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Socio-economic

Game:

• 30 Seconds

Quiz1. Define Left wing Politics2. Define Right wing Politics3. Explain in your own words neo-Liberalism?4. How does neo-liberalism link to the education

reforms of 1989 in New Zealand?

5. What does egalitarian mean?6. What does social class mean?7. What does social status mean?8. What does it mean by the word ‘socialist’?9. What does it mean by the word ‘capitalist’?

Socio-economic Class/ Status

• Q. What is Socio-economic (SE) Class?• Divisions between groups in society depending on access

to resources/wealth/capital

• Q. What is Socio-economic Status

– A person’s position in a SE class - includes family income, parental occupation and education level, and social standing/status.

Q. What are resources?

• Material/economic capital• Social capital• Cultural capital (this is education, especially

thinking and literacy)

SE class is directly linked to:

• Educational achievement (see www.educationcounts.edcentre.govt.nz for statistics

• Health (eg. smoking, nutrition linked to class)• Life expectancy (quality of life)• Family culture (especially maternal education)

Q. How do we measure SE Class?

• Occupational status is used in NZ education as a rough measure of SE class

Until 1970s to 1985

• Elley-Irving Scale of 5 divisions– Professional– Managerial– Clerical– Skilled and semi-skilled manual labour– Unskilled

Now use 4 divisions form the

• International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status – Upper professional and managerial (eg.

professors, lawyers, dentists qualified engineers)– Lower professional and managerial (eg. teachers,

police, journalists, actors)– Skilled manual– Unskilled manual

Theories that draw on SE class in their explanations

• Social Reproduction Theory (e.g. Pierre Bourdieu; Basil Bernstein)

• Realist Sociology (e.g. Michael Young, Roy Nash)

Main Idea in Socio-economic Class Theories

• ‘People make their lives but in circumstances not of their own choosing’ (Karl Marx) – Life circumstances are determined by social

economic class location

However:– Different theorists allow for the liberal idea of

some individual human agency (e.g. Roy Nash)

Social Reproduction Theory

• Families have three types of capital– Material capital – Social capital – Cultural capital

Capital

• Capital makes more of itself from itself• If you have capital you can make more• If you don’t have capital you can’t (or it’s very

difficult) acquire it• Education is one of the main ways to ‘make’

capital

However it’s not easy because:

– Education distributes social and cultural capital to children according to class

– (That is, if you already have some capital you can ‘make’ more)

How?

1. Material capital • Financial wealth• Home ownership• Possessions

2. Social capital • ‘Who you know’• Networks of influence • Networks that act as

resources• The way you see

yourself in relation to others

3. Cultural Capital and Habitus

• Those with middle-class capital are more likely to achieve in education

Because:• They already have the cultural capital in the

form of habitus which makes more from itself

Habitus is the embodiment of the cultural capital, the way that the child represents his or her culture through speech, body language, dress, attitudes, aspirations and so on.’ (Rata, 2001 p. 144)

Example of cultural capital and habitus

• (Katherine Mansfield, (1920/1974) The Doll’s House In The Complete Stories of Katherine Mansfield, (pp. 393-401), New York: Viking.)

• How the children in the story ‘wear within their bodies’ (embody) the cultural capital of the upper middle class (the Burrell family) and the poorest section of the working class (the Kelvey family).

– That ‘embodied wearing’ is habitus.– Not just clothing on the outside but– The very way a person ‘wears’ his or her body. – One’s habits, practices, dispositions

The two families have unequal social capital

• The exclusion of the Kelveys.• The teacher’s habitus

• ‘Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers.’

Does it still happen in classrooms today?

Realist Sociology• ‘Family Resource Framework’: A Realist Sociology

Model. (Nash, 1993, 2001, 2001a, 2001b, 2006)

Practices (What you do)

Dispositions

(How you think, feel and orient yourself towards others)

Structures (What capital resources you have)

• It is ‘(f)rom their class position families derive certain material and symbolic resources (financial, cultural/intellectual, and social) which their members use with strategic effect in the interests or maintaining, or improving, their social and economic standing in the present – and in succeeding – generations.

• This has always been a major function in the family but the educational system has acquired a fundamental role in the inter-generationally transmission of social position which is historically recent . . .’ (Nash, 1993: 2).

It’s your resources within your home!

LiteracyFinancial position

Social CapitalResources available.

The argument (Nash, 2001; Tunmer and Prochnow, 2009)

• Literacy is the most important part of cultural capital

• Literary is a major link between socio-economic class and educational performance

• Literacy is a capital resource and built into middle-class children’s habitus.

• The literacy enjoyed by the middle class is the reason for educational achievement

So how do we explain that social reproduction is happening, to the

extent that it is?

What is the role of schools in this process?

First Explanation:

The notion of Marxist Explanation.

Marxist Explanations• the structure of the economy takes precedence over human

action or agency• the economy requires people to take on different work roles

(and thus sets of skills, knowledge, and dispositions)• the economy also requires a reserve labor force (both skilled

and unskilled) to keep wages low (for capitalists’ profit)

Marxist Explanations: What is the role of schools?

• Bowles and Gintis (1976) say that schools are training young people for their future economic and occupational position according to their current social class position

• students of working-class origin are trained to take orders, to be obedient, and are subject to more discipline

• children of professionals are trained using more progressive methods, which gives them internal discipline and self-presentation skills

Other terms for Marxist approaches

• “deterministic”: people have no choice because their futures are determined for them by the economic structure and their position within it

• “structural”: the economic structure will end up reproducing itself, whatever people do

• “materialist”: a focus on material/economic conditions; the economy is paramount in this explanation

Reference:Bowles. S, Gintis. H, (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America, Basic Books. New York.

Second Explanation:

The notion of Cultural Capital.

Cultural Capital

• Each class has its own cultural background, knowledge, dispositions, and tastes that are transmitted through the family (Bourdieu 1984)

• This is called the habitus to signal its deep routinization, naturalness, and embedded within a person’s body, language, and upbringing.

Cultural Capital:The Role of Schools

• The culture of the dominant group forms the knowledge and skills that are most highly valued and the basis of what is taught in school.

• To possess that cultural capital means one is considered educated or smart or talented; to not have that cultural capital means one is considered stupid or ignorant or uneducated.

Reproduction of Cultural Capital

habitus success

Cultural Capital

habitus

Cultural Capital

failure

AssimilateReproduction

Privileged Group

Under Privileged Group

Reproduction of Cultural Capital

habitus

success

Cultural Capital

habitus

Cultural Capital

failure

AssimilateReproduction

Privileged Team

Under Privileged Team

Management Team

Quality Coaches

Quality Players

Good Feeders System.

Stadium. Fitness

Management Team

Average Coaches

Players with no idea

No infrastructure

Reproduction of Cultural Capital

habitus

success

Cultural Capital

habitus

Cultural Capital

failure

AssimilateReproduction

Privileged Group

Under Privileged Group

Mainstream Education in

NZ

Upper MiddleClass

Working Class

Educated Parents

High Income.

Sufficient Income.

Structured Discipline.

High Expectations.

Internally driven

Low income

Parents of different ethnic background

Externally driven.

Uneducated Parents.

Cultural Capital:The Role of Schools

• In other words, schools appear neutral in evaluating students, but because the knowledge and dispositions they value correspond to the habitus and cultural capital of the dominant group, students from that class perform better in schools.

Codd, J & Harker, R. (1990) Political Issues in New Zealand Education - Second Edition. Palmerston North: The Dunmore Press.