“Student experiences/opportunities in schooling are profoundly shaped by their social class”;
Social class has become a key concept in the sociological perspective in discussing education and so its understanding is the first aspect broached in this essay. Social classes are stratified into a hierarchical order (pyramid) according to members’ wealth, power and prestige. Karl Marx argues we reside in a capitalist society where wealth refers to the control of material resources and economic clout. For Marxists, modern society as an industrial society in which two main classes, those who own the new means of production, capitalists, and those who earn their living by selling their labour to them, the working class or proletariat. Marx recognises the positives of this society but is also concerned that the relationship between the two is exploitative of lower class in implicit ways (LeCompte and deMarrias, 1999). Sociologists believe that one's social class determines one's status and power. They define class as groups of people who share similar economic life chances because they have similar opportunities in the labour market. For Weber, class is positional, a function of one's occupation, income, and to some extent educational level (LeCompte and deMarrias, 1999). Hegemonic domination, an ideology operating through "social forms and structures produced in specific sites such as churches, the state, schools, mass media, the political system, and the family" (McLaren 1989, p. 173), is certainly one such way that social stratification impacts the educational stratification evident in today's society. The educational systems are a reflection of the societies in which they are embedded, as broached through various different vantage points by theorists Karl Marx, Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu when examining the education and societal class relationship (Bennet and Lecompte, 1990). Social stratification constitutes perhaps the single most powerful source of inequality in today's society and impacts education, with ties to perceived intelligence as this essay shall discuss.
Social class was one of the first factors, besides intelligence, examined by modern sociologists as a possible source of the differences in achievement. Social class remains the strongest predictor of educational achievement, encompassing wealth, prestige, culture, occupational status, aspirations, educational attainment within its perspective. For Marx, class is relational, a function of one's interaction with others in the processes of production. Inequality in income, wealth and resources outside of education has a profound and direct impact on educational attainment. This is evident by the direct impact social class has on determining the choice of school to which a student will attend and financial situations of families, as argued by Cahill and Hall (2014). Furthermore, underachievement of working-class pupils in particular within the modern classroom, as argued by Dunne and Gazeley (2008). Historically, people have confused a hierarchy of social class with a hierarchy of moral virtue and in modern society perceived intelligence. This very belief or confusion has had a profound impact upon social and educational policy and is still in play today to varying degrees.
The Irish education system appears to be based on the functionalists view that schools are where individuals, on a meritocratic basis, are selected and trained for specific occupational roles in which it is argued schools carry out the functions of socialization for citizenship and social control (Durkheim 1969). Weber (1947), who unlike Marx discussed education at length, was of the functionalist belief that schools are sites for the meritocratic selection and training of leadership cadres where individuals able for positions of wealth and power regardless of their initial social standing could be recruited. Perceived intelligence is subsequently observed via occupation and social class. Standardised tests set out by the state in order to gain entry to further education which eventually leads to qualification in a certain societal role. This role, valued by the capitalist, provides an income and in doing so defines social class, ultimately linked back to perceived intelligence. Weber (1947) developed on the work of Marx arguing class is a group of individuals who share common experiences, life chances and a culture by virtue of their similar situations and power in the market place. Weber unlike Marx identifies other resources in discussing social stratification including skills, qualifications, credentials. In addition, Weber distinguishes two types of stratification outside of class: Status and Party. Status refers to the esteem in which we are held by others. It is generally associated with one’s standing and style of life. The view based upon socioeconomic status is a relatively new way of thinking about class where status is associated with state of being or position and culture (Le Compte and M). Party or power is defined by Weber as the capacity to carry through one’s intentions even against resistance. Power refers to the ability to make things happen as one wishes, even if others resist. Weber suggests that power legitimated (Le Compte and M). In the modern Irish society, it is commonly understood that those from a socioeconomic disadvantaged background will not academically achieve as highly as those from a higher social class background based on various research. A considerable volume of "scientific" evidence supports a causal relationship between intelligence and social class.
Recent ESRI reports show young people who attended a school with a concentration of working-class students were much less likely to go on to higher education than those who attended middle-class or socially mixed schools, even allowing for individual social background and Leaving Certificate grades (ESRI report 2014). The authors note that “social class differences in aspirations to higher education were evident as early as junior cycle”, highlighting the difference in educational aspirations and ultimately societal role and class. It also begs the questions perhaps beyond the purpose of this essay of self imposed psychological barriers to educational and career success (Hyman 1967)and Fatalism (Surarman,1970). School Leavers’ Survey data (2006-07) confirms wide social class differences in second-level retention, Leaving Certificate performance and levels of progression to higher education are also apparent (Smyth et al., 2010). Young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds are much less likely to remain in school to complete the Leaving Certificate examination (or equivalent). Two-thirds of their students from unskilled manual backgrounds complete the Leaving Certificate versus 90 per cent of young people with parent(s) in professional occupations. It can be noted that young people from farming backgrounds also display high second-level retention levels. Social class appears to result in associations of societal perception of intelligence. Furthermore leading to the reproduction of social class and inequalities.
In addition to differences in material capital as Marx is predominantly concerned, wealth also translates into social and cultural capital. Bourdieu (1986) develops on the works of Weber arguing in favour of economic capital and how an individual's material wealth determines social class but adds the new dimension of cultural and social capital and interestingly cultural reproduction. Cultural capital is a resource, and just like all resources, not all forms of it are valued equally. Cultural capital include ways of talking, acting, moving, dressing, socialising, tastes, cultural goods-pictures, books , dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc. Bourdieu (1986) notes one form of capital can buy another (Ball, 2004). This is related to the Irish education system today in the inequalities in education in the points system whereby it is favours the candidate of higher social class in succeeding in the education system. Upper class individuals comfortable able to pay for extra tuition and or even private schooling for example, a direct advantage over the working class students whose families do not have the same means for succeeding in education in order to achieve a higher graduate job as discussed previously. According to theorist Bourdieu 1977 that forms of capital can purchase other forms, much more disposable income readily available. The extracurricular activities can be afforded by high income families, There’s a huge advantage of being able to buy and pay for additional activities or extracurricular. Bourdieu would argue schools should reflect middle class values and so middle class parents should understand them. This would result in parental support through the education system in providing external support when needed. Cultural capital allows middle class people to succeed in education resulting in qualifications for higher level jobs and furthermore cultural reproduction. The superiority of educational qualifications, however, is not undermined whereby middle class people get middle class jobs, working class children hampered by their lack of cultural capital and eliminated by the examination system come to understand that the education system not for them and enter lower levels of the labour market a direct result of cultural deprivation. The most valued form of cultural capital is that possessed by the dominant cultures.
Sociologists of education have a responsibility to identify the question of intelligence and how should intelligence be perceived. The question encompasses social differences in educational attainment. In his discussion of a realist account of cognitive socialisation based on the work of Bernstein and Vygotsky, Nash (2001) identifies studies that show environmental (rather than genetic) effects on ‘ability’ test scores and school attainment are welcomed, while ‘ability’ is nevertheless regarded as a ‘social construct’. Bernstein (1996) proposed an alternative to the dominant psychometric tradition and demise of IQ theory; it was not ‘intelligence’ (read genetics) but ‘language’ (read environment) that ‘made the difference’. Nash argues Vygotsky’s higher-order thinking, the abstract, logical, sequential thought recognised by the school. Bernstein is precisely concerned with the class distribution of forms of speech and thought generated by class-differentiated socialisation practices and essentially Bourdieu's argument of cultural capital experiences. Nash argues such works would represent an advance in our capacity to explain social differences in educational attainment. It is notable, sociologists reject the notion that class status and virtue are synonymous or that class is a function of innate intelligence. Class is a position in the hierarchy or status while culture is the way people express that status or “the particular ways in which a social group lives out and makes sense of its given circumstances and conditions of life” (McLaren 1989,p.171). The above trend happens not because they were born into a specific family but because their background set up expectations for their behaviour and also influenced how others would react to them.
Wealthier parents may afford to subsidise “private” tuition: fees, private schools, grinds, tutoring, summer camps, field trips. The state recognises the stratification caused by social class within the education system and so has developed the free education system along with other controlling schemes such as maintenance allowance and the DEIS scheme. Working class culture and schools attitude differ from those in the middle class. Parental interest differences. The fact that ‘rates of educational underachievement and early school leaving remain much higher for pupils from disadvantaged communities than for other pupils’ (DES, 2005, p. 8) was the rationale for subsuming existing schemes for disadvantaged primary and second-level schools into the DEIS School Support Programme to provide a more meritocratic education system for Irish society. It is questionable if it completely levelled the playing field for all candidates based on the reports of Mc Coy;
"Children who start off behind the others, way behind the starting line, children who present at school significantly behind their peers throughout the country and that’s mainly because of poverty, poor expectations at home, the social milieu where they live. Basically they’re playing catch-up from then on." (DEIS Principal).
Research commonly indicates that teachers’ differentiated interventions and constructions of underachievement were significant to differentiated outcomes by social class (Dunne and Gazeley, 2007). In this sense, it is easy to see how Bourdieu’s critics see how the habitus can create limitations for students as it sets a standard that is subconsciously installed into every student (Mills, 2008; Jenkins, 2002).
In reality, students experiences and opportunities in schooling and education are profoundly shaped by their social class which fundamentally shape educational experiences, opportunities and outcomes. Perceived intelligence is observed via the CAO points system based on the standardised tests of the Leaving Certificate as designed by Irish state. They are the fundamental deciding factor in determining societal occupation and ultimately the reproduction of social and educational stratification once again. From an educators perspective, this means culturally responsive teaching. Educators should be aware of the sociologically perspective from which students come from and potential power they have in shaping students futures. Schools that fall under the DEIS umbrella need to focus on the positives of getting the best out of our students and highlight roles that student have in schools & their communities. This class inequality results in significantly lower outcomes for students from working-class backgrounds in Irish education (Smyth and McCoy 2011).