Describe the broad relationship between social class and educational attainment in the UK.

Attainment rises steadily with social class position: children from professional and managerial homes achieve markedly higher results at every stage than children from routine and manual homes, and class remains the strongest single predictor of how a pupil will do.

Why is eligibility for free school meals used so widely when studying class and achievement?

It is a practical, recorded indicator of household poverty, and pupils eligible for free school meals attain well below their peers at every key stage and are far less likely to reach higher education.

What happens to the class gap in attainment as pupils move up through the education system?

It tends to widen, because early differences in language, resources and expectations compound at each stage, so a gap visible before school starts is larger by the end of secondary schooling.

Overall results have risen for every social class over recent decades. Why is that not evidence that class inequality in education is disappearing?

Because the improvement has lifted all groups roughly together, so although absolute attainment is higher, the relative distance between the classes has proved stubbornly persistent.

Describe the class pattern in access to higher education.

Participation has widened considerably and far more working-class students now enter university, but they remain heavily under-represented at the most selective institutions and over-represented in less prestigious ones.

OCR A-Level Sociology H580

Introducing Socialisation, Culture and Identity

Topic overview Culture, norms, values and cultural relativism Subculture, high culture and popular culture Global and consumer culture, cultural diversity and hybridity Primary and secondary socialisation, the family and peer group Media, religion, education and the workplace as agencies of socialisation Lifelong socialisation and the nature/nurture debate Social control, sanctions and formal agencies of control Informal agencies and theories of social control The concept of identity, ethnicity and nationality Gender, class and sexual identity Age, disability, hybrid and intersecting identities

Families and RelationshipsComponent 01

Topic overview Family types and trends in marriage, divorce and cohabitation Demographic change, family diversity and newer family types Nuclear family ideology, functionalism and the New Right Marxist, feminist and postmodern views and the diversity debate Conjugal roles and the domestic division of labour Power, the dark side of the family and theories of partner roles The child-centred family, views of childhood and its extension Parent-child power, grandparents in an ageing population and feminist views

Youth SubculturesComponent 01

Topic overview Functionalist and neo-Marxist views of youth culture Hebdige, feminist and postmodern views of youth subcultures Class, ethnic and hybrid subcultures and consensus versus conflict Delinquent, criminal, spectacular and anti-school subcultures Gangs, newer deviant subcultures and patterns in youth offending Functionalist, New Right and Marxist explanations of youth deviance Labelling, identity, gender, ethnicity and moral panics in youth deviance

MediaComponent 01

Topic overview Representations of ethnicity and nationality, symbolic annihilation and the male gaze Representations of gender, social class and young people Representations of older people and theories of media representation Direct and indirect media effects models Active audience models, deviance amplification and moral panics

Research Methods and Researching Social Inequalities

Topic overview Positivism, quantitative data and interpretivism Verstehen, qualitative data and validity Reliability, representativeness, generalisability and theory Research topics, aims, hypotheses and primary and secondary data Operationalisation, pilot studies and respondent validation Longitudinal studies, interpreting data and social policy Sampling frames, sampling techniques and choosing a sample Access, gatekeepers and research ethics Questionnaires, structured interviews, statistics, content analysis and observation Unstructured interviews, ethnography and methodological pluralism

Understanding Social Inequalities

Topic overview Stratification, class, poverty, mobility and gender inequality Ethnicity, age, work and health inequalities Functionalist and Marxist explanations of inequality Weberian, feminist and New Right explanations of inequality

Globalisation and the Digital Social World

Topic overview Globalisation, the digital revolution and media convergence Social media, social capital and theoretical views of digital communication Digital identities, the digital divide and social class Gender, age, relationships and cultural impacts of digital communication

Crime and DevianceComponent 03

Topic overview Defining crime and deviance, social control and relativity Social construction of crime and police recorded crime The Crime Survey, victim surveys and self-report studies Crime patterns by social class, gender and age Crime patterns by ethnicity, crime trends and global organised crime Glocal organised crime and green crime Functionalist, strain and subcultural theories of crime Marxist, interactionist and left realist theories of crime Right realism, New Right, feminism and explaining ethnic and age patterns Left-wing crime reduction, social crime prevention and restorative justice Situational crime prevention, zero tolerance and punitive justice

EducationComponent 03

Topic overview Functionalist, Marxist and liberal views of the role of education Social democratic, New Right and feminist views and vocational education Class and ethnic patterns in educational attainment Gender patterns, global educational inequality and intersectionality Inside-school factors: labelling, setting, triage and institutional racism Material and cultural deprivation and cultural capital Explaining gender and ethnic differences and theoretical views of achievement Types of school and education policy since 1988 Ideology, marketisation and equality of opportunity in education policy

Religion, Belief and FaithComponent 03

Topic overview Defining religion, faith and belief, churches and denominations Sects, cults, new religious and new age movements and fundamentalism Measuring religiosity and believing without belonging Functionalist and Marxist views of the role of religion Neo-Marxist, Weberian, feminist, phenomenological and postmodern views of religion Religion, social change and whether religion is positive or negative Class and gender patterns in religiosity Women's changing religiosity and ethnic and age patterns Age cohorts, global religious trends and resurgence Defining secularisation and evidence of religious decline Pro- and anti-secularisation theories Religion and social policy, the golden age critique and global patterns

Education

Class and ethnic patterns in educational attainment

3 things to know
Component 03

Overview

Recall questions on the relationship between social class and attainment, free school meals as an indicator, the widening class gap, class and access to higher education, and ethnic patterns in attainment, including Chinese, Indian, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Black Caribbean and white British pupils.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started

Key term

Which ethnic groups in England typically attain above the national average at GCSE?

Key term

Which ethnic groups have persistently the lowest recorded attainment in England?

Key term

Which large group of pupils is now among the lowest attaining in England, and why does that surprise people?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1
Describe the broad relationship between social class and educational attainment in the UK.
Model answer
Attainment rises steadily with social class position: children from professional and managerial homes achieve markedly higher results at every stage than children from routine and manual homes, and class remains the strongest single predictor of how a pupil will do.
2
Why is eligibility for free school meals used so widely when studying class and achievement?
Model answer
It is a practical, recorded indicator of household poverty, and pupils eligible for free school meals attain well below their peers at every key stage and are far less likely to reach higher education.
3
What happens to the class gap in attainment as pupils move up through the education system?
Model answer
It tends to widen, because early differences in language, resources and expectations compound at each stage, so a gap visible before school starts is larger by the end of secondary schooling.
4
Overall results have risen for every social class over recent decades. Why is that not evidence that class inequality in education is disappearing?
Model answer
Because the improvement has lifted all groups roughly together, so although absolute attainment is higher, the relative distance between the classes has proved stubbornly persistent.
5
Describe the class pattern in access to higher education.
Model answer
Participation has widened considerably and far more working-class students now enter university, but they remain heavily under-represented at the most selective institutions and over-represented in less prestigious ones.
6
Which ethnic groups in England typically attain above the national average at GCSE?
Model answer
Pupils of Chinese and Indian heritage have consistently attained above the national average.

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Introducing Socialisation, Culture and Identity

Families and Relationships

Youth Subcultures

Media

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AVictims may fear reprisal, or feel shame or economic dependence.

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