Material Deprivation Is The Most Important Barrier To Educational Attainment

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Material Deprivation Is The Most Important Barrier To Educational Attainment

Material deprivation is a lack of money, which leads to disadvantages,

such as unhealthy diet and a lack of materials such as computer and

textbooks. J.W.B Douglas examined education of 5,362 British children

and grouped the children in terms of their ability, which was measured

by IQ tests. He then divided them into four social class groupings and

found significant variations between students of a similar ability but

who were from different social backgrounds.

Douglas believed that underachievement in education was related to a

number of factors. These were the students health, the size of the

students family and the quality of the school they attended. With

health, working class children tend to have a poor diet, which leads

to ill health. This in turn, leads to poor attendance and therefore

children cannot catch up on work missed and so underachieve in exams.

The size of the student's family is linked to underachievement because

there is less money to spend on material objects for example textbooks

and computers, and to an extent, personal tutors. There is also less

room at home to do homework, as they may have to share a room with

siblings, and so there is no-where quiet they can go to do homework.

The quality of school also matters, as working class children tend to

live in working class areas, and cannot afford to go to a good school

so attend a working class school. This is a poorer quality of school

than the middle class would attend, and so they underachieve in exams.

Douglas also believed that the degree of parent's interest in their

children's ed...

... middle of paper ...

...their pre-school years

and they possess the key to unlock the messages transmitted in the

classroom. This means that students from upper classes have a higher

success rate than the middle class students.

Bourdieu believes that a major role of the education system is

eliminating the working class from higher levels of education. This is

accomplished by examination failure and self-elimination. As they have

a relative lack of dominant culture, working class pupils are much

more likely to fail examinations which stops them from going into

higher education.

This leads me to believe that although material deprivation is an

explanation of low educational attainment, it is not the main barrier

to working class achieving at school. It is one of several factors

which all add up to working class underachieving at school.

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