The Relationship Between Social Class and Educational Achievement Essay

The Relationship Between Social Class and Educational Achievement Many sociologists have tried to explore the link between social class and educational achievement, measuring the effects of one element upon the other. In order to maintain a definite correlation between the two, there are a number of views, explanations, social statistics and perspectives which must be taken into account. The initial idea would be to define the key terms which are associated with how "social class" affects "educational achievement." "Social class" is the identity of people, according to the work they do and the community in which they live in."Educational achievement" is the tendency for some groups to do better or worse in terms of educational success. Research reveals that the higher the social class, the higher the levels of educational achievement are likely to be. The children of parents in higher social classes are more likely to stay on in post compulsory education, more likely to achieve examination passes when at school, and more likely to gain university entrance. These features painted a true picture of British education in the twentieth century and can be argued to follow this trend today. However, whether there has been any reduction in the inequalities is more debatable, but some research suggests that these inequalities are as great as ever, despite the overall improvements within the education system. Many researchers argue that IQ tests are biased in favour of the middle class, since members of this group largely construct them. If it is accepted that social classes and other groups have distinctive subcultures and that this affe... ... to reject school and school values (such as academic success). This has its roots outside of school in the nature of the fathers and elder brothers' in manual work. They look up to these figures and see school as "sissy", un-masculine, unlike the "real" masculine work that their fathers, brothers etc do. Overall, in conclusion there can be no definite correlation identified between "social class" and "educational achievement" in that there is much research into this and many sociologists suggest their own theories, and have yet not decided whether there is a link or not. However, there does seem to be correlation of some kind as sociologists either favour it or not. It can be still said that the main relationship between these factors is the higher the social class; the more likely the pupil is going to succeed.