Class Sub-Cultures

There is a range of evidence we can cite to support the idea that class subcultures - and, in particular, the value-orientations of parents towards their children's education - is a significant factor in educational achievement.

Kahl ("Some Measurements of Academic Orientation", 1965), stresses the idea that different classes develop different values and value-orientations ("aspirations") and these, in turn, find their expression in relation to different parental attitudes, motivations and so forth in relation to their children's education.

Douglas ("The Home and the School", 1964) suggested that the failings of working class home life needed to be redressed by such things as improved primary school teaching and an increase in nursery schools to provide the kinds of stimulation lacking in working class homes.

The Newsom Report ("Half Our Future", 1963) recommended that the school curriculum should be made "more relevant" to the needs of pupils of differing abilities. As Newsom argued:

"...all schools should provide a choice of programme, including a range of courses broadly related to occupational interests, for pupils in the fourth and fifth years of a five year course.".

In particular, students in the lower streams (in the main from the working classes) were seen to require "non-academic" courses to help prepare them for their life outside school - this "need" being seen by Newsom as reflecting the "reality" of working-class adult life.

Hyman ("The Value Systems of Different Classes", 1967), argues that the value system of the working classes acts as a barrier to their educational advancement, in terms of the way they place a lower value on:

Despite the evidence put forward by the above witnesses, there is also a large number of contrary interpretations based mainly around the idea that the concept of class sub-cultures takes it for granted that, in a society with a highly-competitive, highly-differentiated, education system dominated by "middle class norms, values, attitudes, beliefs and ideologies", the children who succeed are those who can adapt most easily and successfully to the school environment and the beliefs / attitudes of their teachers. Thus, the picture we get is:

a. Conforming to middle class norms
b. Accepting middle class values relating to learning, teaching, knowledge, etc.

This "realistic" view of schools as a social institution means that the children who succeed are those who learn how to conform and "learning to conform" is a socialisation process that starts in the family and involves parental attitudes and motivations "socialised into" their children.

Thus, "success" is not simply a matter of class background (although there is a relationship between class and educational success). Rather, children who succeed are those, regardless of their objective class background, whose parents socialise them into the norms and values of middle class life.

Burgess ("It's Not a Proper Subject: It's Just Newsom", 1984 ) argues that the solution proposed by Newsom to working class underachievement reflected the types of views outlined above. However, he argued that this solution simply perpetuated educational inequality since the types of (vocational) courses suggested by Newsom became, in practice, a further source of educational differentiation between middle class and working class pupils. In effect, vocational courses became a source of social stigma because they were associated with those who "could not cope" with a theory-based, academic, education.

Heidi Mirza, when looking at explanations for lower levels of achievement amongst Afro-Caribbean children (boys in particular) argued that the "problem of underachievement" was not as clear-cut as class subculture theorists have suggested, for two main reasons:

Firstly, she found a general feeling amongst Afro-Caribbean families that the (white) educational system was failing their children because it did not take into account the cultural differences and needs on non-white children.

Secondly, she argued that the perception of black failure was partly a result of the way success is measured (in terms of things like GCSE at 16 and A-level at 18). Mirza's research (in inner city areas of London and Birmingham) suggested that black children (females in particular) were more likely to pursue Further Education courses rather than stay-on in the mainstream schooling system. She found that black females in particular were present in large numbers in this area of education.

As we have seen in relation to theories of parental attitudes, Olive Banks ("The Sociology of Education", 1971) has also questioned the idea that educational achievement can be explained in terms of "parental and child motivations", for two reasons:

Firstly, it is a very difficult concept to measure.

Secondly, it assumes that parents and children who fail in the educational system somehow lack the motivation to succeed. This assumption may not be sustainable given evidence to the contrary that suggests working class parents, for example, realise the importance of education and want their children to do well - what they lack is the ability and power to translate their desires into reality.

So, where does this evidence leave us?

On the one hand, the concept of class sub-cultures is plausible because it seems to explain why:

However, on the other hand, the concept has its critics, since the question of class subcultures and their relationship to values (as opposed to norms) can be challenged. If we think, for example, about how values can be defined there are a number of ideas we can note:

"Ideas held by human individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good or bad"
Giddens ("Sociology", 1989)

"Values...are more general standards concerning worthy behaviour".
Bilton et al (Introductory Sociology", 1987)

"A value is a belief that something is good and desirable. It defines what is important, worthwhile and worth striving for"
Haralambos ("Themes and Perspectives", 1990).

Thus, values represent ideas about the way of the world:

Values can be widely-held in society ("Education is the key to social mobility") or they can be intensely personal ("I believe in Devil-Worship").

Generally, however, there is little evidence that people from different social classes have different conceptions of the relative value of different ideas (such as educational qualifications, for example).

This is not to say that all values are shared equally among all social classes / social groups, or that "shared values" are the basis of social order (as many Functionalists might argue).

This idea is equally valid from a Conflict theory point of view, since we can use the concept of a dominant ideology to explain the presence and persistence of very basic ideas (values) about the social world.