Class Differences in Achievement - Pupils' Class Identity and The School

Question 1

What are these sociologists interested in investigating?

Answer 1

How pupils’ identities formed outside of school interact with the school and how it affects their educational success/failure.

Question 2

What is this topic divided into?

Answer 2

1) . Habitus.
2) . Symbolic capital and symbolic violence.
3) . ‘Nike’ identities.
4) . Working-class identity and educational success.
5) . Class identity and self-exclusion.
6) . Educational policies.

Question 3

What concept does Archer use to understand the relationship between pupils’ w/c identities and underachievement?

Answer 3

Bourdieu’s habitus.

Question 4

What is meant by habitus?

Answer 4

Refers to the ways in which social classes think, and act.

• e.g. lifestyles and expectations that are normal for ‘people like us’.

Question 5

How does a w/c habitus lead to educational underachievement?

Answer 5

Because the m/c has the power to impose their habitus on the education system =

• the school holds m/c values.
• putting m/c at an advantage, whilst w/c are regarded as inferior.

Question 6

What is meant by symbolic capitalism?

Answer 6

• Schools have m/c habitus = m/c pupils have a valuable status.
• Schools withhold w/c status (symbolic violence) by devaluing w/c pupils’ habitus, judging their accents, clothing and tastes.
• This symbolic violence deny’s w/c pupils’ symbolic capitalism.

Question 7

What example can be applied to schools committing symbolic violence of w/c pupils?

Answer 7

‘Nike’ identities.

Question 8

What is meant by ‘Nike’ identities?

Answer 8

• Symbolic violence leads to pupils creating class identities.
• They gain symbolic capitalism from peers through consuming branded goods, also prevented bullying.

Question 9

What dos Archer say the consequence of w/c pupils adopting ‘Nike’ identities are?

Answer 9

• School’s m/c habitus rejects w/c street styles by stigmatising them as rebels.
• This conflict resulted in w/c rejecting school as it didn’t suit their identity, and schools marginalised them.

Question 10

What does Archer’s study focus on with the relationship between pupils’ identities and education?

Answer 10

Focuses on the relationship between pupils’ identities and educational failure.

Question 11

What did Ingram (2009) find in relation to w/c identities and educational success?

Answer 11

• Study on w/c boys in grammar schools.
• The schools m/c habitus made ‘fitting in’ a problem for the boys, as they received symbolic violence for wearing clothes that represent their neighbourhoods habitus.
• They wear judged worthless by school for wearing ‘street’ clothes, and by the neighbourhood for not doing so.

Question 12

What does Evans (2009) find in relation to w/c pupils excluding themselves from education?

Answer 12

• Study of 21 w/c girls studying A-Levels.

- Found they were reluctant to apply to Oxbridge because they felt they wouldn’t fit in with the elite habitus.

Question 13

What did Bourdieu say about girl’s not applying to elite universities?

Answer 13

As they believe they wouldn’t fit in due to their habitus, they would narrow their opportunities by excluding themselves from elite universities.

Question 14

How are the internal and external factors of class differences interrelated?

Answer 14

1). Habitus + identity =

w/c habitus may conflict schools m/c habitus, leading to symbolic violence.

2). Speech codes (external) =

may lead to teachers creating a self-fulfilling prophecy (internal).

3). Dunne and Gazeley =

what teachers believe about w/c pupils’ home background (external) impacts their achievement (internal).

Question 15

What is another external factor that affects pupils’ achievement?

Answer 15

Educational policies.

Question 16

How do educational policies have an impact on educational achievement (internal/ external)?

Answer 16

1). Marketisation =

increased the amount of streaming, leading to w/c underachievement.

2). Grants, fees, maintenance loans, etc =

have impacted pupils home background, as they wont be able to afford university.