It has been found that working class parents are less likely to give their children educational toys or read to them. They also have less stimulation on thinking and reasoning skills. This has a negative effect on the intellectual development of their children; therefore when working class pupils begin school, they are at a disadvantage compared to middle class pupils, whose parents have a high intellectual stimulation on their children. However, the gap between middle class advantage and working class disadvantage is narrow and so this may not have as much of an impact as implied. Another way in which cultural deprivation may lead to educational underachievement is due to the different speech codes used by middle class and working class people.
Asian pupils were found to also be the victims of racism in school, especially girls as Wright found (1992), saying that teachers leave Asian children out of classroom discussions and speak to them in childish language, isolating them from the other children and making them feel uncomfortable in school. The main way which racism causes difference in educational achievement between social classes is through things like streaming and exclusions. Black children were more often excluded than white children found Jenny Bourne (1994), this means they spend less time in school and therefore achieve lower on their exams than other groups. Evaluating the impact of racism in schools however, leads to research into student responses. Mac an Ghaill (1992) found that black and Asian students at a sixth form college did not always accept the label given to them by racist teachers.
Payne states that impoverished students face inequality at school, insinuating that the school should be responsible for helping to provide for these students so that they can have a better education. Gorski sees that responsibility lies most likely with us, who can aid teachers in offering a hand, as they are underpaid and are not able to do much on their own. The two authors have clashing ideas as to why students are in poverty: Payne believes that the impoverished students are lazy and have their own set of
Cultural deprivation means when children are deprived from things what they need. This can include the lack of values and support they get from their parents, which can influence on socialisation skills. It can be argued that due to lack of family structure, social cultural and soft skills pupils are less likely to underachieve. Cultural deprivation is a theory that many working-class children are inadequately socialised and therefore lack the ‘right’ culture appropriate for a successful education. Many people argue that development is vital in the younger years in the child’s life, and the ability to solve problems and apply ideas help in the long-term.
Children of separated couples may also perform worse at school and have poorer future employment prospects. Some children are less likely to have successful relationships themselves as adults. However, it is not inevitable that all children will suffer long term harm from the break up of a parent’s relationship. Reference: One plus One strengthening relationships www.oneplusone.org.uk New Sibling: Very young children will find this the most difficult to cope with, vying for parental attention for the first time. Some children may ‘play up’ in response to the stress of the life change.
the American Dream. This theory is very useful in highlighting certain points that are not explained within other theories. Albert Cohen, describes the idea of status frustration. By which he argues that deviance and crime result from the inability of those in lower classes to achieve mainstream goals. It is useful for highlighting why, in the working class, those who cannot achieve in education, they then therefore suffer from status frustration and in this process turn to other people who also cannot achieve in this institution.
This lack of knowledge is even more important than most people realize. A content-rich core curriculum is the only viable remedy. I, too, believe there is a degree of irony within Hirsch’s claims. He believes the progressive movement is responsible for movement away from academics. In turn, it has caused a lowering of standards, which has had its greatest impact on minority students.
One factor for the working-class under-achieving is that the working-class families are less likely to give their children toys that are educations, stimulating their thinking and reason skills. Another factor is that they are also less likely to read to their children also. These theorist believe that this effects the children’s intellectual development so when they begin, they are immediately at a disadvantage when compared with the middle-class children Secondly, another factor that is seen as responsible for the working-class to be under-achieving is known as “restricted speech code”. A sociologist called Bernstein has distinguished speech into two: “elaborated speech code” and “Restricted speech code”. The middle class are said to use the elaborated speech code , this tends to be a wide range of vocabulary and complex sentences.
However white working class suggests that the cause of education underachievement is a mixture of culture and class. The reasons for ethnic differences can be internal or external factors which are things such as cultural deprivation, material deprivation and racism theorists argue that underachievement these may then result to inadequate socialisation in the home. One major factor being the lack of intellectual and linguistic skills being taught to children, in addition children in ethnic minorities are less likely to take part in activities that are intellectually enriching due to material deprivation, leaving these students poorly equipped for school. In addition the language spoken by ethnic minority families tend to be inadequate for educational success as English may not be the child’s first language and so they may struggle more than white British children. However some sociologists argue that Asian and Indian children do just as well if not better than white middle class students despite not speaking English at home.
Also, because the teachers have middle class values as well, the cultural deprivation theorists believe that they will have a bias against the working class kids and therefore they will not be able to teach them properly since their values and cultures conflict. Compensatory education is a policy that was designed to deal with the problem of cultural deprivation, by providing extra resources to schools and communities in deprived areas. Compensatory education programmes were introduced to intervene early in the socialisation process to compensate children for deprivation they experience at home. The most comprehensive programme was Head Start. It involved health care, social services, and education.