Respect Adult Education Some Working Class People example essay topic

Inequalities exist an all aspects of life. The nature and result of such inequalities shapes our social as well as economic lives. As people progress through their educational life certain inequalities will result in different outcomes of schooling for different sets of people. 'In post war Britain pupils from a working class background are constantly found to gain fewer academic qualifications, to be under represented in institutions of higher education and to end up in jobs offering little opportunity for social advancement'; (Brown 1987 p 11). It is inequalities such as these that are present both in and out of school that will determine life chances of individuals. It is commonly accepted that education is the main determinant of where someone will find himself or herself in later life, certain experiences at different stages of the life cycle with regard to education will therefore have an effect on life chances.

This essay will examine these in and out of factors and how at different stages in the life cycle they affect life chances. One of the main contributing factors to life chances is education. What someone achieves in his or her academic career exhibits much inequality. It has been a long running trend in employment that those from working class backgrounds will enter into occupations of manual or low-skilled nature. Conversely those from middle-class backgrounds tend to enter more into administrative and or professional occupations.

Despite government reforms to limit inequalities in education and the effect of class differences but since trends in employment and educational achievement still persist there is still a strong link between social class and life chances. The schooling system has been regarded by some Marxist writers who feel 'school is primarily a means of reproducing the existing structure of social and economic inequalities'; (Brown 1987 p 15). In this manner it can be argued that the way children are schooled neither takes away or adds to the current inequalities but merely adds to them. One of the ways this can be illustrated is when school leaving ages are examined. In order to enter into higher prestige jobs further educational qualifications are generally required where as manual and low-skilled work does not demand an equivalent level of qualification. According to Courtney 1989 quoted in Furlong 1993 p 8 6 out of 10 children left school at the minimum leaving age in 1986 and moreover these minimum aged school leavers tend to be predominately working class.

This distribution of the working class into lower prestige jobs can be accounted for by a number of factors that shall be discussed later. The inequality that exists here regarding school leavers is one that results in an economic inefficiency since the talent of many working-class pupils could have been transferred into higher skilled jobs yet due to certain other factors the talent in a crude sense is 'wasted'. Why this is the case could be attributed to the fact that a large number of families may rely on their children to bring in a second or third income. With the deterioration of the nuclear family in society there is an increasing trend towards single parenthood and this may result in children having to leave school to get a job and support the family. Furthermore parental influence plays a large role in shaping their children's attitudes to school. For example Furlong 1987 argues that parents from working class backgrounds who left school at an early age may not press upon their children from their early days in their school life and before five years old the importance of a good education but rather the importance of work and making money.

So the culture passed onto children from their parents will have a serious effect on their educational achievement and if this is borne in at an early stage in the life cycle especially pre five, it will be difficult for teachers to re-shape theses attitudes. The general trend of these cultures is that working class families will not press the value of an education since they did not at achieve a lot themselves, where as middle-class families with higher prestige, higher income jobs will see the value of a good education and hence encourage children to perform well as school. Evidence of this parental influence is apparent in the Office of Population Censuses and Survey discussed in Meighan and Blatchford 1997 p 331. In this study it can be seen that in 1981/2 only 4% of those males whose father was in the lowest social group attained a degree or equivalent compared with 40% of those with fathers in the highest group. Similarly for females only 1% with fathers in the lowest group had a degree compared with 23% of those with father in the highest group. At the other end of the spectrum only 7% of males and females with fathers in the highest social group had no qualification compared with 60% of males and 75% of females with fathers in the lowest social group.

Added to this there is also the financial burden of student fees in university, which may simply deter some working class students from attending university. Similarly with respect adult education some working class people may not be able to afford the reduced income associated with studying part-time. Therefore it can be argued that those from working class background will find themselves at a certain disadvantage regarding life chances and academic performance purely on the basis of their social class. It is a trend that is clearly evident and is contributed to by parental influence at early ages right through to school leavers who either do not see or have not been shown the value of an education or who may leave school due to the financial insecurity of their family.

In short 'the continual existence of a strong relationship between social class & educational attainment demonstrates that there is some way to go before we can say that British schools provide equal opportunities (Furlong 1993 p 12). Although a working-class background affects people out of school it has a knock-on effect and affects the way in which children react to school and whether they accept or reject the school system. It is another general trend that some pupils at some stage in their academic career may reject school and experience a 'cooling off' from unrealistic expectations. It has been argued by Brown 1987 that it is usually unwillingness rather than an inability to respond to school that results in some leaving early or performing poorly at examinations.

This is mainly due to the fact that working-class and middle-class students tend to have different sets of values and goals which act in opposition to one another, as a result underachievement in schools may be attributed to a child's attitude that what they are being taught will have little relevance to their current or future life. Once more these set of values does not suddenly appear during schooling but can be implanted into pre fives as they undergo their initial socialisation process and accept one set of values rather than another passed on by their parents. 'These differences in family background lead to different world images which are reinforced within the school rather than produced there'; (Brown 1987 p 20). Once a set of values is implanted if the school does not offer much to reinforce these, the pupil may reject schooling and enter into a school subculture. These subcultures according to Brown result in pupils around adolescence forming groups made up of two distinct kinds of students: those who accept school and those who do not. Those in the latter category are likely to experience peer pressure and any attitudes they may have pertaining to academic rejection will only be heightened and not altered.

Conversely those in the group who accept school will perform better as competition exists between them to achieve more than their peers. Furthermore according to Furlong 1993 around the age of 14 many students fall out of the reward system of school. If they start failing academically they will soon achieve lower status since at this age status is distributed more on academic performance, this will then lead to a playing down of the importance of academic success and as a result will enter in a culture where pupils want to leave school as early as possible because they feel it has nothing to offer them. This is exemplified in a study quoted in Furlong 1993 p 23 which shows around one in ten of all pupils thought many of their subject will not be useful in later life and only a quarter felt all of their subjects would be useful. There is also the argument that some pupils may not feel they are fitting in and hence under perform or do not pursue further education. This may result from peers from higher, or similar, classes out performing them; once more this can lead to a rejection of education and hence more modest jobs on leaving school.

Also students may reject school due to parental expectations a factor related to social class. Those from working class backgrounds may see themselves as not having a great deal to live up to compared with middle class students whose parents may have higher expectations. This inevitably can lead to pupils not achieving what they may have had there been greater parental encouragement. Therefore many factors exist which shape attitudes throughout schooling, of which a large number are linked to social class. These attitudes can lead to pupils rejecting or not responding to it.

Although social class and attitudes are not the only contributors to life chances other significant factors exist which have their own consequences. Two such factors are gender and ethnicity. First of all males and females tend to do different jobs. There are biological reasons for this but according to Meighan and Blatchford 1997 other factors evident during academic years have an effect. It has been argued that since boys and girls enter into different jobs this can affect their academic performance. For example girls tend to, on leaving school or further education, enter into clerical and service sector jobs.

Jobs of this nature are a stark contrast to predominately male jobs where qualifications are not so commonly sought after. This means then that girls are more likely to go to university or stay on for the final years of school than boys and have better life chances. However one of the main arguments circulating around gender division in education is concerned with subject choice. Meighan and Blatchford 1997 argue that girls are still under represented in many subjects.

These tend to be more spatial subjects such as maths and physics, where as males tend to stay away from aesthetic subjects such as English and foreign languages. As a result girls are 'denied the financial rewards of employment in some of the best paid sectors of the economy'; (Meighan and Blatchford 1997 p 320). This is not simply a case of different sexes doing different things it is to do with the way we become gendered. At birth our sex may be different but our gender is essentially the same.

Before school life children are encouraged to act either masculine or feminine depending on their sex and this is reinforced right through school by encouragement of gender difference by teachers especially when it comes to subject choice. As a result of these gender divisions assuming that both male and female pursue their academic careers as far as possible they will end up with different life chance in adult life. Secondly ethnicity plays a part in life chances. Despite social inequalities it tends to be in the culture of some ethnic minorities that children and adults will work as hard as possible to get ahead in life regardless of their social background. But their opportunities are somewhat limited. Entry into public schools is small since many ethnic minorities are regarded argues Meighan and Blatchford 1997 as the 'new poor' which may also account for under representation in universities due to student fees.

In many cases by definition ethnic minorities are in the minority and hence are regarded as outcasts in the playground and classroom. If they are not accepted by their peers rejection of the school system can result. The phrase 'children can be so cruel'; is particularly appropriate in illustration of this. 'Ability is an ambiguous concept and school conceptions of ability can be affected by perception that pupils are members of a particular social and ethnic group'; (Meighan and Blatchford 1997 p 345). This shows how life chances can be affected by ethnicity because if teachers do not see a great deal of ability in a student this will b past on to the student having the effect of lowering the pupils achievements. Therefore many in and out of school factors exist which can affect life chances.

How these factors contribute is mainly due to inequalities within them. First, one of the main factors in social class. This acts as a disadvantage to lower classes who throughout their academic career will suffer as a result of their social background. Also rejection and an inability to respond to school is linked to social class but acts in a way to shape pupils attitudes in a way where they feel school has nothing to offer and end up with poorer life chances than those who accept schooling and strive to achieve the highest possible goals. Also gender plays an important part in life chances since boys and girls not only tend to perform differently in school but also achieve different qualifications which result in different occupations. Finally ethnicity works in a way that again disadvantages ethnic minorities who can be cast out at school leading to under achievement but can also be discriminated against leading to lower perceived ability and hence educational attainment.