Education Blackboard

7/28/2019 Education Blackboard

1/47

SS-1065D

Social Divisions and ChangeWeek 11

Final lecture


2/47

This week Social divisions and educational achievement

Individuals have multiple aspects to their social

identities. E.g. class, gender and ethnicity, e.g. awhite working class male.

He/she may be affected by all of these identities.

Gender and intersection with other aspects of

identity in education Class and life chances


3/47

Explanations for achievement Biological

Biological (19th C) intelligence or natural differences between thesexes (although see more recent 20th C work on race and IQ tests

(e.g. The Bell Curve- critiqued as inaccurate and racist):

Sociological

Schooling:

the formal curriculum and hidden curriculum which pupils aretaught what?

Teaching approaches and teacher attitudes

The school environment and structure

Peer cultures

Wider social inequalities in society, cultural and material capital


4/47

Gender: Patterns up to 1980s/90s Main question was why girls did not achieve as well

as boys in school?

Up to 1960s girls outperformed boys in primary andearly secondary years before boys caught up and

overtook them in post-16 education.

Subject choices: boys maths and science. Girls

arts, languages, home economics etc.


5/47

Gender: 1990s onwards Main question: why are boys underachieving? Or rather

why are particular groups of boys underachieving?

Boys are more likely to get the highest and the lowest grades

polarisation. White working class: Wendy Bottero focus on their ethnicity

is hiding structural socio-economic causes, David Gillbornconstruction of white racial victimhood in the media talkabout race, but not class war.

Subject choices: more girls doing chemistry, medicine etc butstill some gender divide across other subjects

However, increase in education achievements of girls incomparison to boys disguises the role of class andethnicity. There are still differences here. Middle-class

white girls. (See Walkerdine et al (2001) Growing Up Girl)


6/47

Failing boys: moral panic Epstein et al.s (1998) Failing Boys - argue that in the media

and educational policy there is a moral panic around boysunderachievement This:

a) masks the continuing problems faced by girls in schools;

b) reinforces male privilege by justifying a greater focus andresources on meeting boys needs (at the expense of girls); and

c) deflects attention from the larger achievement gaps accordingto race and social class.

Francis (2006)Heroes or Zeros? alongside poor boysdiscourse, the neo-liberal focus of failure on individuals ratherthan social structures means certain groups of boys beginningto be demonised for their apparent wastefulness ofresourcesand failure to take responsibility for their own achievement(p.187)


7/47

Gender - definition The social identity that has become historically and

culturally attached to being male or female.

Masculinity and femininity used to describe the

social roles, expectations and behaviours linked to

each gender. (see Ann Oakley Sex, Gender and

Society [1974])


8/47

The social construction of gender Doing gendermasculinities and femininities do not

exist prior to social behaviour, either as bodily states or

fixed personalities (Connell 1996: 210). They come into

existence as people act in everyday interactions and inorganisational life (the way social practices are structured

and organised)

The role of school:

School as a setting the site in which interactions takeplace (remember there are other sites in society through

which social construction of gender takes place)

School as an agent (structures and practices of school)


9/47

How success and failure is

explained -Abbot (2006) Pamela Abbott : when boys are failing it is often

explained through extrinsic factors (through factors

external to them) such as the feminisation of school

environment. Whereas success is intrinsic when

they succeed its seen as because they naturally

have a higher ability.

When girls succeed it is explained by extrinsicfactors such as more girl friendly teaching

environment, use of coursework etc and low status

intrinsic factors (e.g. neatness, conformity)


10/47

Sex-role theory Sex-role theory schools transmit society wide norms

and children receive these

Sue Sharpe (1976) Just like a girl: how girls learn to bewomenthe hidden curriculum, also how gendersocialisation outside school affects education outcomes

READ Sharpes extract School and the HiddenCurriculum

What does the hidden curriculum mean?

Dale Spender ed. (1980) Learning to Lose: Sexism andeducationeducation as indoctrination, cult of the apron

BUT what about the ways in which boys and girls usefemininities and masculinities to resist control. The role ofagency and how does power circulate and how is power

used?


11/47

Interactionist approaches Small scale, qualitative research based primarily on

observation in schools - ethnographic Look at the effects of within-school factors on pupil

achievement, especially pupil-teacher interaction. Importance of streams/sets and mixed ability

teaching. Positive and negative labelling + their effects - Self-

fulfilling prophecies Gender and labelling: which forms of behaviour are

coded masculine and feminine and which forms ofmasculine and feminine identities are valued andassociated with success?

Also working class and some ethic minority students= most likely to be negatively labelled.


12/47

Gender regimes in school

(Connell 1996) Power relations teacher-teacher, teacher-pupil, pupil-

pupil

Division of labour

Patterns of emotion Symbolization

Taking up the offer - Connell points out that the terms onwhich people participate are not predetermined theymay adjust to these patterns, rebel against them or try to

modify them There may be differences within the school and gender

regimes can also change over time because SOCIALLYCONSTRUCTED


13/47

Sexuality and engagement

with school 1970s onwards feminists have looked at WC girls and sub-

cultural forms of resistance to education through performancesof femininity. Hyper-heterosexual femininity althoughmore recent studies shown MC girls doing gender in this way

also, but different outcomes (Archer et al. 2007). Also laddettes

Archer et al. (2007) while the young women useheterosexual femininities as a means to generate capital,it is ultimately paradoxical because these constructionssimultaneously play into other oppressive powerrelations.

Heterosexuality and masculinity Mac an Ghail: machoboys who label boys who achieve academically as beingeffeminate or gay. Sexual harassment of girls. Attempts toassert power and dominance.


14/47


15/47

Statistics: ethnicity Lower levels of attainment among Black Caribbean, Pakistani,

and Bangladeshi groups than whites. Indians, Chinese andBlack Africans are more likely to have higher qualifications.(Modood, 2005, Parekh, 2000, Gallagher, 2004).

Some ethnic groups (e.g. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) =internally polarized, with both high and low qualifications. In40% of LAs, Pakistanis more likely than whites to attain 5grade A-C GCSEs (Modood, 2005).

By 1990s attainment among Bangladeshi rising considerably &in some areas outperform white pupils (DES, 2006).

While Black Caribbean children begin school at the same

standard as the national average, by the age of 16, thenumber of students who have five GCSE passes is less thanhalf the national average (DES, 2006)

What is happening in school/wider society to producethis? Not intrinsic to persons ethnicity.


16/47

Statistics: ethnicity All ethnic minorities, with the exception of Black Caribbean

males, increasing representation in further education andsome groups now exceed the governments target of 50%participation (Modood, 2005).

Black Caribbean pupils are considerably more likely to facedisciplinary action and exclusion from school; there has alsobeen a recent increase in exclusions of Bangladeshi,Pakistani, and Somali pupils (DfES, 2006).

Black Caribbean pupils are one and a half times more likelythan white pupils to be identified as having behavioural,emotional and social needs (DfES, 2006).

Gypsy/Roma and Traveller pupils experience the mostsevere educational exclusion of any minority ethnic group inthe UK with levels of attainment being roughly of thenational average.


17/47

Cultures and essentialismAs well as variations within a culture, cultures are

also not static. They change over time and

locations. James Clifford (1986: 10) : Cultures do not hold

still for their portraits. Attempts to make them do

so always involve simplification and exclusion,

selection of a temporal focus, the construction ofa particular self-other relationship.


18/47

Black masculinities and schooling: how Black boys

survive modern schooling (Tony Sewell 1997)

Ethnographic study in 2 London high schools

These categories are not held to be rigid or homogenous,

but used by Sewell to build explanations.

Teacher attitudes: Supportive

Irritated

Antagonistic

Student responses (attitudes to means and goals ofschool):

Rebels

Conformist

Innovatorscompares to Fullers (1990) pro-ed, anti-school girls

Retreaters


19/47

Routes into education and employment for young Pakistani

and Bangladeshi women in the UK (Dale et al. 2010)

Young people interviewed in Manchester and Oldham

Found high aspirations and motivations to do well in

education

. . . if they (girls) want to be independent, you know, then

they should carry on (with their education). I think most of

them do carry on, because of their independence, they

dont rely on the partneror anything like that. (Pakistani

girl)

In my family, right, . . . my family expects me to go out,get a degree, do this, do that, and everyones always

expecting me to do this, do that, and sometimes, Im

getting wound up by the pressure. (Pakistani boy)


20/47

Differing perspectives on izzat (1) Parents izzat is extremely important and they

(children) need to know that. Im not saying that theycant study away from home. I say they can even go

abroad as far as America if they want to and myhusband and I agree on this. They can studywherever they want but the condition is that theyremember the door of their parents home and thatthey will be returning through that door the way theyleft. And if they follow this advice, then I dont thinktheyll lose out in life, ever. The world will respectthem and parents will also respect them.


21/47

Differing perspectives on izzat (2) Around here, theres a young girl, about 20 years

old and she recently got married and people didnteven know they had a daughter of that age, because

she never went out anywhere and just stayed in thehome. She had younger sisters who wenteverywhere with their mum, but she never wentanywhere; she was that faithful she never wentanywhere. So as you see, in our Islam it is stronglyrecommended not to go out of the home, but thesedays, its become a custom wherever you look,everybody goes out and everybody works.


22/47

Community monitoring of behaviour Some people, like, they talk about you . . . Oh, your

daughter is doing this or . . .they say hows your

daughter . . . and they say theyve gone to college

and they are studying this . . . and then they say:

why do you do that? . . . why dont you just get them

married? (Focus group of Pakistani and Bangladeshi

girls aged 1415)


23/47

Activity It is often argued that the curriculum has been

feminised, or that it only reflects white and/or middle

class values. These arguments are sometimes given

as reasons for inequalities between students of

different genders, and class or ethnic backgrounds.

Think about your school or college or university

curriculum

In small groups, consider gender, class or ethnicity

and think about a) whether you agree with the

argument and b) the ways in which the curriculum

might be biased towards one particular group.


24/47

Race and Class (Mirza et al. 2000) There is evidence that the inequality of attainment between social

classes has grown since the late 1980s (Mirza et al. )

Even when controlling for social class, there remain significant

inequalities of attainment between different ethnic groups. For example,

only white pupils improved year on year regardless of their classbackground.

However, pupils from non-manual backgrounds still have significantly higher

attainments, as a group, than their peers of the same ethnic origin but from

manual households.

Although for Black Caribbean pupils the social class difference is much lesspronounced

The gender gap is considerably smaller than the inequalities of

attainment associated with ethnic origin and social class background

although does still exist and significant in its effects when

intersecting with particular ethnicity and class.


25/47

IQ Theory E.g. Charles Murray. The key assumptions of IQ theory

are:

Intelligence can be defined clearly

It can be measured accurately via IQ tests Data indicate clear social class differences in intelligence

Research on identical twins suggests that up to 80% ofthe variation in intelligence among individuals can beexplained by genetic factors

Environmental factors , therefore, are less important thaninherited IQ as determinants of intelligence

Walkerdine et al case study where MC girl and WC girlgetting low grades teachers perspective: MC girl nottrying, WC girl low ability.


26/47

Criticism of IQ theory Intelligence cannot be defined clearly or accurately measured by IQ

tests.

IQ tests may be culturally biased

Student IQ test scores can improve with practice, suggesting that theydo not measure fundamental intelligence

Some studies suggest working class students with high IQ scores are

still more likely to leave school at an early age - suggesting

environmental factors are important

Douglas found that upper middle class pupils obtained twice as many OLevel passes as lower working class children with the same measured

IQ.

Some groups have improved their performance, e.g. girls and black

pupils. IQ theories cannot explain how this happens.


27/47

Cultural deprivation theory Relevant theorists: e.g Douglas, Bernstein.

The relative educational underachievement of working class students

is explained by their cultural deprivation.

This explanation argued that the working class lacked the

necessary attitudes for educational success. A number of factors

were cited, but particularly a lack of parental interest in their

childrens education.

Key elements of cultural deprivation: fatalism, strong present

time orientation, unwillingness to plan for the future,

unwillingness to defer gratification, linguistic deprivation.


28/47

Criticism of cultural deprivation theory (1)

Douglas work has been criticised because of the way hemeasured parental interest: i.e. whether parents visited the school.

Walkerdine et al.what is seen as culture and how is certain

behaviour interpreted?

Parents experiences of school: in their study most WC parents

had left school early, many had not enjoyed it, a priority for some

was that children would be happier at school than they had been,

Advocacy: WC parents seen as aggressive, trouble makers or if

deferring to teachers assumed knowledge about education seen

as uninterested. MC parents as assertive advocates for theirchildren.

Parents evenings: Power in teacher-parent interactions: MC

parents seen as equal professionals or even see teachers as

providing service to them.


29/47

Criticism of cultural deprivation

theory (2) Material deprivation (lack of money, poor health or housing)

may disadvantage certain groups.

Educational Maintenance Awards (EMAs) were introduced to attempt

to counter this

Working class parental ambitions may have declined as a result of

inaccurate and/or unfair setting processes and/or inaccurate negative

school reports.

It may be lack of material resources which force working class

parents and pupils to be oriented to the present and make themunable to defer gratification

In any case many working class parents are keen to give their

children a better chance than they had.

What about material circumstances and also the organisation of

schools?


30/47

Material circumstances Working class students may experience a range of adverse material

circumstances such as:

Fewer pre-school play groups and nurseries in working class areas

Greater risk of poor diet, under-nourishment, tiredness, sickness

and absence from school W/C pupils may feel forced to take part-time paid work which

interferes with studies: for M/C pupils this is optional rather than

necessary.

No quiet room for study

Parents unable to afford relevant books, trips or personal computers Parents unable to afford part-time private tuition or full time private

education

Parents unable to afford housing in catchment areas of top schools

Parents and students anxiety over debts associated with higher

education


31/47

The role of education How and why did education systems arise? Looking

back to 19th Century

Normalisation of the working-class to fit middle-

class aspirations and values.

Liberation or containment and pacification?

An instructed and intelligent people besides are

always more decent and orderly than an ignorantoneless apt to be misled into any wanton or

unnecessary opposition to the measures of the

government (Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations)


32/47

Structural explanation: producing

a labour force Functionalists and Marxists have both argued that

working class children are bound to do less well inschool. This is a preparation for their future role in anunequal society.

Functionalists: this is inevitable and meritocratic.Schools select the best people for the most important

jobs.

Marxists: this is essential to the capitalist system: failureat school justifies a role at the bottom of the social class

structure. Bowles and Gintis argued that the schooling you get

corresponds to your future role in production.

In Learning to LabourWillis however argued that workingclass boys see through all of this.


33/47

Paul Willis Learning to Labour: how working class kids

get working class jobs (1977) (1) Willis study focused mainly on 12 male working class

non-examination students in a secondary modern school

in the 1970s (where students who failed 11+ exam went to

instead of grammar school)

The study looked at the interaction of structure and

agency

Willis: main reason for the relative educational under-

achievement of these pupils was that they actively chose

a future involving hard , unskilled manual work as a

means of confirming their masculinity. This is the agency

aspect of Willis theory.


34/47

Paul Willis Learning to Labour: how working

class kids get working class jobs (1977) (2) The boys have realised that their exam grades would not

improve their employment prospects substantially, but

they have not realised the long term disadvantages of

unskilled manual work. Here their behaviour is influencedby the structure of society.

The lads preparing for the factory floor

The earoles seen by the lads as being effeminate.School as a pathway to a career


35/47

De-industrialisation In the mid 1970s ,unskilled manual work was widely

available but the mass unemployment of the 1980s and

early 1990s and the decline of manufacturing industry

have changed attitudes to employment for many working-class boys.

Mac an Ghail (1994) - with reduced potential for

achieving in terms of traditional working class trades, the

macho lads no longer have instrumental attitude toschool. Instead they seek alternative anti-school values

and adopt laddish attitudes and behaviour


36/47

Cultural capital Some sociologists argue that working class students

may be at an educational disadvantage not because

their culture is deprived or inferior but because it is

different and values and knowledge associated withtheir culture have less status in society.

Cultural analysis of class expose the

unacknowledged normality of the middle classes

(Ball, 2003; Reay et al. 2007; Savage et al. 2001) +

the pathologisation of the working classes (Lawler,

2005; Reay, 2004; Skeggs, 2004).


37/47

Pierre Bourdieu (1)

French sociologist (1930-2002)

Class distinctions and class cultures- cultural dimensions

of class stratification Habitus - refers to a set of patterns of thought,

behaviour and taste that are acquired through the

internalisation of culture and social structures, and

through individuals experiences (Bourdieu and Waquant1992: 54).

Class cultures are different and working class children even if

culturally different from middle and upper class children are

culturally different rather than culturally deprived.


38/47

Pierre Bourdieu (2) Concerned not only with inequality of educational opportunity but

with the overall functions of education systems .

Capitalist societies are class societies where the dominant classes

use their power to maintain their class advantages

Dominant class have the social power to ensure that their culture is

defined as the culture which is superior to other class cultures

The dominant classes have the power also to ensure that schools

and colleges evaluate students in terms of the culture [knowledge,

attitudes and skills] possessed by most of the dominant classchildren, but only rarely by working class children

The dominant class culture can be learned only in dominant class

families because schools and colleges do not teach this culture

although they do assess students in terms of it.


39/47

Bourdieu (3) Working class students are put at an educational disadvantage

because they are assessed in terms of a dominant culture

which they cannot learn at home or at school

Bourdieu calls the knowledge attitudes and skills

available to the dominant class children cultural capitalbecause its transmission from parents to children helps

to perpetuate class advantages across the generations in

the same way as the transmission of wealth does

(economic capital) and useful social connections (social

capital)

Capitalist education systems may be seen as fair and

meritocratic but for Bourdieu this is merely a convenient myth

which hides the roles of education systems in the reproduction

of capitalist class structures.


40/47

Identity transformation Reay (2009): Influenced by Bourdieus class analysis

Reay argues that working-class students need to

transform their identity in order to succeed.

Shaun: In the classroom I am not myselfIn the

playground, yeah Im back to my normal selfjust

being normal


41/47

Beyond the school gate The Zombie Stalking English Schools: Social

Class and Educational Inequalityby Dianne

Reay [2006].

within education policy the prevailing focus has

been on within-school processes; a focus that

has often been at the expense of understanding

the influence of the wider economic and socialcontext on schooling. (p. 289)

Good article if looking at social mobility and class


42/47

Hidden curriculum: labelling, class

and self-fulfilling prophecies Interactionist studies found that teachers stereotyped

(labelled) pupils in lower streams/sets/bands in schools.

This tended to produce low expectations of pupils.

They argued that pupils accepted these labels and

developed anti-school cultures.

This explanation pointed out that pupils were affected by

what went on in school and not just at home.

Marxists criticised these explanations for not explaining

why the working class were in lower streams and why

they were the group which was labelled.

They argued that interactionists ignored power.


43/47

Classroom interactions Streaming and assessment procedures (Reay 2009):

produces and reaffirms some as academic stars

while producing sense of worthlessness among

others.

Ill be a nothing and do badly very badly.


44/47

Some classic studies on streaming and teacher-

pupil interactions Hargreaves (1967): streaming in a boys secondary modern

school led to the development of academic and delinquent

subcultures

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) self-fulfilling prophecy: whenteachers were provided with intentionally inaccurate

assessments of pupils abilities this had a significant impact on

pupil- teacher interactions. V unethical methodology!

Nell Keddie (1970) Classroom Knowledge: Streaming/banding.

Important information withheld from lower band pupils becauseteachers believe they will not understand it

Ball (1981) Beachside Comprehensive: Informal ability grouping

within mixed ability classes is also likely so that mixed ability

teaching does not remove the problem of negative labelling.


45/47

Activity In your group, design a new curriculum that would

better cater for the needs of all groups. For this

activity you should consider:

The national curriculum subjects

Teaching methods and delivery

New or alternative forms of learning


46/47

Ball, S. J. (1981). Beachside comprehensive. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

BALL, S.J. (2003) Class Strategies and the Educational Market: the MiddleClasses and Social Advantage (London, RoutledgeFalmer).

Bernstein, B. (1971) Class, Codes and Control: Theoretical Studies Towards aSociology of Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist America:Education Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: BasicBooks Inc

CLIFFORD, J. 1986. Partial Truths. In: J. Clifford, and G. Marcus, eds. WritingCulture:the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkley/Los Angeles: Universityof California Press, pp. 1-26.

Connell, R. (1996) Teaching the Boys: New Research on Masculinities andGender Strategy for Schools, Teaching College, 98(2)

Dale, A., Nusrat Shaheen, Virinder Kalra & Edward Fieldhouse (2010) Routesinto education and employment for young Pakistani and Bangladeshi women in

the UK, Ethnic and Racial Studies DfES (Department for Education and Skills). 2006. Ethnicity and Education: The

Evidence on Minority Ethnic Pupils Aged 5-16. London: DfES.

Douglas ,J. W. B. (1964), The Home and the School, MacGibbon and Kee,London.

Epstein et al. (1998) Failing boys: Issues in gender and achievement, OpenUniversity Press.


47/47

Francis, B. (2006)Heros or Zeros? The discursive of underachieving boys inEnglish neo-liberal education policy Journal of Education Policy, 21 (2) 187-200.

Hargreaves, D. (1967). Social Relations in a Secondary School. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul.

Keddie, N. (1970) Classroom Knowledge. In Young (Ed.) Knowledge and Control ,London: Collier-Macmillan.

LAWLER, S. (2005) Disgusted subjects: the making of middle-class identities, TheSociological Review, 3 (3), 429446.

Mac an Ghail, M. (1994) The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexulaities and Schooling,Buckingham: Open University Press.

Modood, Tariq. 2005. Multicultural Politics. Routledge. London

Murphy, P. & Elwood, J. (1998) Gendered experiences , choices and avhievementsexploring the links, Journal of Inclusive Education, 2(2): 95-118.

Parekh, Bhiku. 2000. The Parekh Report. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

REAY, D. ( 2004) Mostly Roughs and Toughs : Social class, race and representationin inner city schooling, Sociology, 35 (4), 10051023.

REAY, D. et al. (2007) A darker shade of pale? Whiteness, the middle classes andmulti-ethnic inner city schooling, Sociology.

Rosenthal , L. & Jacobson, L. (1968) Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher expectationand pupils intellectual development , Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Savage, M. et al. (2001) Ordinary, ambivalent and defensive: class identities in theNorthwest of England, Sociology, 35 (4), 875892.

Walkerdine et al. (2001) Growing up Girl: Psychosocial explorations of gender andclass, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Date post:	03-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	mev12345
View:	220 times
Download:	0 times

Education Blackboard

Documents