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.
Payne stated that students should learn the “hidden rules” of the middle class from their educators so that they have another set of rules to use if they choose to do so. Impoverished students, compared to students of middle or upper class, often have a lack of proper funding, thus, a lack of appropriate resources to use in their education. Due to this, they are often unprepared for school, not having the money to purchase books and other educational tools. Both authors realize this, but argue that the responsibility lies on different shoulders. 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.
Options like going without a book are not sufficient, because no amount of note taking can accurately replace in class learning with the book. Students also attempt to wait until financial aid is available; this generally puts students behind schedule, which is not how to start the semester. These students start out the year missing assignments. Some students have to depend on their parents to help them get books. This is not a solution either, due to the country already struggling in a financial depression.
This is a big influence on student’s educational achievement as they do not have enough money to buy the necessary equipment for school such as revision guides. Also, if a student comes from a poor background, the house is more likely to be overcrowded. This means that they do not have a quiet place to study and do their homework which puts them at a disadvantage. Thay may not be able to afford educational trips etc. this is known as cultural deprivation.
In the film Waiting for Superman, the filmmakers investigate schools where there are low expectations of student achievement. Some of the social factors seen in the film that contribute to non-functioning educational environments are Income, school location, neighborhood.. It seems that families in poverty or with low incomes are not interested in learning. They feel like they have been hit with the short end of the stick. The schools are generally over crowded with few good teachers.
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.
In the essay “School Is Bad for Children,” the author John Holt argues that traditional schooling prevents children from using their curiosity and stunts their interests in learning. He believes that in the school system, children do not have a chance to learn what they like; they learn what the teachers tell them they must learn causing them to become passive learners. The children don’t have a chance to learn from mistakes or through other children because they are scolded for talking and having wrong answers. John Holt believes that because of all this children learn to hate school and he proposes ideas to reform the school system and make it a more efficient place for children to learn. Holt was persuasive and I found myself agreeing
Children are hindered by these kinds of schools, teachers and peers lay a big role in the children’s lives. Some teachers are there for the income it will bring into their house hold and not the well-being of the child and students are pressued by their peers into thinking that education is lame and for losers. In most cases this is what children of low income go through but not all. Many may not realize that the surroundings of children may sometimes affect their future. Being raised in a low income area surrounded by people living the same lifestyle as you as if struggling is the norm of society.
There are also a few reasons as to why boys don’t tend to do so well in education. One reason is the feminisation of education. Sewell argues that as primary schools are female dominated this puts boys off education as they see learning as being feminine. Another reason could be due to their poorer literacy skills. Parents tend to spend less time reading with their sons, and the mother is usually the reader which makes boys think that reading is feminine.
Through this correlation, one can see how such factors can keep children in impoverished homes throughout their lives. Education is a social problem in the mix of poverty. In many low-income cities, a good education is very rare for many leaders of the household. This lack of education usually results in generational poverty. In other words, children end up following in their parent’s footsteps by dropping out of school at a young age.