Evaluate the Claim That the Main Reason Why Working-Class Children Underachieve in Education Is Their Poverty.

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Evaluate the claim that the main reason why working-class children underachieve in education is their poverty. (20 Marks) It can be strongly argued that the claim for working-class children underachieving is due to their poverty, some reason for and against this are written below. One of the reasons for which enforces the statement above is the internal part, for example an internal factor of working-class (W.C) underachieving in school is the theory of labelling. The labelling theory is a theory that suggests teachers, mostly middle-class, are generally known for labelling their students. If a W.C student is labelled by a middle-class (M.C) teacher the student often believe that the teacher is right therefore they take that label they have been given and they become a self-fulfilling prophecy which means they accept the label they have been given and stay that standard, this is basically saying if a student is labelled negatively they stay negative because they are ‘fulfilling their own prophecy’ so they are now going to underachieve in education. This is effected by poverty due to W.C generally not being able to afford nice uniforms so the teacher can tell they come from a W.C background because they don’t look as smart as the M.C students. Another reason in the claim that poverty is the main reason for W.C underachievement is because they are generally more fatalistic. If a W.C child is fatalistic in school then it means that they are also culturally deprived, because they are culturally deprived they have attitudes which insist that they are not going to do well in school because for example their parents didn’t then they will not try to get an education as they are fatalistic about being setup to fail in
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