1. Education 3

2. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The New Right approach Approaches to education
This approach, which was beginning to emerge in the 1970s, was spearheaded by prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Schools entered the market place and were forced to reform and to become competitive.

3. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The New Right approach Approaches to education
Schools were being asked to become efficient and cost effective.
Parents were given freedom of choice in the decision concerning which school to send their child to.
This would lead the way to improving standards, it was claimed.

4. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The New Right approach Approaches to education
Successful schools would attract more pupils and raise more funding, as each pupil came with an amount of funding attached to him/her.

5. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The New Right approach Approaches to education
Schools were operating more like businesses.
They produced a product – the child.

6. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
The National Curriculum, introduced in state schools in 1987, prescribed which subjects teachers would teach.
Three core subjects of maths, English and science were taken, as well as seven foundation subjects.

7. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
The foundation subjects were: art, music, technology, history, geography, a modern foreign language and physical education.
Religious education also had to be taught.

8. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
The curriculum was set for teachers with guidelines of what pupils should know, understand and be able to achieve at the end of each level.
Pupils’ achievements were assessed through national tests.

9. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
Since its introduction, the National Curriculum has been changed in many ways.

10. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
The National Curriculum has faced a great deal of criticism. It was considered too demanding in terms of the amount of content that pupils had to cover.

11. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
It also required regular testing. The criticism from teachers was that they spent too much time testing and not enough time teaching.
Seven year olds were also tested and there was the feeling that they were being put under too much pressure.

12. SOCIOLOGY - EDUCATION The National Curriculum Approaches to education
Schools also had to publish their results in ‘league tables’ which many felt were unfair to schools that were in poorer neighbourhoods or had lower ability pupils to begin with.

13. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Sociology has long considered the educational achievement of different social classes.

14. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Does it matter what your background is to be able to achieve well in education?
Why do some groups of people do much better at school than others?

15. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Innate ability
Innate ability means that ability with which you were born – your natural ability which you enter a school with.

16. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
In-school factors
In-school factors include the provision of education, material quality of the school in terms of staff, resources, equipment and the buildings. Teachers’ abilities and qualities can also be counted amongst this category.

17. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Out-of-school factors
Out-of-school factors include the family and their living standards. Studies have considered the negative effect of poverty and poor housing on a child’s educational progress.

18. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Out-of-school factors
Cultural factors can also be included here. Parental expectations, the family’s values and even the way in which the parents bring up their child are included. The issue of language used at home is also a feature.

19. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Sociology has attempted to explain through research why pupils from middle class backgrounds stay longer in full-time education and achieve better results than pupils from working class backgrounds.

20. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Despite an awareness of this fact and the changes in educational policy to attempt to change this pattern, the trend continues.
Class differences in terms of achievement persist.
Increasing numbers of students are entering higher education but still too few are coming from unskilled classes and the majority come from the professional classes.

21. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Some sociologists argue instead that middle class pupils have an advantage over the working class because schools are run by middle-class teachers who teach middle-class values so middle-class pupils have a distinct advantage.

22. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Some research pointed to the fact that teachers have a vision of an ideal pupil as being a middle class one. Their perception of working class children is that they may be more difficult to control and discipline. In addition, they believed them to be generally lacking in motivation.

23. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SOCIAL CLASS EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Other studies have shown that the ‘hidden curriculum’, which is the curriculum that pupils receive on an informal level, is very much based on middle class standards.
Pupils are expected to be interested in learning for its own sake, for example.

24. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SOCIAL CLASS EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Pupil sub-cultures are another example of class inequality.
Streaming pupils by ability leads some pupils to believe that they will not achieve and therefore they only attain very low achievement.
So, some children are automatically at a disadvantage before they have started their education.

25. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SOCIAL CLASS EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Studies have shown that home has an important effect on education.
Children from wealthier backgrounds are able to have access to books, computers and other educational resources. They may also have their own room to study in. The experience of their parents will influence them too.
Working-class parents may not have the money to provide the same resources.

26. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SOCIAL CLASS EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
The government therefore is in the position of trying to compensate for the inequalities in home backgrounds by providing extra assistance, resources and funding for schools in socially deprived areas.

27. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SOCIAL CLASS
Schools are under pressure to perform well and to appear higher each year in the performance league tables.
They therefore want to attract more able pupils who will gain higher grades in public examinations.

28. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION ETHNICITY EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Ethnic differences in educational achievement have most recently been linked to cultural background and language difficulties.
Children from ethnic backgrounds may also lack the basic knowledge to succeed, if their parents are unfamiliar with the culture in this country.

29. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION ETHNICITY EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Ethnic minority attainment is focused on cultural background acting as a barrier to attainment.
The other issue of whether discrimination against ethnic minorities can lead to children being denied educational opportunities has also been considered.
The Swann Report showed that Asian children achieve almost as well as white children in Britain. However, West Indian children do not. Only 1% of West Indian children moved on to university at the time of the report.

30. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION ETHNICITY EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
As we have seen, sociologists tend to link educational success with environmental and cultural factors.
For example, Asian families are shown to be supportive and anxious for their children to succeed academically.

31. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION ETHNICITY EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Teachers have been found to be unintentionally racist by The Swann Report in 1985.
Teachers tended to have definite views of pupils whose family was from an ethnic minority. They expected them to be badly behaved and to have problems in discipling them.

32. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION ETHNICITY EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
If English is the child’s second language, there are even more problems and the child is prevented from progressing still further as he/she has to struggle with language difficulties and comprehension problems.
By not recognising language problems, schools will only make matters worse.

33. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
Patterns of educational achievement can also be related to gender.
Since the 1980’s girls have caught up with and overtaken boys in terms of achievement. Firstly they did this at GCSE, but the trend has now continued to AS and A2 Level.

34. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
On average girls leave school with a higher number of GCSEs.

35. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
Sociologists explain this change partly by a change in attitude towards female roles in society.
Changes in the job market make it increasingly important for females to consider careers. Changes in the law concerning sexual discrimination have led to a change in teaching practices in schools where girls are now encouraged to consider all careers.

36. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
However, girls underestimate their ability more than boys.
So self-doubt may prevent them from believing that they can succeed in a subject.

37. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
Teachers admit that they expect boys to gain more of their attention.
Boys ask questions and comment more in class, resulting in receiving more of the teacher’s attention; girls tend to ‘get on with their work’ much more.
Girls gain less attention in a classroom, research has shown.

38. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
GCSE coursework helped girls as they often preferred that sort of assessment rather than the end of course examination.

39. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GENDER
Examination performance of white, working class boys is now seen as a problem to address.

40. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT PEER GROUP
Pupils of the same age are called your ‘peer group’.
A peer group can also influence pupils’ educational performance at school.

41. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT PEER GROUP
If a pupil is in a class where the norm seems to be disruptive behaviour, then an uncooperative attitude may dominate in the class and pupils will experience low achievement.
The ‘anti-school’ feeling coming from some of the peer group may appear too hard to combat. Teachers need to take this on board themselves and not leave the atmosphere in the class up to pupils to create.

42. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATION POLICY
In recent years, educational policy has become paramount in Britain. Political elections have focused on it as a main issue.
One of Tony Blair’s most famous quotations has to be ‘Education, Education, Education’ as his three priorities in the run-up to his election.

43. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATION POLICY
As we have already seen, the National Curriculum states what should be taught in schools.

44. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATION POLICY
In 1999, Labour introduced literacy and numeracy hours in primary schools in order to improve English and mathematics still further at an early age.

45. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SUMMARY
Our education system is vital for the country and its success. Individuals are important in education; so is the future of the country that needs a well-educated workforce.

46. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SUMMARY
Recently, vocational qualifications have been in the headlines. These provide qualifications and training that might be linked to the economy.
There is a continuing political and educational debate about whether more of this type of qualification should be introduced in schools.

47. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SUMMARY
GNVQs and NVQ qualifications came into being in an effort to provide a wider spectrum of education for all abilities.

48. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION SUMMARY
Sociologists have had much influence in the field of education.
Government ministers for education are influenced by their findings and their sociological evidence and arguments.
Governments have tried to address inequalities that have come out of sociological research.

49. SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION The End SUMMARY
The overwhelming feature of sociological research is that the education system must continue to be improved.
Permitting every child to reach their potential is the ultimate goal.
The End