Flashcards · 9699 · A Level Topic 3

Paper 3 – Education (A Level) flashcards

41 cards on A Level Topic 3, subtopics 5.1 to 6.4. Pick a subtopic or study them all.

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5.1 Theories about the role of education

What did Durkheim say education does?: It passes on shared values and builds social solidarity; school is a society in miniature and teaches specialist skills.
Particularistic vs universalistic standards (Parsons): Particularistic standards judge a person as a unique individual, as in the family. Universalistic standards judge everyone by the same rules, as at school. School is the bridge between the two.
Role allocation: Sorting people into the jobs that suit their talents. Davis and Moore (1945) said education sifts the most able into the most important, best-rewarded jobs.
Ideological state apparatus: An institution that controls people through ideas, not force (Althusser). Althusser saw school as the dominant one in capitalist societies.
What is the correspondence principle (Bowles and Gintis, 1976)?: School life mirrors work life: hierarchy, obedience and rewards (grades) prepare a compliant workforce for capitalism.
What did Willis (1977) find?: Twelve working-class "lads" formed a counter-school culture and resisted school, yet still ended up in manual jobs, so their resistance helped reproduce class inequality.
Social democratic vs New Right views of education and the economy: Both link education to the economy. Social democrats (e.g. Halsey) want state action for equal opportunity. The New Right (e.g. Chubb and Moe, 1990) wants markets, competition and parental choice.

5.2 Education and social mobility

Meritocracy: Rewards based on ability and effort, not background. Young (1958) used the term in a satire warning of a new elite.
Absolute vs relative mobility: Absolute mobility is the total movement between classes. Relative mobility compares the chances of people from different class backgrounds. Goldthorpe (1980): absolute mobility rose while relative mobility stayed broadly stable.
Formal vs substantive equality of opportunity: Formal equality removes legal barriers to education. Substantive equality also tackles hidden barriers, such as poverty and cultural disadvantage.
Qualification inflation: Employers asking for higher credentials as more people hold them (Dore, 1976), which weakens the value of each qualification.
What is the "Great Gatsby curve"?: Krueger (2012), using Corak's data: more unequal countries tend to have less social mobility between generations. It is a correlation, not proof of cause.

5.3 Influences on the curriculum

Social construction of knowledge: What counts as valuable knowledge is decided by people, not fixed by nature.
Ethnocentric curriculum: A curriculum that gives priority to one ethnic group's culture, history and language, e.g. Coard (1971) argued schools treated West Indian children's culture as second-rate.
Gendered curriculum: Content and subject choices that follow gender stereotypes. Spender (1982) argued the curriculum left out or played down women's contributions.
Hidden curriculum: What pupils learn from how school is organised, not from formal lessons. Jackson (1968) coined the term in Life in Classrooms.
Cultural capital vs habitus (Bourdieu): Cultural capital: knowledge, tastes, language and attitudes valued by the dominant class. Habitus: tastes and dispositions learned early in life. Schools reward middle-class cultural capital as if it were ability.

6.1 Intelligence and educational attainment

Why is intelligence hard to define?: There is no agreed definition. Spearman (1904) proposed one general factor, g; Gardner (1983) proposed multiple intelligences; Sternberg (1985) proposed analytical, creative and practical intelligence.
Reification: Treating an abstract idea, such as IQ, as if it were a real object. Gould (1981) called g a reification.
How can IQ tests be culturally biased?: Test items may assume knowledge more common in one group; e.g. early eleven-plus items on servants and composers favoured middle-class children.
What does the Flynn effect (Flynn, 1987) suggest?: Large rises in IQ scores over time across 14 nations, too fast to be genetic, so environment strongly affects measured intelligence.
Hereditarian view: Differences in intelligence, and so attainment, are mainly inherited (e.g. Jensen, 1969). Critics note that heritability within a group cannot explain differences between groups.

6.2 Social class and educational attainment

Material deprivation vs cultural deprivation: Material deprivation: lack of money and what it buys, such as housing, diet and resources. Cultural deprivation: the claim that some homes lack the attitudes, values and language schools need.
Restricted vs elaborated code (Bernstein, 1971): Restricted code: short, context-bound speech relying on shared understanding. Elaborated code: explicit, detailed speech that makes sense out of context. Schools use the elaborated code.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: A prediction that comes true because people act on it, e.g. a pupil labelled as weak is taught less and comes to see themselves as weak.
What did Rist (1970) find?: In a kindergarten class, the teacher had set pupils at tables by day eight, based on appearance and background, and this shaped how they were taught.
Educational triage: Focusing effort on pupils near a pass and writing off others (Gillborn and Youdell, 2000).
Differentiation and polarisation (Lacey, 1970): Differentiation: schools sorting pupils by ability, e.g. streaming. Polarisation: pupils then splitting into pro- and anti-school groups.
What is compensatory education, and one example?: Extra resources to make up for disadvantage outside school, e.g. Head Start (1965) in the USA, the Plowden Report's (1967) positive discrimination, Sure Start (1998) and the Pupil Premium (2011).

6.3 Ethnicity and educational attainment

Institutional racism: Discrimination built into an organisation's routines, not just individual prejudice (Macpherson Report, 1999).
What did Gillborn (1990) find at City Road school?: White teachers' expectations of discipline, ability and attitude shaped the school experiences of African-Caribbean and Asian pupils.
What were the four responses in Sewell's (1997) study?: African-Caribbean boys responded as conformists, innovators, retreators (often written "retreatists") or rebels, showing varied responses rather than one; they were also disproportionately punished.
What did Francis and Archer (2005) find about British-Chinese pupils?: Pupils and parents placed an extremely high value on education, whatever their class or gender, though teachers still stereotyped the pupils.
Intersectionality: Class, ethnicity and gender combining, so their effects cannot be separated.
What did Mirza (1992) find about African-Caribbean young women?: They did well at school, but faced a job market segregated by race and gender, so structure, not low aspiration, limited their outcomes.

6.4 Gender and educational attainment

Crisis of masculinity: Uncertainty in male identity as manual jobs and the breadwinner role decline.
What did Francis (2002) find about career aims?: Girls aged 14–16 were far more ambitious than in the past, reflecting changing female expectations, but their choices were still gender-divided.
Laddish culture: A peer culture where effort is "uncool" and status comes from defiance and humour. Jackson (2002, 2006) argued laddishness protects self-worth and found some girls act "laddishly" too.
Hegemonic masculinity: The dominant, most valued form of masculinity in a setting (Connell).
What did French (1984) and Spender (1978) find about classroom interaction?: French: in one primary lesson, boys got more teacher attention, partly by seeking it. Spender: stereotypes kept many girls quiet in mixed classes.
Why did Epstein et al. (1998) ask "which boys?": In Failing Boys? they argued the debate about boys' underachievement was simplistic: class and ethnicity create big differences among boys.