced. Edwin Sutherland and Ruby Payne both believed the same thing, the better the relationship, the more likely they will influence one another. Ruby Payne's article focuses on the lower-class, leading her to believe that students that come from a "poor" family learn rules on how to speak, behave, and acquire knowledge that conflict with the rules of school. She used the example of growing up in a high poverty neighborhood. Most children who are brought up in
Functionalist Murdock suggested as children we are socialised into societies shared norms and values and he believed that males provide the economic roles and females provided the expressive role. Therefore it is natural for women to play the expressive role in the household looking after the family’s emotional needs. However, radical feminist Ann Oakley argues that the role of the housewife is a social construction and isn’t linked to the female role. The housewife role makes sure that women stay inferior to men making it difficult for them have careers. Women carry out the triple burden in the household; the domestic labour, emotional labour, and paid labour.
The study found that the counsellor judged pupils largely on their social class; this therefore put them at a disadvantage as middle-class students were placed on higher level courses. The self-fulfilling prophecy is another internal factor that can be linked to social class differences in achievement. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply by virtue of it being made. Some sociologists argue that labelling can effect pupil’s achievement by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. This can be seen in a study of a primary school by Rosenthal and Jacobson.
Sociologists like Cultural deprivation theorists would agree with this statement.They believe that parental interests and attitudes to education influence working class childrens' attainment levels, this can be positive or negative influence.They would argue that children look upon their parents as role models, .When they see their parents act in a negative way regarding rules, school and work, they often follow in their footsteps. This could result in the children developing an Anti-School subculture. Studies do show that the working class do considerably worse than the middle class, in many aspects of education. Children in the middle class are more likely to struggle in school, more likely to underachieve at GCSE level and more likely to be expelled and excluded than middle class students. Cultural deprivation theorists would blame this on the lack of parental guidence and encouragment to succeed in education.
Wealthier people have their children attend “better” schools. These schools are “better” because there are more funding for the school to use on educational purposes. They can have better equipments in the classroom and hire better qualify teachers. In Mike Rose’s essay “I Just Wanna Be Average”, the author described the educational experiences of a student at a middle class school in Los Angeles. Base on Rose’s essay and my personal experience, I believe Anyon’s claim about school’s socio-economic class determines the type of instruction students receive is wrong.
Assess the claim that ‘the main function of education is to maintain a value consensus in society’. The claim that the main function of education is to maintain a value consensus in society is portrayed by different sociologists in different ways e.g. feminists believe that to maintain a value consensus in society, patriarchy needs to be abolished. Different theorists believe in different functions of the education system. Some think it as promoting value consensus and some see otherwise.
Education can equip individuals with the specialist skills and knowledge they will need to join the workforce because it ‘sifts and sorts’ students according to their own ability. The sociologists believe that the most important roles in the society should be filled by the most talented. For example, it would be inefficient and dangerous to have less able people performing roles such as a surgeon or airline pilot. The reward offered to people at different jobs encourages everyone to compete for them, leading to the selection of the best people for these positions in the society. Additionally, Peter Blau and Otis Duncan agree that a meritocratic education system enables each person to be allocated the jobs best suited to their abilities.
Public lectures are often held first thing in the morning. Though lectures are not mandatory to be attended by citizens, there is a large turnout. Utopians see education as something to be enjoyed, as a necessity within their society, and a right to all people. They also think of it as being important in bettering the characteristics of their citizens. An example of this is when More states: “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”(More) This shows More’s beliefs that without education, a societies citizens will turn to corruption and crime.