TOPIC 1 ESSAY c) Material deprivation can effect educational achievement by the following ways: Poor housing is a factor because if students are living in a bad conditions they won’t do as well in school, if a house is overcrowded then the student will find it harder to do private study and homework. If a Child is not settled in a house and constantly has to move location this means that they will be moving school frequently and never be settled, disrupts their education.If a child lives in poor conditions such as damp mouldy conditions this would make them more prone to illnesses and they would miss days of school due to health problems. d) There has been a lot of evidence to show how working class children and underachievers are linked to them being culturally deprived.
According to cultural theorists, many working class families fail to socialise their children adequately.Many Sociologists argue that working class children are brought up with a lack of books, educational toys and activities that would stimulate a child’s intellectual development so they start school without having the intellectual skills needed to progress. J. W. B Douglas argues that working class parents are less likely to support their child’s development be reading or playing educational activities in the home and this is why they scored lower on tests of ability.
Bernstein and young also say that the way mother think about and choose toys for children influences their development. iddle class mother are more likely to choose toys that encourage thinking and reasoning skills and prepare children for school. Language is also important. The middle class children are raised with a restricted speech code where there is limited vocabulary and sentences are grammatically simple. Elaborated code is more used by teachers, textbooks, exams and contains more complex sentences.
Working class children are at a disadvantage when they start school because they find it difficult to keep p with the elaborated. this makes them feel excluded and they are less likely to be successful. But Bernstein however, blames the school and says the school fail to teach them the elaborated code so the children fall behind. Douglas found that working class parents placed less value on education, were less ambitious for their children, gave less encouragement and took less interest in their child’s education and as a result their children had lower level of achievement motivation.
This is because working class have different goals, beliefs, attitudes and values from the rest of the society and this causes their children to fail lower class believe that they have less opportunity for individual advancement and place little value on getting a high status job so they see no point in education. Their values make them feel that they neither want educational success nor know how to get it values onto their children through primary socialisation. All these cultural factors contribute to working class children underachieving at school.
