The effect of cultural deprivation on education

Last Updated on November 1, 2026 by Karl Thompson

ultural deprivation theory argues that some groups, especially the working class, underachieve in education because they lack the norms, values, attitudes, language and knowledge needed for success at school. On this view, working-class underachievement is caused mainly by what happens at home rather than by poverty itself or by what happens in school. This post covers:

1. What cultural deprivation means, and the ways it is said to hold working-class children back
2. Hyman’s value systems of different classes
3. Barry Sugarman’s four working-class values, including immediate gratification
4. Evaluation, including Keddie’s argument that cultural deprivation is a myth
5. How cultural deprivation comes up in the exam

Cultural deprivation is one of the home-based (external) explanations of social class differences in educational achievement within the sociology of education module, examined on AQA Paper 1 (7192/1). It is usually taught alongside material deprivation and cultural capital. You might also hear it called working-class subculture theory, which reflects its origins in the 1960s.

Cultural deprivation and education

Cultural deprivation theorists argue that working-class children are disadvantaged in education in several ways:

1. Parental attitudes. Working-class parents may show less interest in their children’s education, and place less value on it.
2. Less help at home. Parents with fewer qualifications may be less able to help with homework.
3. Language. Working-class children are said to be more likely to use a restricted speech code than the elaborated code used in school. This was Basil Bernstein’s argument, although, as my post on Bernstein’s restricted and elaborated codes explains, Bernstein himself rejected the idea that the restricted code was a deficiency.
4. Values. Working-class children are said to be socialised into values such as immediate gratification and fatalism, which don’t fit the demands of school. This was Barry Sugarman’s argument (below).

All of these explanations put the blame for working-class underachievement on working-class families themselves. In these accounts, working-class parents teach their children norms and values that don’t equip them for education. That is the theory’s main weakness, as the evaluation below explains.

Class subcultures and education

Cultural deprivation theory has its origins in the 1950s and 1960s, when sociologists saw a clear divide between working-class and middle-class ways of life. The two studies below are the best-known examples.

Hyman: the value systems of different classes

The American sociologist Herbert Hyman’s chapter “The value systems of different classes” (in Bendix and Lipset’s collection Class, Status and Power, 1953) argued that the value system of the lower classes created a self-imposed barrier to improving their position. Compared to the middle classes, the working classes:

1. placed a lower value on education
2. placed a lower value on achieving high occupational status
3. believed there was less opportunity for social advancement

Hyman concluded that the working classes were less motivated to achieve in school than the middle classes.

Barry Sugarman: working-class values and education

The British sociologist Barry Sugarman argued in the 1960s that working-class and middle-class subcultures had different value systems, and that the middle-class system fitted the education system better. His best-known journal article on the subject was “Social class and values as related to achievement and conduct in school”, published in The Sociological Review in 1966.

Sugarman linked these values to the kind of work people did. Middle-class jobs often offered a career with steady promotion, which rewarded planning and long-term effort. Many working-class jobs offered less prospect of advancement, so there was less point in planning ahead. He identified four main differences. The one he is best known for is the distinction between immediate and deferred gratification.

Sugarman’s four working-class values

Compared to the middle classes, the working classes were said to be more likely to have:

1. Immediate gratification: seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices for future rewards. This encouraged working-class children to leave school early to earn money, rather than staying on to gain the qualifications that would get them a better-paid job a few years later.
2. Fatalism: accepting one’s situation and believing it can’t be changed. Working-class children were less likely to believe education could improve their lives.
3. Present-time orientation: a focus on the present rather than planning for the future.
4. Collectivism: loyalty to the group rather than the individual ambition that the education system demands. The lads Paul Willis studied in Learning to Labour are a good example.

The middle classes, by contrast, were said to benefit from deferred gratification, a belief that they could improve their position, a future-time orientation and individualism, all of which fitted the values of the education system.

A point worth making in an essay: Sugarman traced these values back to the realities of working-class jobs. That makes his account more structural than it first looks. The values were a sensible response to limited opportunities, not simply a cultural failing.

Is there recent evidence for cultural deprivation?

Some recent research does find class differences in attitudes towards education. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation study (Goodman and Gregg, 2010) found that 81% of the richest mothers hoped their nine-year-old would go to university, compared with 37% of the poorest mothers, and that differences in aspirations and the home learning environment explained part of the attainment gap.

HOWEVER, the same study found these attitudes were closely tied to income, so it supports a link between cultural and material factors rather than cultural deprivation on its own. There is more on this research, and on why working-class students decide against university, in my post on material deprivation.

Evaluating cultural deprivation theory

It is usual in A-level sociology to evaluate one explanation using others. The most useful comparisons here are with cultural capital theory and material deprivation theory.

Positive evaluations

Cultural factors do seem to matter. If we look at differences in achievement by ethnicity and gender as well as class, it does seem that culture and socialisation play some role. For example, pupils from some ethnic minority groups who are on free school meals do much better than poor White British pupils, which is hard to explain by poverty alone. See ethnicity and education: cultural factors.

There is some evidence of class differences in aspirations, as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation study above shows.

It led to policy. The theory influenced compensatory education programmes such as Operation Head Start in the USA in the 1960s, which tried to make up for what children were thought to be missing at home.

Criticisms

Keddie: cultural deprivation is a myth. Nell Keddie edited a collection called Tinker, Tailor… The Myth of Cultural Deprivation (Penguin Education, 1973), which brought together research rejecting the idea that working-class children fail because their culture or language is deficient. It included William Labov’s essay “The logic of non-standard English”, which argued that the speech of Black American children was just as logical as middle-class speech. The argument of the collection is that working-class culture is different, not deficient, and that the problem lies in schools which value one culture over another.

It blames the victim. Marxists would argue that cultural deprivation theorists blame working-class parents for the underachievement of their children, whereas these parents are really the victims of an unequal society in which schools are run largely by and for the middle classes. This is essentially the argument of cultural capital theory.

Working-class parents do value education. Diane Reay’s study of mothers found that working-class mothers put just as much effort into supporting their children’s education as middle-class mothers. What they lacked was the cultural capital and resources to make that effort count. See the cultural capital post for her study.

It ignores material factors. It seems that it isn’t just cultural deprivation but also material deprivation that explains underachievement. Leaving school early to earn money may be a response to a lack of money at home, not a lack of the “right” values.

It ignores what happens in school. Interactionists would argue that teachers’ labelling of working-class pupils, and their placing in lower sets, matter more than home background. See class differences in education: the role of in-school factors.

It is dated and exaggerates class differences. Both Hyman and Sugarman may have exaggerated the differences between working-class and middle-class culture, and the class structure today is much more complex than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

It can stereotype. Cultural explanations of underachievement, whether of class or ethnic groups, risk treating whole groups as if they all share the same values, when there is enormous variation within every group.

Cultural deprivation in the exam

Cultural deprivation comes up on Paper 1 in three main ways:

• Short outline questions, for example AQA June 2020, Q01: “Outline two factors external to schools that may affect social class differences in educational achievement.” [4 marks] Parental attitudes and immediate gratification would both be creditable answers.
• The 30-mark essay on class differences, AQA June 2018, Q04: “Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of social class differences in educational achievement.” Cultural deprivation is one explanation to set against material deprivation, cultural capital and in-school factors. See my social class and educational achievement essay.
• The 30-mark essay on cultural factors, AQA June 2023, Q04, which asked students to evaluate the importance of cultural factors in explaining patterns of educational achievement. See my answer to evaluate the importance of cultural factors in explaining patterns of educational achievement.

The most common mistake examiners see on this topic is confusing cultural deprivation with cultural capital. Cultural deprivation blames working-class culture for being deficient; cultural capital theory says working-class culture is different and blames schools for rewarding middle-class culture. Get that distinction into the first paragraph of any answer on cultural factors.

Sociology of Education Revision Bundle

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification. It contains the following:

1. 34 pages of revision notes
2. mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering various topics within the sociology of education
3. short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
4. how to write sociology essays, including 7 specific templates and model answers on the sociology of education

Signposting and Related Posts

This post has been written primarily for students studying the education topic, as part of the AQA’s A-Level Sociology course, especially the topic of social class differences in educational achievement (home-based factors).

Cultural deprivation is one of three main home-based explanations of class differences in achievement. The other two are material deprivation and cultural capital, which was developed partly as a criticism of cultural deprivation theory. Bernstein’s work on language is covered in its own post, Bernstein’s restricted and elaborated speech codes.

You can find the full set of notes on the sociology of education page.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Sources

Goodman, A. and Gregg, P. (eds) (2010) Poorer children’s educational attainment: how important are attitudes and behaviour? Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Hyman, H. (1953) The value systems of different classes. In Bendix, R. and Lipset, S. M. (eds) Class, Status and Power. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.

Keddie, N. (ed.) (1973) Tinker, Tailor… The Myth of Cultural Deprivation. Harmondsworth: Penguin Education.

Sugarman, B. (1966) Social class and values as related to achievement and conduct in school. The Sociological Review 14(3): 287–301.