1. Class Differences
In educational attainment

2. By the end of the lesson you will be
able to:
 Identify class categories.
 Illustrate differences in educational attainment
between children from different socio-economic
classes.
 Suggest some reasons for the inequalities.
 Explain the difference between internal and
external factors

3. Class categories (pre-2001)
Number
Typical occupations or jobs
Letter
1
top management, surgeons, top doctors, university lecturers,
chemists,
A
2
teachers, executives, journalists
B
3a
secretaries, sales executives, officials
C1
3b
skilled crafts people and hairdressers
C2
4
semi-skilled people such as bus drivers and machine operators
D
5
unskilled people, labourers and cleaners
E

4. Government definitions of class (2001)
SOCIAL CLASS
Higher Managerial
occupations
TYPICAL EMPLOYMENT
1.1
Company directors, Police Inspectors, Bank Managers, Senior Civil
Servants, Military Officers
1.2
Doctor, Barrister, Solicitor, Clergy, Librarian, Teacher
Lower Managerial
2
Nurses and midwives, Journalists, Actors, Prison Officers, Police and
Soldiers (below NCO)
Intermediate
3
Clerks, Secretaries, Driving Instructors, Computer Operator
Small employers
4
Publicans, Farmers, Play group leader, Window cleaner, Painter and
Decorator
Lower supervisory
and craft
5
Printers, Plumbers, Butchers, Bus Inspectors, TV engineers, Train drivers
Semi-routine
occupations
6
Shop assistant, Traffic Warden, Cook, Bus drivers, Hairdressers, Postal
workers
Routine occupations
7
Waiters, road sweepers, Cleaners, Couriers, Building labourers, Refuse
collectors
Never worked
8
Long term unemployed and non-workers

5. Explaining class differences

6. Create a poster that outlines the
impact of social class on
educational attainment.
You should include some reasons for
the inequalities too.
Make sure everything you write is
factual.

7. o There is a longstanding statistical correlation
between social class and educational
achievement.
o When children start school disadvantaged
(lower class/poorer) children are already 9
months behind their peers.
o Children of middle class families:
o Do better at GCSE
o Stay longer in full time education
o Take the majority of university places

8. Reasons for differences
Private Education
o Smaller classes
o Higher standard of education ?
o 90% of privately educated children go on to university.

9. Reasons for differences
This does not account for differences within state
education.

10. Internal and External Factors
Sociologists have suggested many reasons for the
differences in educational attainment.
These can be broadly split into two categories
(although there is a lot of overlap between the two).

11. Internal factors are influences within the education system itself.
Inequalities between different schools
Selection policies - marketisation
Interactions between students and teachers
Labelling of children
the self-fulfilling prophecy
Pupil subcultures

12.  External factors are outside of the
education
 Influence of:
The home
The family background
Wider society

13. Alfred Binet

14. Intelligence
Supporters of IQ theory such as psychologists Arthur Jensen and Hans
Eysenck make four important claims which together form the basis of IQ
theory.
1. Intelligence can be defined precisely and measured accurately via IQ
[Intelligence Quotient] tests.
2. There are statistical data which indicate that there is a good correlation
between IQ and social class membership .
3. There are further data which indicate that there is a good correlation
between IQ and educational achievement as measured by examination
results.
4. There are also data derived from studies of identical twins reared
together and from other studies where the identical twins are reared apart
which suggest, that genetic inheritance explains between 40% and 80%
of the differences in intelligence between individuals.

15. Intelligence
IQ theorists claim that working class students are
unsuccessful educationally because they are less intelligent
and that they are less intelligent mainly because of their
inheritance of “less intelligent genes.”
It should be noted also that IQ theorists have sometimes
used similar arguments to claim that differences in ethnic
educational achievements can be explained mainly in terms
of ethnic differences in inherited intelligence and that such
claims have ignited massive controversy in which these IQ
theorists have been accused of, at best, poor science and, at
worst racism.

16. Intelligence
It is difficult to define what "Intelligence" actually is.
It is open to question whether so called
Intelligence Quotient tests can accurately measure
Intelligence (it mostly seems to measure how middle class, white and male you
are.)
Tests may be culturally biased in various ways
In class stratified societies and heavily streamed schools
the self-confidence of working class students may have
been seriously undermined so that they under-perform in
IQ tests much as they have often done in the education
system.

17. By the end of the lesson you will be
able to:
 Identify class categories.
 Illustrate differences in educational attainment
between children from different socio-economic
classes.
 Suggest some reasons for the inequalities.
 Explain the difference between internal and
external factors