A discussion of the theory that class-based differences in educational

A discussion of the theory that class-based differences in educational achievement are mainly due to familial factors. Throughout the twentieth century, there have been many changes made to the structure of the education system. These include the 1944 Education act which made secondary education compulsory and introduced the tri-partite system of school, though the move to a comprehensive system of schools in the 1960’s, to the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988. While official statistics have shown that all these measures have served to increase the overall levels of educational attainment (as defined by attainment of qualifications), both official and sociological evidence indicated that class-based inequalities in educational attainment have shown no tendency to decline. It has been suggested that class base differences in educational success are due to home and familial factors: that children from lower social backgrounds are more likely to fail because of what they experience inside the home environment. This approach is based on the belief that those from different social classes have significantly differing home lives. It is possible to split home and family based factors into two categories: material factors and cultural factors. As educational success generally rises with family income, many researches see material deprivation as the major cause of inequality in educational success. Hasley, Heath and Ridge examined the education careers of males, and found that those from higher social backgrounds were much more likely to stay in education past the minimum leaving age than those from working class backgrounds. They pointed out that a major reason for this was the cost of stayin... .... Similarly, Bernstein’s theory of language codes, although regarded as a structuralist explanation of education failure, owes much to primary socialization within the family. It may therefore be argued that family factors are the root cause of other explanation of failure. Finally, it has been suggested that class-based differenced in education attainment are purely to do with the genetic distribution of IQ and therefore family factors (and any other social factors) are irrelevant. In conclusion, there are many different explanations of class-based differences in educational success. However, they are not necessarily isolated, and the factors identified on one theory may be a cause of the factors outlined in another. The reasons for class-based differences may therefore be very complex, and not able to be explained by a single factor in isolation.