Poorer children often do not attain as well as richer children in education for several reasons: 1) Linguistic and cultural differences according to Basil Bernstein, as poorer children often use restricted codes while education favors elaborated codes of middle-class children. 2) Poorer children have less cultural and social capital according to Bourdieu, impacting their cultural environment and identity formation. 3) Teachers may label poorer children negatively according to labeling theory, creating self-fulfilling prophecies of failure, while positively labeling middle-class children.

1. Why don’t poorer children
attain as well as richer
children?
Bernstein: Linguistic Codes
Bourdieu: Habitus, Social & Cultural Capital
Erving Goffman / Howard Becker: Dramaturgy & Labelling
Week 24 EDUCATION AND SOCIETY

2. Bernstein:
Linguistic Codes
Bourdieu:
Cultural Capital
Goffman/Becker:
Labelling

3. Basil Bernstein (1924-2000)
Linguistic Codes

4. Education, knowledge, language and the
curriculum:
•The Elaborated and the Restricted Speech code
•Basil Bernstein:
• Class, Codes and Control, Volume 1: Theoretical
Studies towards a Sociology of Language (2003
[first published in 1971])

5. Definition of the codes (adapted from page 58)
Two general types of code can be distinguished: elaborated
and restricted …
In the case of an elaborated code, the speaker will select from
an extensive range of linguistic and grammatical options and
possibilities (to form elongated and eloquent sentences) ...
In the case of a restricted code, linguistic options and
alternatives are often severely limited (and so speech and
sentences tend to be reduced and quite predictable).
But – what does this actually mean?

6. Guess the code!?!?!?!
“I’m goin’ t’shop for a
brew”
“I intend navigating to the
nearest local convenience
with a view to purchasing a
hot-water infused ground-
coffee bean beverage”

7. “I’m skint … I can’t
survive on benefits –
the system’s f****d;
I’m gonna do
somethin’ about it”
“I have been disadvantaged by
a biased and exclusive political
and economic system; my
dismay at being subjected to
such treatment has compelled
me to petition my local MP
and commence a social media
campaign”
Guess the code!?!?!?!
Think about:
Do you (and those around you) tend to use more
aspects of restricted or elaborated speech codes?

8. Implications for Education …
8
• Restricted Code = Working Class
• Elaborated Code = Middle Class
• All aspects of Schooling & Education are based on – and
communicated by – elaborated speech codes
• ‘How a society selects, classifies, distributes, transmits and evaluates
the educational knowledge … reflects both the distribution of power
and the principles of social control.’ (Bernstein, 2003, p. 156)
• ‘the underlying principles which shape curriculum, pedagogy and
evaluation … depends upon social principles which regulate the
classification and framing of knowledge made public in educational
institutions.’ (Bernstein, 2003, pp. 156-157)

9. Are Bernstein’s ideas still relevant today?
To what extent does Bernstein's argument explain
the educational attainment of poorer and richer
children?
Can you think of any other factors?

10. • Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)
• The wider cultural
environment of social class
• Cultural Capital
• Habitus

11. Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural Capital & Habitus
• Bourdieu’s theory of Cultural Capital
presents us with the following
concepts:
– ‘Economic Capital’: (money, housing /
space, resources, e.g. books),
– ‘Social Capital’: (networks & social
influence: friends, social practices,
entertainment), and
– ‘Cultural Capital’: (person’s name, clothing
/ fashion, language, knowledge)
– ‘Habitus’: Identity and personality is
formed by – and reflects – all of the
above; it becomes where ‘we’ belong,
(who ‘we’ are)
– Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social
Critique of the Judgement of Taste,
London: Routledge
• Watch the following brief 5-minute
clip from the film Educating Rita …
11

12. 12
• Individual and cultural identity is also a reflection of
social class (social and economic) status in society
• As Habitus suggests, Class defines not only language
and cultural practices, but the very core of identity
• Which of the following concepts do you think were
portrayed in the film clip, (briefly explain why)?
– ‘Cultural capital’
– ‘Social capital’
– ‘Symbolic capital’
– ‘Habitus’

13. Social class, and success in
education depends on much
more than the use of
language (and linguistic
codes).

14. Poorer Students: The Obstacles
Language, School
& Curriculum,
Material goods,
Environment,
Culture &
Identity,
But …
That’s not all
14

15. Erving Goffman (1922-1982)
The Presentation of Self In
Everyday Life (1956)
Dramaturgy

16.  What is Dramaturgy
 Social interaction is like a stage – a ‘performance’
 Each individual performs to ‘scripts’
 Behaviour codes and expectations that have been learned through
previous experiences & encounters
 For Goffman, performance is divided into two regions, Front-Region
(or Front Stage) and Back-Region (or Back Stage)
 The way the we express ourselves in wider social & cultural life,
(and, in educational settings), is a result of the learning of our
scripts
 The way that ‘we’ act (behave, speak, communicate) in schooling
contexts, means that learners from poorer backgrounds, tend also
to be labelled

18. EXAMPLES OF LABELLING THEORY
 Rosenthal and Jacobsen (Pygmalion in the
Classroom [1968]) – labelling & self fulfilling
prophecy.
 Rosenthal & Jacobson selected 20 percent of students at
random - without any regard to IQ test results
 Told respective teachers that their students would either
"bloom" or "spurt" in their academic studies that year.
 At the end of the year, they came back and re-tested all the
students.
 Those labelled as "bloomers" gained an average of 12 IQ
points compared to a gain of 8 points for the ‘other’ group.
18

19. LABELLING OF POORER LEARNERS:
 Labelling theory can explain poorer learner
educational attainment:
 Negative labels constructed by middle class
teachers for working class children
 Pupils internalise the labels and live-out a self
fulfilling prophecy of failure.
 Positive labels communicated to middle class
children – seen as ‘ideal pupils’ who work hard
 Middle Class pupils also live-out a self fulfilling
prophecy – but one of success. 19

21. Is it any wonder …
• Why poorer children do not attain as well as richer children?
• Could it be any different, do you think?
• Could schooling/education be done differently (so as to
overcome these obstacles)?
• What do YOU think?

22. Works Cited (and wider reading):
Ball, S. J. (1981) Beachside Comprehensive: A Case-Study of Secondary Schooling,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Becker, H. (1963) Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, New York: The Free Press
Bernstein, B. (2003) Class, Codes and Control, Volume 1: Theoretical Studies towards a
Sociology of Language (first published in 1971), London: Routledge
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press
Goffman, E. (1956) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Edinburgh: University of
Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre
Hargreaves, D., Hester, S., Mellor, F. (1975) Deviance in Classrooms, London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul
Rosenthal, R. & Jacobson, L. (1968) Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and
Pupils’ Intellectual Development, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston