PETER SAUNDERS- (USE IN INTRODUCTION)- He argues that over time the less intelligent genes have filtered to the bottom of the class system,therefore the current working class students in the education system have significantly lower intelligence than the middle class.

DOUGLAS- PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT- He found that the amount of parental interest and encouragement someone has,has a huge impact on their educational performance.Middle class parents are far more likely to attend parents evenings/visit school to meet teachers etc.They also encourage their children more to stay into post-16 education.

BARRY SUGARMAN- He argues that middle class parents are future orientated- they encourage their children to defer gratification- to put off the opportunity of earning money full time,because if they study further- A-levels/Degree etc. they will earn a lot more in the long term.Working class students have immediate gratification.They choose to have a full-time job at 16.This creates issues in school because they know they are going to leave at 16 so see no point in aiming high and trying to succeed.This explains why they perform badly in school.

BASIL BERNSTEIN- LANGUAGE CODES- He explains the gap in the achievement between working class(w/c) + middle class(m/c) through language; M/C students able to speak the elaborated language code- this is formal language with a wide vocabulary + sophisticated grammar.W/C students are able to speak restricted language code- informal/slang language,peer vocabulary + grammar.The education system uses + expects the elaborated code- this gives M/C students a huge advantage.

ROSENTHAL + JACOBSEN- They conducted some research on the power of teacher labelling.They went into primary schools and conducted IQ tests on students,made up the results and went back in at the end of year to monitor their progress.The students randomly allocated on above average IQ had performed the best,while the students randomly allocated a below average IQ had performed the worst.The power of teacher labelling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.M/C students are far more likely to be labelled in a positive manner by teachers- this explains why they do better in school.

STEVE BALL- He looked at how teacher labelling impacts on setting and streaming.He found that teachers tended to expect students from middle class backgrounds to perform better and therefore placed them into higher sets,whilst the reverse was true for those from working class backgrounds; teachers labelled them negatively and they ended up in the lower sets.

	Created by soniula over 11 years ago

G972- Social Class & education -Ethnicity and education -Gender and subject choice