what processes within schools may affect social class differences in achievement?

Social class differences are one of the most significant differences in educational achievement, with a wider gap between rich and poor than in gender or ethnicity (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000). Social class differences between people are often measured in terms of parental occupation, family income or whether individual’s parents went to university. However, there are ways that the school system amplifies or can even be seen to create social class differences.

The School institution prepares pupils for exploitation

Louis Althusser, a neo-Marxist thinker, argued that education is an ‘ideological state apparatus’. This means that it works to prepare the proletariat working class students for poorly paid, manual labour jobs. School does this by

Discipline – teaching students respect for authority and not to think for themselves

The structure of the school – clear timetables and a bell ringing to signal the start and the end of the day mirror the structure of factory work.

This neo-marxist viewpoint was followed up by Paul Willis (1977) in his study of a state boy’s school. He identified two groups the lads and the earoles. The lads were working class and were excluded by the school which drove them eventually to dropping out early and joining factories. The school made them aware that they did not belong in higher education.

A good example of this would be the promotion of vocational courses in school and BTEC’s/NVQs particularly to working class pupils as a way out of education.

2 School is a middle class institution so it is difficult for working class pupils to adjust.

Basil Bernstein suggested that schools create class differences in achievement because they advantage middle class pupils. This is because, he argues, schools are institutions built around middle class values this therefore disadvantages working class pupils. Bernstein analysed how certain kinds of language used were given higher marks in tests. He suggested that working class pupils because of their background were only able to communicate using restricted language (straightforward words) while middle class pupils were also able to use elaborated language (complex adjectives etc). Teachers, because they were middle class too valued the elaborated use of language more giving those middle class pupils higher marks. An empirical example of this would be if a test question used complicated language which all the middle class pupils regularly use but the working class pupils don’t, the working class pupils would struggle to answer the question.

Pierre Bourdieu expands what Bernstein argues suggesting that the environment of the school fits the middle class ‘habitus’ better than the working class habitus. Therefore middle class pupils feel more welcome and at home in school, where as working class pupils can feel alienated or out of place. The rules of the school are built on middle class norms so middle class pupils fit in but working class pupils have to learn these norms and values which often clash with the ones they learnt at home. This can be seen to put them at a disadvantage.

The British school system- public vs private

There is also the division between public and private schools which enhances the class divide in achievement. Private school pupils make up 7% of all pupils in the UK but make up 40% (approx.) of Oxbridge students, they are therefore disproportionately successful. The private school system in which pupils have to pay for an elite education advantages the rich or upper/middle classes while disadvantaging working class pupils who cannot attend.

Teacher bias/ labelling

Teaching is often seen as a typically middle class profession with most teachers having a high level of education. Therefore, they tend to view children who share the same norms and values as them as good students. A good example of the effect of labelling is Jane Elliot’s (1968) experiment where she told all the pupils in her class that blue eyed children were better than brown eyed children. As a result over the course of the experiment the blue eyed children’s test scores increased while the brown eyed children’s test scores decreased. This suggests that if children are labelled as non-achieving either a) directly by the teacher or b) through setting or streaming they internalize this label which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.