P overty and education

1. Poverty and education ACTS 2012 Terry Wrigley

2. What do we mean by poverty? • Absolute or relative poverty (< 60% of avge income) • Since 1980s, increased differences of income / wealth • (especially Britain and USA among developed countries • as a result of neoliberal policies) • insecurity • limited participation • shame • aimlessness, frustration • spatial concentration

3. Impact on children Damp bedrooms Inadequate clothes BUT ALSO Friendships Self-esteem Optimism

4. What do we mean by class? • Class: a social division based on economic relations, which affects consciousness, culture etc • Employers vs workers • (Marx: who controls production, history, struggle) • “working class” / “middle class” (manual/white collar?) • (Educational sociology) • I-V and variants (types of occupation: official, marketing)

5. What do we mean by class? • Class: a social division based on economic relations, which affects consciousness, culture etc • Employers vs workers (Marx: who controls production) • “working class” / “middle class” (manual/white collar?) • official and marketing definitions (occupational) • Not static - in formation (E.P.Thompson) • No automatic link between • class position • class awareness • class consciousness • class action

6. An ‘underclass’? or just more vulnerable workers? Charles Murray Osborne’s “lifestyle choice” Macdonald and Marsh : Disconnected Youth? Owen Jones: Chavs Impact of the discourse of derision on children…

7. Both have an impact on education Class (Marxist division): increasing attempt by business leaders to determine the goals of education (e.g. S Ball; neoliberalism) – ‘human capital’, meritocracy. Class (kinds of work): “working class” (= manual workers) gain (in general) lower qualifications, finish education earlier - supposedly less theoretical? Laid onto this the impact of (relative and absolute) poverty: limited opportunities, family stress, low morale, low trust / antagonism, shame, defeatism, limited horizons, troubled neighbourhoods,etc.

8. School structure “Schools serving poorer areas sometimes have to manage multiple kinds of disadvantage. A pupil’s relationship to school may be a fragile one... (OECD 2007:81) Issues of school size and structure. e.g. 15 different specialist teachers. Setting, streaming, grading, subject choice

9. Minimizing the impact of poverty on • school achievement • Finland • less poverty • free healthy meals • libraries • smaller schools • teachers focused on lifting up from bottom • no tests, league tables, inspectors, performance pay • Elsewhere - different support for single mothers etc. • Combined action: can’t all be done in the classroom

10. A word of caution… whilst recognizing this as a major problem there is a danger if we allow it to lower our expectations !

11. Some problematic theories • “Know your place” (19th C.) • “Intelligence” (IQ. Burt. 1910-1960) • “Language deficit” (Bernstein 1960s-80s) • “Aspirations” (ongoing) • “Ineffective” schools or teaching (now)

12. 19th Century “Know your place” Don’t rise above your station in life! Restrict to elementary education 3Rs + obedience + Empire

13. 1910-1960 • “Intelligence” (IQ, Burt) • Generic • Innate • Immutable • The identical twins fraud !

14. late 1960s-1980 “Language deficit” (Bernstein) Restricted and elaborated code Flawed experiment Professional myths Critique: Labov, Rosen Critique: school pedagogies

15. Ongoing “Low aspirations” Aspirations are situated: Impact of : de-industrialisation stigma frustration (training schemes) + positioning in schools, school ethos

16. 1990s-now “Ineffective” schools and teachers Comparing ‘similar’ schools Characteristics (strong leadership, focus on T+L, pupil participation, assessment) Linear, mechanistic causality LEADING TO strict accountability (government by numbers), test-driven, narrowing of curriculum, instrumental ... within a market system.

17. A search for better theory • Cultural and social capital (Bourdieu) • Curriculum reform • More productive pedagogies • Community schools • Support

18. Theorising interface Charlesworth: A phenomenology of working class experience shame (loss of face, identity, community, trust) futility (unemployment, ‘poor work’, training schemes that lead nowhere) the symbolic violence brought about by Thatcher’s deindustrialisation

19. Theorising interface Rotherham’s like a gaol wiy’aht any walls. People can’t see wot it is that’s causin’ ahr thi feel. (p53) Yer used to gu t’ w’k a’ yer could see who thi’ exploiter wo’ an’ ah much thi wo meckkin’ aht’a yer but nahr, well, Ah just sit ‘ere like a sack o’r spuds. Ah dun’t ‘ave owt to se’ cos all A’ve done is waste mi day away, same as yesterd’y! (p59) College is shit. Ah’ve seen too many du it an’ get nowt…well yer know what jobs are like rahnd ‘ere, they’re slave labour. (p61) People wi’ good grades end up du’in’ fuck all, what’s point?(p96) M’ son thi’v med ‘im gu on these trainin’ schemes an’ its just cheap labour. Thi’‘ad ‘im train’t’ be a welder, an then hi wo back on dole; then thi’‘ad ‘im doin’ joinery on ET an’ then hi’ wo’ back on dole age’an; nah thi’ve got ‘im do’in’ fork-lift truck drivin’, so Ah guess next hi’ll be an unemployed fork-lift driver. (p96) If yer could mek school better, ahr wouuld yer like it to be? Well, if thi’ treat us wi’ mo’ore respect. (p101)

20. Theorising interface • Charlesworth: A phenomenology of working class experience • shame (loss of face, identity, community, trust) • futility (unemployment, ‘poor work’, training schemes that lead nowhere) • What if these are reinforced by traditional schooling? • lack of respect, security, etc. • learning as alienated labour, grading, selection

21. Curriculum and class • What would a working-class (urban, community) curriculum look like? • Midwinter, Rosen, Searle, TLK, RFMackenzie… • Counter argument by Lawton: ‘ghettoization’ • a curriculum which is felt to be relevant (not onlyvocational) • culturally responsive but gives access to dominant culture and qualification • Basic skills … but within challenging activities • … in a context where ‘working class’ is less obviously visible, culturally less coherent, and often demoralised?

22. Productive pedagogies Social constructivism (socio-cultural) Problem solving (not merely ‘thinking skills’) Product and audience cf. the alienated labour of task completion and exercises

23. Productive pedagogies Overcoming the problem of abstraction linking theory to practice, symbolic representation to experience (Bruner: narrative / academic) The wider application of EAL pedagogies: Cummins’ quadrant

24. More productive pedagogies - language (from EAL theory. The “Cummins quadrant” high cognitive Academic experiential abstract Conversational Exercises low cognitive

25. More productive pedagogies - language (from EAL theory. The “Cummins quadrant” high cognitive Challenging but grounded Academic experiential abstract Conversational low cognitive

26. Productive pedagogies Open architectures: Project method Storyline Simulations Community Design and Technology Media production Citizen’s theatre (Boal) …

27. School and community • Community schools • various models - from adult ed. to pre-school, old people, leisure, social services, etc. • various impact on curriculum • involving parents in children’s education • drawing on community assets • building on community knowledge

28. School and community building on community knowledge ‘Funds of Knowledge’ (Luis Moll) ‘Virtual Schoolbag ‘ (Pat Thomson) + Paulo Freire, Harold Rosen, and the rest of the band NB Cummins on the starvation diet of phonics

29. Schools as communities School size and structure (Scandinavia, USA) The problem of too many teachers parents who want to help but don’t know how monitoring, encouraging, opening horizons alternative experiences (e.g. work placement) How to differentiate and support without labelling and segregating?

30. An empowerment culture • Teachers who gain the courage and confidence to explore new ways of managing learning. • Curricula which connect up with the real lives of the learner • Relationships which enable the learners to find a voice • A counter-culture to the despair of a community.