‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’ (Marx and Engels, 2004, p.14)
There is an extensive list of factors that affect teaching and learning in general and teaching and learning in our 21st century in particular, many of which affect learners at large, but some seem to affect specific learners only. Social class and poverty not only affects education but also many other aspects of life in varying degrees depending on context. Other issues prevalent in the discourse and debate on education -such as ‘ability’ grouping, the relationship between teacher and student, student individual needs and student voice - are today not independent of social class and take on slightly different shapes in their effect
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The majority of other research sees eye to eye on the big effect of social class on education. The research of Sullivan et al. (2014) shows that social class is more of a predictor of the future of the student than the student’s cognitive ability, the students’ parents, and the type and of school the child goes to. An OECD report confirms that students whose parents work in professional occupations as in middle or higher class do better with regards to PISA results than their counterparts whose parents work in more elementary occupations as in working class (Do parents’ occupations have an impact on student performance?, 2016). Webber and Butler (2007) argue that the type of neighborhood a child goes to (think social class) is a predictor of their GCSE results and that the performance and results of a child are affected not only by their social class but also by the social class of the other students in their school. Reay went as far as calling social class and educational injustice the ‘zombie stalking English schools’, arguing that this is ‘the area of educational inequality on which education policy has had virtually no impact’ (Reay, 2006, p. …show more content…
External factors are the ones from outside the school or the classroom, such as Berliner’s (2009) 6 ‘out-of-school factors’ covering health related factors, such as inadequate medical care or low birth weight due to pre-natal influences, and other factors related to poverty such as food insecurity, mostly all economic. Another example is Bourdieu’s economic, social and cultural capital and his cultural reproduction theory that states that cultural capital, which is associated with social class, means being familiar with the dominant culture as well as using what he called ‘educated language’ (Bourdieu, 1986). Sullivan (2001) confirms and builds on the work of Bourdieu; her research suggests that cultural capital is transmitted by higher-class parents to their children which in turn affect the children’s educational attainment. Bourdieu’s argument on ‘the educated language’ was earlier introduced by Bernstein (1964) who introduced ‘restricted and elaborated code’ explaining that the restricted code of the working class built on implicit language and communication disadvantages them socially and at school while the middle class understand and use both implicit restricted code and explicit elaborated code depending on need and
Collins further talks about economic, cultural, and specifically linguistic reproduction. linguistic capital is a more specific form of capital. It refers to the role of language and class in social reproduction. This concept was originally coined by Basil Bernstein, who argued that “the experience of work process reinforces kinds of family role relations, themselves realized as discursive identities that are carried by ‘elaborated’ and ‘restricted’ codes” (39). We saw this in the 1960s; poor African Americans performed inadequately in school because they were culturally or linguistically deprived. Not only is race a determining factor in the social reproduction of inequality, but it is a combination of how facets of our identity intersect with changing values and norms of our society.
Marx sees history as a struggle between classes: “Oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes” (Marx and Engles 14).
Social class should not be used to define a person. Every person has the ability to overcome the roadblocks that society has placed in their path, so long as they have the determination and motivation. In Gerald Graff’s article, “Hidden Intellectualism” , he explains how social class is irrelevant when it comes to education, despite what society will lead you to believe. He displays how everyone is intelligent in his or her own way.Lynda Barry during her article, “ The Sanctuary of School” spoke about the importance of education to her and many other students like her.Another writer, Mike Rose shows how despite the thoughts that society puts in our heads we can still be successful in his article “Blue Collar Brilliance”.Regardless of social
Louie, Vivian. 2001. “Parents’ Aspirations and Investment: The Role of Social Class in the Educational
In The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the two German philosophers saw history as the struggle between the working class and the Bourgeois, or middle class (textbook 708). The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848, during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, a time when the Bourgeois made huge profits in manufacturing at the expense of the working class. According to Marx and Engels, the fruits of the Industrial Revolution created a new class of the oppressed modern working class, the Proletariat, which had never before existed because it was neither like serfdom or slave hood in that it was dependent on the Bourgeois to hire them for wage labor. This was the class the two philosophers envisioned would set off a revolution that would overthrow capitalism to end the perpetual class struggle and create a fair society known as Communism.
Anoyn, J. (n.d.). From social class and the hidden curriculum of work In EDUC 160 Urban Education (Spring 2014, pp. 127-136).
Success. Society tends to correlate “success” with the obtainment of a higher education. But what leads to a higher education? What many are reluctant to admit is that the American dream has fallen. Class division has become nearly impossible to repair. From educations such as Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA to vocational, adult programs, and community, pertaining to one education solely relies on one’s social class. Social class surreptitiously defines your “success”, the hidden curriculum of what your socioeconomic education teaches you to stay with in that social class.
Jean Anyon’s “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” claims that students from different social classes are treated differently in schools. Anyon’s article is about a study she conducted to show how fifth graders from the working, middle, and upper class are taught differently. In Anyon’s article, she provides information to support the claim that children from different social classes are not given the same opportunities in education. It is clear that students with different socio-economic statuses are treated differently in academic settings. The curriculum in most schools is based on the social class that the students belong to. The work is laid out based on academic professionals’ assumptions of students’ knowledge. Teachers and educational professionals assume a student’s knowledge based on their socio-economic status.
In Chapter 11 of Cultural Anthropology by Kenneth Guest, Guest writes about the reality of the American dream that most people do not see. According to Pierre Bourdieu, Education is not always the key to getting someone out of the socioeconomic class they are initially in. Bourdiew studied the French educational system from 1970-1999 in order to understand the relationship that connects class, culture and power. His research led him to find the idea of social reproduction. Social Reproduction is the “idea that the educational system helped reproduced the social relations that already exist by passing class position from generation to generation in a family” (404). This idea refutes the American dream entirely because it says that if you are born in a rich family you will most likely be rich because of all the resources they are able to provide you with. Another idea that relates strongly to the idea of social reproduction is the concept of cultural
In her article she points out how social class has become the main gateway to opportunity in America. The widening academic divide means that kids who grow up poor will most likely stay poor and the kids who grow up rich will most likely stay rich. About fifty years ago the main concern about getting a good education relied on your race but now it's about your social class. Researchers are starting to believe that children who come from higher income families tend to do better in school and get higher test scores.
In many low income communities, there are teachers that are careless and provide their students with poor quality education. These teachers are there just to make sure that they keep receiving their monthly paychecks and act in this way because they believe that low income students do not have the drive, the passion, or the potential to be able to make something of themselves and one day be in a better place than they are now. Anyon reveals that in working class schools student’s “Work is often evaluated not according to whether it is right or wrong but according to whether the children followed the right steps.” (3). This is important because it demonstrates that low income students are being taught in a very basic way. These children are being negatively affected by this because if they are always being taught in this way then they will never be challenged academically, which can play a huge role in their futures. This argument can also be seen in other articles. In the New York Times
The first difference you see between the middle and working class in education is the selection of primary schools as for some it is the first time they are going to enter into the academic world. At this point the family as a whole are entering into “unfamiliar worlds” (Jackson and Marsden, 1966, page 99) in the process of selecting and applying for schools. The middle class aim is to have their children go to a successful school with a good Ofsted report just like the working class. However it is harder for the working class to get into these schools due to a range of factors. Some of these restricting factors are their knowledge of the system and economic status or wealth; they may not have the facilities for tra...
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" (Marx and Engels 2). This excerpt, taken from Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto, explains the two primary classes found throughout most of Europe during the era of the Industrial Revolution. These classes were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The former were known as the "exploiters" and the latter as the "exploited".
Bourdieu (1974) argues that the education system is biased towards those from middle and upper-class backgrounds. The culture of the ‘dominant classes’; the upper-classes, is imposed on young people in education, pupils from the upper-classes have an advantage as they have been socialised into the dominant culture and acquired skills and knowledge relevant to learning before entering the education system. These young people possess ‘cultural capital’; cultural capital includes mannerisms, a knowledge of creative and artistic parts of culture, the closer a young person presents themselves and their work to the style of the dominant classes the more likely they are to succeed as teachers are influenced by cultural capital. Also the grammar used by teachers disadvantages working class pupils as they cannot understand it. Bernstein (1961) argues teachers use elaborated speech codes; which is detailed and explanatory, working-class pupils are limited to using restricted codes; clear-cut and easy to understand speech, whereas middle an...
Research reveals that the higher the social class, the higher the levels of educational achievement are likely to be. The children of parents in higher social classes are more likely to stay on in post compulsory education, more likely to achieve examination passes when at school, and more likely to gain university entrance. These features painted a true picture of British education in the twentieth century and can be argued to follow this trend today. However, whether there has been any reduction in the inequalities is more debatable, but some research suggests that these inequalities are as great as ever, despite the overall improvements within the education system. Many researchers argue that IQ tests are biased in favour of the middle class, since members of this group largely construct them.