mock exam(will continue later)

1.(a)Explain what is meant by material deprivation.
Material deprivation is lack of money and things that money can buy.
(b)Suggest three reasons why girls and boys often choose different subjects to study.
-Parental expectations – because parents might encourage boys to choose subjects that are more suitable for them in their opinion such as science
-Role models – girls and boys choose subjects according to their parents’ choice
-Stereotyping- because of traditional division of subjects into categories for boys and girls
-Career opportunities- it can be easier for boys to find a job in science, business
(c)Outline some of the current education policies that affect the achievement of social classes
There are many policies exist nowadays that affect achievement of different social classes, however some of them reduce inequalities, and while others widening the gap between classes.
In 1997 when Labor party became the major party, it’s priority was to improve standards of current education and raise attainment of students. Introduction of policy Excellence in Schools, which aimed to encourage young people in deprived inner city areas study and find motivation of going to the higher education, was an example of policies which give equality of opportunities for everyone. Education Action Zones have similar aim as they were located in deprived areas to increase attainment of students by running extra classes and activities. These zones were replaced by more successful program Excellence in Cities which was funded by individuals, businesses, government and aimed to raise achievement in deprived areas by replacing poorly performing schools and providing more school places where necessary. Another policy Education Maintenance Allowance gave opportunity for students from poor backgrounds to continue education as they were given bonuses for good attainment and progress in education.
However other policies weren’t so successful as they made the situation with class inequalities even worse. Current policies reflect New Right ideas of marketisation of education and introduction of grant maintained schools, which were partly independent from government and they could choose their specialization, publication of exam results and creating league tables increased opportunity for parents to choose the schools for children. However, as Stephen Ball argued, marketisation of education put middle class children into advantage. League tables were aimed to increase competition between schools and encourage them to raise standards, however parents by looking at league table would choose the school with higher results while those schools in inner city areas where population mostly consists of people from working class will lose its popularity since pupils from poor background are not so concerned about education. Introduction of National Vocational Qualificationst aimed to provide training courses and vocational education for young people and raise skill levels in a wide range of jobs. This gave opportunities for working class students instead of going into higher education, get qualification and find a job. However, as Marxists- sociologists argued, this vocational training provide cheap labour with low skills and helps only in lowering unemployment statistics. And also as Lee claimed vocational education is for the less able people which channels them into low status and low paid jobs.
As we can see, some policies are useful while others can make achievement of some group of people even worse, however marketisation of education have many advantages and reflects increased diversity of young people in the modern life.
(d)Asses the view that ethnic differences in achievement are primarily the result of home backgrounds.
Hmm, we wrote about that last lesson.

2. Asses the strengths and limitations of unstructured interviews for the study of teachers’ attitudes.
Unstructured interviews are those interviews where questions are less likely to be pre set, though the researcher usually have a certain topic to cover and just discuss it with the interviewee by asking about appeared details.
Interpretevists are in favour of unstructured interviews since they achieve validity. This type of interviews allow the interviewee express himself in his own words without any limitations in answers and the interviewer have opportunity to ask any questions he wants which helps him to get data in depth. When investigating teachers’ attitudes about towards pupils, unstructured interview may help to establish rapport since teachers are used to “putting on an act in front of pupils” and not telling their real thoughts. That’s why in this case structured interviews may reduce validity of answers as teachers due to their occupations are good in hiding emotions and being formal.
Positivists reject unstructured interviews since it is almost impossible to replicate them. Every interview is unique, the interviewer might ask any questions when exploring the topic and so this data will be unreliable. Also unstructured interviews can not be pre-coded which makes them to be uncomparable, and it is more difficult to generalize the data. Positivists argue that structured interviews could give more reliable data and study larger sample.
When researching teacher using unstructured interviews, researchers will be able to study only small amount of people as each interview takes time, this reduces possibility of having a representative sample if researcher studies particular school where for example there are more modernistic teachers who try to be equal for everyone and don’t show their attitudes towards a particular student. Also there are might be ethical issues and teacher has to be guaranteed of anonymity and be fully informed about the aim of the interview as it might affect his reputation and pupils’ expectations.
Unstructured interviews in some cases might not produce expected result with teachers, because people of this occupation are usually over-worked and will not be happy to spend a lot of time for interview which lowers the response rate. In this case, structured interviews might be more helpful as they take less time and teacher will not be asked extra questions.
One of the advantages of unstructured interviews is that they give opportunity for the interviewer to use non-directive or directive approach. For some teachers direct and aggressive interviewing techniques will be more useful as they give more valid information. Teachers are skilled in controlling their emotions and behavior and as Howard Becker showed in his interview with teachers, aggressive approach helped in finding attitudes and reasons for prejudice of some pupils. This information teacher would not give as volunteer.r
Oh, I will continue later. I don’t know why but it is really hard to think now(