Aspirations and expectations: homeschool relations in context

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Aspirations and expectationshome/school
relations in context

• Multiverse resource
• Louise Gazeley

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Questions to be explored

• What do we mean by aspirations and to what extent
  are these shaped by expectations?
• Could more be done in schools to support the
  aspirations of children from working class
  backgrounds?
• Does it matter if some parents are considered to
  be lacking in aspirations?

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• The relationship between educational
  aspirations and attainment is complex and
  non-linear
• This suggests a need to look more broadly at
  young peoples aspirations, how they are formed
  and at the process by which they influence
  outcomes.
• Cabinet Office, (2008), Aspiration and
  attainment amongst young people in deprived
  communities, p.9.

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Aspirations and expectations

• 1. How would you define aspirations and
  expectations?
• 2. Do you think that these are separate or
  related concepts?
• 3. Do you agree that high expectations encourage
  high aspirations and that low expectations
  encourage low aspirations? (See next slide)

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• Pupil expected to enter Higher Education and
  pursue a career in education.
• Teacher interview about Pupil 6, middle class.
  Source Gazeley and Dunne, (2005) Addressing
  working class underachievement, Multiverse, page
  12.
• It was the teachers view that if a child has a
  low CAT score, then their receiving low marks is
  not underachievement - just a reflection of low
  potential.
• Special Study - Teacher Trainee 4. Source
  Gazeley and Dunne, (2005), Addressing working
  class underachievement, page 8.

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• 1. Produce a simple time line showing key points
  in your own educational experiences to date.
• 2. Use arrows to mark in the points where your
  expectations and aspirations were raised, lowered
  or changed.
• 3. Try to annotate the line to indicate who or
  what was influential at critical points.

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• The following three slides contain extracts from
  a short autobiographical account that describes
  the experiences of a working class scholarship
  boy at a selective, independent school in the
  1950s.
• What do these extracts suggest about the
  schools expectations and aspirations for pupils
  attending the school?

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1

• Many of the children had come through the Prep
  School and so were much better prepared for what
  was demanded of them than were the scholarship
  boys Coming to terms with new and demanding work
  requirements was not easy and took some time and
  no help was specifically provided with the
  transition by the school Of course the
  educational help one could draw on at home was
  very limited. My father had left school at 12 I
  think and my mother at 14. My siblings had a very
  disrupted education due to the mobility of the
  family (my father was in the army). So there was
  very little help forthcoming from anyone and I
  had to struggle with new subjects such as Latin
  and Greek and French and Maths, and so on, as
  best I could.

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2

• My experience in the early years was not
  untypical of many of the other scholarship boys.
  It was wholly unclear where our education was
  leading and all parents faced the costs of
  keeping their children at school. So what
  happened is that by the age of 14/15 we were as a
  group siphoned off into a special class (called
  the Shell - I have no idea why this name). It was
  a class set aside for those boys who were
  planning to leave after O levels. It was 1951,
  the first year of the new exam structure. All of
  the boys in this class - maybe 15 - were
  scholarship boys and from the working class.
  Everyone left at the first opportunity as far as
  I recall and I was the only child that stayed on
  into the sixth form.

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3

• By the time I entered the Sixth Form I was
  reasonably well integrated and was captain of the
  football and cricket teams and also a school
  prefect of which there were only 8. I took A
  levels and probably had the best overall
  performance of any of the candidates from the
  school. But at no point was there ever a
  discussion with myself or my parents about next
  steps, and whereas others were applying for
  university, no attempt was made to interest me in
  also seeking a university place. Nor was any
  attempt made to discuss future careers - it was
  as if they didnt care what happened it was left
  to the experience of national service in the Army
  to open up the possibilities of University
  education, a purely random process rather than
  the deliberate activity of the school (as it
  ought to have been even in the early 1950s).

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The social context of schools

• Think about a school you know well. How would
  you describe its expectations and aspirations for
  pupils?
• Do you think that the schools location plays a
  part in shaping these aspirations?
• Do you think that there are different aspirations
  for different groups of pupils?

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• Could more be done in schools to minimise
  negative peer effects on pupils aspirations and
  motivation?
• Another feature of our sample group is that
  they are all placed in a low mixed-ability set.
  This factor in itself may contribute to their
  lack of motivation and self-esteem as they are
  labeled as failures before they have even
  started.
• (Special Study - Teacher trainee 3. Source
  Gazeley and Dunne, 2005, Addressing working class
  underachievement, page 16)

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(No Transcript)
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Home background

• Differences in the educational outcomes
  experienced by working class and middle class
  pupils are sometimes attributed to differences in
  aspirations
• These gaps are not mainly caused by the
  education system itself, which goes a long way to
  reduce them. They arise principally from what
  happens outside school, and before a child
  reaches school. They reflect a variety of factors
  including the aspirations and support of parents,
  of social peers and local communities.
• The Stationery Office, 2009, New Opportunities
  Fair Chances for the Future, p.47.

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• The home learning environment is just as
  effective in disadvantaged households as in more
  affluent environments but good practice is less
  likely amongst poorer families.
• DfES, (2006), Social Mobility Narrowing Social
  Class Educational Attainment Gaps, p.51.

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• Many mothers in our study struggled to
  understand the work brought home by their
  children.Gillies, V. (2006), Working class
  mothers and school life exploring the role of
  emotional capital, Gender and Education, 18,3,
  pp.281-293. p.287.

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• Parents were engaged in protracted and wearying
  battles with the schools, and in some cases the
  wider schooling system, to ensure that what they
  believed to be the needs of their children were
  properly catered for.
• Gewirtz, S. Dickson, M., Power, S., Halpin, D.
  and Whitty, G., (2005), The deployment of social
  capital theory in educational policy and
  provision the case of Education Action Zones in
  England, British Educational Research Journal,
  31, 6, pp.651 673. p. 664.

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Working with parents

• Who decides how parent professional relationships
  should be conducted?
• Are these relationships generally seen from the
  parents point of view?
• Are the behaviours that are associated with
  supportive parents always made explicit?
• Does it matter if some parents and pupils are
  disadvantaged by professional expectations about
  what a supportive parent will do to support a
  child at school?

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Some concluding thoughts

• Expectations and aspirations are not separate
• 2. Schools play a part in the formation of
  pupils and parents aspirations the attitudes,
  life experiences, perceptions and practices of
  teachers matter
• 3. Schools play a part in ensuring that
  aspirations are sustained

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References

• Cabinet Office, (2008), Aspiration and attainment
  amongst young people in deprived communities.
• DfES, (2006), Social Mobility Narrowing Social
  Class Educational Attainment Gaps.
• Gazeley and Dunne, (2005) Addressing working
  class underachievement, Multiverse
• Gewirtz, S. Dickson, M., Power, S., Halpin, D.
  and Whitty, G., (2005), The deployment of social
  capital theory in educational policy and
  provision the case of Education Action Zones in
  England, British Educational Research Journal,
  31, 6, pp.651 673.
• Gillies, V. (2006), Working class mothers and
  school life exploring the role of emotional
  capital, Gender and Education, 18,3, pp.281-293.
• The Stationery Office, (2009), New Opportunities
  Fair Chances for the Future.