Importance of language
According to Mead (1934) central to language and symbolist is human social life. Mead (1934) theory stated that there was three activities needed when developing the self; language, play and games. Language helps to develop the self by allowing people to interact with each other though not only words but also symbols and gestures. Mead’s (1934) theory puts more importance on symbols and gestures than language than words. (Giddens, 1989) Symbolic interactionism looks at how the way we interact with individuals shape how society is formed. (Gewirtz and Cribb, 2009) Children from a working class background may be at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding symbolism and gestures which they have not been exposed too.
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This capital reproduction can be transmitted through the hidden curriculum, where schools can influence values and attitudes. (Giddens, 1989) When significance is put on reproducing the dominant class, the working class cultural is not valued within the educational system. This results in the working class students’ feeling alienated and out of their depth. (Drudy, 2009). According to Drudy and Lynch (1993) the cultural capital is the hidden links between achievement in school and cultural background, there is strong evidence to suggest that there are strategies in place allow social inequalities to continue generation after generation. When it comes to cultural capital the higher classes have the advantage over the lower class studies through assess more resources such as trips to museums, grinds and IT. While social capital allows the higher classes to benefit from the ‘jobs for the boys’ mentality which still exists in Ireland. This network of clubs and membership of groups help the higher class succeed. (Drudy and Lynch, 1993). Bourdieu (1973) theories prove that it is not just a matter of economic or financial capital which is holding back the working classes but a wide range of factors. (Brown, 1973) According to Bourdieu the habitus refers to the division in social class, the lifestyles and values of these particularly social …show more content…
As previous discussed Bernstein’s research has shown that the language of teachers and school is that of the elaborate code, this leaves students from working class backgrounds often lagging behind in the classroom. (Gibbons, 1989). Teachers themselves tend to be come from a middle class background and this in itself effects how they view their students, they will value certain cultural capitals and will be bias towards students who possess these culture capitals. (O’Higgins-Norman, 2011) For teachers to be truly inclusion in their classroom they need to teacher outside their own culture. However this is not always the case as students from working class backgrounds are often judged unfairly on language, subculture values and material factors; which all lead to lower expectation. The social background of both students and teachers effect their classroom interactions. (Gorlewski, 2011). According to Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) result of lower expectation of students by their teacher will result in decreased performance, known as the Pygmalion effect. This study used the impact a teacher’s expectation can have on a student, so when a teacher expects students from a lower class to do badly this will happen, the student internalises this expectations and become a self fulfilling prophecy. This is particularly the case when teachers’ beliefs
George Mead and Charles Cooley developed symbolic interaction and believed that symbols are in everyday life. Symbolic interaction is the human action and interaction are comprehensible through the exchange of communication or symbols. Humans are represented by acting and social interaction. Symbols are anything that can be specified, referred, or pointed to. For example, a friend, book, or language. Language gives people a way to negotiate meaning through symbols. People identify meaning in speech and acts with others. Symbolic interaction examines that people use symbols, and interpret the meanings of those actions and symbols for themselves and for
The theories of Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Pierre Bourdieu, Basil Bernstein and Shirley Brice Heath represent the deterministic end of the social reproduction perspective. These theories mainly involve school, the ideas of cultural capital, habitus, and linguistic cultural capital and can help explain more in depth how the reproduction of classes continue through generations, and how this reproduction is accepted.
Cultural capital has great power through the control and maintenance of traditions, expected and accepted roles and behaviours, notably gender roles, important artefacts, language, institutions and services (Navarro, 2006). Of these, two essential contributors being educational facilities and religious institutions (Navarro, 2006). Finally, economic capital holds power through property and literal financial capital or monetary resources, this empowers individuals to have some degree of agency and autonomy (Navarro, 2006). This gives power to individuals to interact with higher classes, or form part of such, to purchase and interact with goods and services that are valued by the society and in turn receive respect and enhances social status (Navarro,
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 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
Class is something that is often defined by ones income, job, and family background, the area in which they live or indeed the schools or universities they have chosen to attended. This criteria is used to label people as a certain class and is something that can be seen in education through the likes of theories such as cultural capital. In this essay I am going to compare and contrast differences between middle and working class experiences of education focusing on two main theories; Cultural capital and social reproduction. I am going to concentrate upon the primary sector in oppose to secondary or higher education due to the fact I believe that primary school is where most children develop their personalities which they carry with them in further life and it is their first academic experience; therefore it is where social class first becomes clearly noticeable. In relation to these theories I am going to research into the argument that parents have a strong influence on their child’s education from this young age.
Bourdieu links this to the fact that the bourgeoisie have more cultural capital — the advantages one has in society due to their level of education, money, social connections, etc — than the lower class (1987: 12). Cultural capital is reinforced by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, the deeply engrained beliefs and values we have that influence our choices, actions, and behaviors throughout life (1990: 52). Habitus heavily influences societal classes: starting from a young age the habitus that we are raised with dictates which actions and behaviors are acceptable, while simultaneously discouraging behavior that does not seem acceptable for someone in your particular class. For example, if you are raised in a family with a high volume of cultural and economic capital, it might be considered acceptable — if not virtually required — behavior to attend a reputable university, while deciding to drop out of high school would be considered unacceptable by others in your particular class (1990: 56). The constant reproduction of habitus helps to enforce social norms and social inequality because while it makes members of the bourgeoisie class all act according to the same guidelines, it also excludes lower classes who do not have access to the same level of cultural capital by determining that their class’s habitus
When Bourdieu discusses cultural capital he is referring to knowing; for instance, what to talk about in a certain context. Capital means resources, so someone with large cultural capital has a lot of experiences in the world and are perceived as knowledgeable and able to converse about an array of diverse topics. Cultural capital can be learned, which is why education for Bourdieu is the first determent, over and above class origins. People who are not from a higher class, but have been immersed in education, can conduct one’s self in a manner where someone cannot distinguish their economic and social origins. Culture is not individualized; it is all
...the opportunities to discover ways that their own practice is discriminatory toward various socioeconomic groups. Finally, as Tilly and Taylor posit (2012), it is not enough to try to change the world view of individual learner and teachers; rather, the focus must be multi-faceted, including both the content, the curriculum, school policies and institutional practices. My position on the department head council within our school affords me a voice in various structural and academically-concerned decisions. This awareness of my own prejudice will allow me to add a critical perspective to the conversation that considers the ways that the working-class population may be affected by our institutional practices. In these ways, I hope to help students overcome the discrepancies they face as well as to help our school overcome the discrepancies we have unknowingly enforced.
He alludes to this when he discusses the “hidden curriculum”. He argues that schooling is a form of a cultural capital measurement that enforces the institutional discrimination against lower class individuals when they try and obtain a job that contains some sort of cultural capital. This is evident in high sought after careers that involve law or medicine, with both career paths requiring seven years or more of higher education. Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital again takes on a conflict perspective, because it discusses the lack of mobility in society for members of the lower status community, because of the dominating classes’ high institutional requirements that require a resource that the majority of lower status individuals don’t have access
The lower class student’s major issue with learning in class is a shortage of confidence based on real or apparent weakness in the home environment. These students often feel undesirable. They are very aware of the class in which they come from and of the place and position people classify them under, they often feel the urge to hide their background. Students that are categorized in this particular class frequently come to school with a lower level of academic skills and involvedness than their peers that are categorized in the midd...
Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital, in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (Ed. J. Richardson). New York, Greenwood, 241-258. The article appears here for the first time in English. Translated by Richard Nice. Originally in:
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...
Pierre B (1961) Culture Capital Cited, Taylor P ; Richardson Jr John; Yeo, A, (1995), The class structure and educational attainment, Sociology in Focus, pp.297, Ormskirk, Causeway Press.
When a lower tracked student is placed in the low-ability class, the placement can destroy a child’s confidence as well as promote inequality (Enns 2015). As the lower tracked education quality is much lower than a higher tracked classroom, there is a disadvantage for students who actually want to learn. There is not much encouragement for the lower-ability students because expectations are significantly reduced (Enns 2015). Despite being in a high-ability class, a child may feel pressure because he or she has to compete with other kids with the same intellect. When a child feels the need to compete, it could harm his or hers confidence level as well (Holloway 2003). A homogenous approach creates inequality within society because tracking is based off on an individual’s social background. Therefore, tracking will create a divide between the minority and majority groups. The majority dominant class has the upper-class advantage meaning that their children are most likely to be in the high intelligent class due to the extracurricular within their lives. While the minority is placed in the lower tracked class, they are given the lower quality education that they do not deserve (Enns 2015). Nevertheless, according to Paton (2012), the mixed approach was thought to have a its disadvantage because it might put high-ability children at a disadvantage. Parents were scared that the lower-ability children would hold their high-ability children back academically (Paton 2012). Having said that, the parents are wrong, as it is not another child’s fault in why their children are not pushed to their full potential. It is the teacher’s responsibility to provide more challenging lessons for the more intelligent children. The teachers are the ones who should push their students to their full potential (Paton