Does Social class and Gender affect attainment in schools?

[Emily19]

Hello,
I am currently studying on an access to Teacher Training course. I intend to research "How social class and gender affect attainment in schools, which has the greater influence. Any Information given is completely confidential, if you require a copy of any work I have used, I will be more than happy to supply you with a copy.

What are your views on Social class affecting attainment in schools?

What are your views on Gender affecting attainment in schools?

Which do you think has the greater influence?

Many Thanks

The main thing that affects attainment in school is parental involvement and encouragement of the student. I have seen children from poor backgrounds achieve because their parents were interested, and rich kids from very privileged backgrounds self harm and crash out of education at 14 because of a lack of parental attention and input.

so why don't you research it instead of asking a load of strangers their unverifiable and subjective opinions?

it does
it does
the first

glib response to glib questions

now what do you mean by social class?

All working class kids are fick innit

Surely you need to look at actual data if that is your title? Not trying to be arsey, just worried you are doing the wrong thing.

Or are you seeing if perception matches reality?

try the Sutton Trust website and see if there are any relevant reports, for the social class side. For gender, look in The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard which includes a chapter on the experience of girls in schools.
you will honestly produce a far better piece of work through reading proper research, not just asking an unrepresentative group of people what they think. Asking Mumsnetters what they think will only tell you what Mumsnetters (who are not a particularly representative group) think, and we might have all sorts of biases or axes to grind.

There is tons of academic research on this - suggest you try that. Asking on here just gives you opinions. Is that what you want? or actual evidence? Good luck.

National statistics would probably be of help here

What are your tutors teaching you? Surely they should give you basic tools for the job

www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/release-calendar/index.html?newquery=*&uday=0&umonth=0&uyear=0&title=Attainment+by+Pupil+Characteristics&pagetype=calendar-entry&lday=&lmonth=&lyear=

Yes of course it does. The figures show it very clearly.look on the office of national statistics website or the dfe.

Sorry to dense but this is well known and published in the data. I am not sure what research there is to do?

Have you read the narrowing the gap golden thread stuff published by the last government. It is all in there with the data and research links.

fSM a level statistics are appalling.

You also need to start by thinking about what you meAn by social class as that isn't a measure. Social class is a perception not an absolute

The data looks at free school meals and the eyfsp also looks at 30 per cent soa and imd rankings but that is income based not class.

emily, you need to narrow your hypothesis a bit, lovey.

subject matter waaaaaaay too broad.

you need to chat it throiugh with your supervisor and come up with something a bit more specific. is this for a particular assignment?

define class. are you using income level or something more negligible - click on any class discussion on here to get an idea of how contentious a dny definition of 'class' is.
what age group?
what subjects?
what type of 'education'?

what sort of research are you doing? (i mean, are you writing an essay based on an mn thread, or are you thinking about getting some ideas for a qualitative study you might do for your phd down the road?)

if she's doing access to teacher training I don't think she is trying to do original research, this is probably just an essay. aren't access courses equivalent to A level?

Look on the national strategies website for the narrowing the gap publications.

The c4eo website also has summaries of all research in the past 10 years.

You will get everything you need from those

The Fischer Family Trust website may have some useful data on it.
Or NfER.
You need statistics not opinion.

that's what i mean, seth - if it's just an essay, you could write it after an hour on google. not sure why mn opinion is needed? unless we are required to provide links to the best research? or provide opinion on the research?

happy to help - but need a bit more info about what the op wants... mention of confidentiality in the op suggests she's planning on using quotes from the thread and is attempting to cover herself from an ethics pov. and using internet research from sprites on a parenting website might not really make the best essay if it's really an evaluation of some provided/ suggested data...

but i could fill a few pages of 'imvho' and get a 'lack of research, D-' of my own.

Yes, social class has a huge effect upon educational attainment and subsequent social mobilty.

Check out the report and comments of Alan Milburn.

Also look at the research done by Exeter University.

Then the Sutton Trust

Emily because the topic has been so heavily researched and the answer, especially to the class question, is so blindingly obvious and has been borne out by generations of experience, why not try to find a different slant? There's lots of interesting stuff going on about how to properly address the educational inequality resulting from social class, why not try some angle on that? If I was a supervisor I wouldn't want to read a synthesis of existing research, I'd want something fresh. I think I'd prefer something suggesting progress in contemporary thinking from a new teacher too, rather than dwelling on causes well known. I'm sure there are lots of people in university access departments and in the DfE who would be happy to help and also reams in the papers. Not sure what the scale of the project is, not a teacher!

its much harder for children from disadvantaged areas to get a good education having had to bring a child up as a single parent and live in an area of social housing which seems to go on forever.Schools have been awfull huge classes and so on and why are people having a go at you for asking for info in this way if they dont like a subject why get involved I think its obvious smaller class sizes work better and better qualified teachers help why else would parents spend so much on private education .I thought at last when i heard this week pupils at secondary schools are going to have spelling tests perhaps now they will do more for all the pupils who cant read and spell instead of not believing pupils have a problem and saying daft things to them like you just have a confidence prblem if oenly it was just confidence

Other peoples opinion's is what I wanted I wouldn?t have put the question on here otherwise would I? So I?d be grateful if people who don?t have anything positive or usefull to write, please do not comment.
To everyone who made relevant comments, they have been taken on board and used thank you!!

how rude.

I imagine that Emily is looking for original anecdotal evidence to back up what the many studies say already?

SHe might be researching how parents describe their views on the subject, as opposed to duplicating the research that's already out there on social class/gender and attainment (just a thought).