Privileged children excel at low performing comps

TonyHannon Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:53:57 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

 I spotted this in The Times and thought it’d provoke a fine correspondence!!



The article details the findings of a study which suggests people sending their children to private schools could be wasting their money.

Interesting excerpts include:


However, the researchers decided to analyse the progress of the offspring of “those white, urban, middle-class parents who consciously choose for their children to be educated at their local state secondary, whatever the league table positioning”.

‘This group attended average or poorly performing schools in working-class or racially mixed areas. Here they thrived academically and were often given special attention by teachers keen to improve the school’s results, according to the study by professors in education from the universities of Cambridge, Sunderland and West of England (UWE).  

The only failure was in social integration, which had been the very reason most parents sent their child to the school. Most children from middle-class families mixed only with pupils from identical backgrounds.


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Privileged children excel at low performing comps | 10 comments (10 topical)

Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#1)

by champagnesocialist on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 06:21:30 PM GMT

Of course they do - on average if you come from an educated privileged background you will do well anywhere: just read educational sociology research from anytime in the last 40-50 years.

This has caused much mirth amongst educational sociologists about the people who are essentially wasting their money if they are going in pursuit as often claimed of the academic results. Of course the wealthy people using public schools are in search of suitable classmates (in both senses of the word)  for their offspring/

 

Moving to a practical level I have friends who are teachers who reckon they can tell who is going to succeed at school just by looking at a class list - the Sophies, Catherines, Lucys and Sarahs are on average going to do better than the Traceys, Courtneys, Staceys etc. Of course in themselves the names dont indicate anything beyond the class background of the parents.


Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#2)

by bishophill on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 07:12:00 PM GMT

If comprehensives are delivering socially segregated education, then isn't that a major plank of the argument for comprehensive education knocked away?


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#3)

by Al on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 07:51:54 PM GMT

Couldn't you similarly say that if priveleged children do just as well in any school then there is no need for grammar or private schools?


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#6)

by bishophill on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 10:35:29 AM GMT

The report doesn't seem to refer to "doing just as well". It says they did brilliantly, and that a higher than expected proportion went on to Oxbridge, but I would have thought that this must have been a statistically insignificant number given that the original sample population was only 124 families.

Why is it only Oxbridge? Why not "a higher than expected proportion went to university". I think what they've done is a classic bit of carving up the population until they found a subpopulation which gave them the answer they wanted. This is a famous way of cheating with statistics.


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#7)

by bishophill on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 10:45:33 AM GMT

OK I've looked up the report on which the Times Article was based. It's here.

I think it's safe to conclude that the report is pure, unadulterated junk science. The sample size was 68 children, over a range of ages. So when the authors say that a higher than expected proportion went to University, we're probably talking about one child!

What a heap of cack! 


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#8)

by rwendland on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:58:54 PM GMT

The sample was a bit larger: 124 families. They only interviewed children in about half the sample, 180 parents as well. But still a small sample for firm conclusions I suspect.


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#9)

by bishophill on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 05:21:08 PM GMT

"But still a small sample for firm conclusions I suspect."

Your phraseology has the virtue of being more polite than mine.


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#10)

by rwendland on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 07:49:33 PM GMT

Yep, I am being polite. There are 3 Profs, one a Cambridge Prof, named on the Project Report. Maybe this is viewed as a small study by the academics as prelim to proper research, but blown out of proportion by a Times journo?


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#4)

by RedRooster on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 12:05:44 AM GMT

You're right.  Unfortunately it has also been consistently shown that grammar schools also reified class segregation.  So we're left trying to find a way to make a comprehensive system that actually works.


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Re: Privileged children excel at low performing... (#5)

by jljb2 on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 12:35:51 AM GMT

Surely the point is that no system of education can secure equal opportunity - that comes from greater socio-economic inequality. We seem to leave all the social problems in society to teachers to deal with nowadays...


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Privileged children excel at low performing comps | 10 comments (10 topical)