Assess the View That Factors and Processes Within the School Are the Main Cause of Differences in the Educational Achievement of Different Social Groups.

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Social class differences in pupils’ home background plays a key role in causing differences in educational achievement. The material factor with the most impact on differences in achievement is poverty, such as adequate housing, diet and income. It causes children to achieve badly academically and mostly affects the working class. Poverty can cause working class underachievement in that a poor living environment could consist of overcrowding, and so pupils don’t have a quiet place to study and work efficiently. Also, the lack of a balanced diet can lead to absences from school and can cause them to loose concentration in class due to hunger. Having a low income affects educational achievement in several ways such as lack of educational materials such as books and computers with internet access, lack of the appropriate uniform, and inability to afford school trips that help develop further knowledge. Cultural deprivation and material deprivation have a common link that explains how they affect educational achievement. In Item A we read that children of parents in the higher social classes are already further up the scale of educational development from as early as 22 months. Bourdieu shows how both factors link together to produce class inequalities in achievement using the cultural capital theory. The argument is that middle class pupils are more successful than working class pupils because their parents possess more ‘capital’. This capital comes in two forms i.e. wealth and values. The middle class use their greater economic capital to provide their children with an advantage, thus reproducing the advantages of the middle class from generation to generation and so there will always be a significant difference in educational achievement, with middle class children exceeding working class children with regard to educational achievement. Poverty tends to lead to

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