Marxist Feminist Perspectives on Family Life

women do housework and childcare for free and this benefits capitalism.

Last Updated on June 28, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Marxist Feminists argue that the exploitative relations of capitalism are what causes exploitative patriarchal relations within the family.

Individual men may benefit from the unpaid domestic labour and childcare which mainly women do, but it is the capitalist system within is the main cause of women being in the subordinate housewife and mother roles.

It is ultimately capitalism which needs to be brought down in order for patriarchal relations within the family to cease.

marxist feminism
Marxist Feminism

Women’s free domestic labour benefits capitalism

A main focus for marxist feminists in the 1970s was ‘housework’ which was seen as the intersection of class and gender based modes of exploitation. 

Housework was not regarded as real work, and thus unpaid, because of the structure of the capitalist system. It was primarily women who did this work for free, never pausing to think that they might even be paid for it. While male breadwinners benefited directly from the free labour of their female partners, the main beneficiary was the capitalist economy: women provided for the domestic needs of men so they could keep serving the needs of the system through doing paid work.

To Quote Margaret Benston:

‘The amount of unpaid labour performed by women is very large and very profitable to those who own the means of production. To pay women for their work, even at minimum wage scales, would involve a massive redistribution of wealth. At present, the support of the family is a hidden tax on the wage earner – his wage buys the labour power of two people’ (Margaret Benston, 1972).

In other words, all of the chores associated with the traditional, expressive role, such as domestic labour, child care and emotion work are necessary to ‘keep the family going’ and so women’s unpaid work ultimately ends up benefiting the capitalist class, because they only have to pay the male breadwinner a wage. The woman attends to the husband’s needs and ‘keeps him going’ as a worker for free.

A related point here is made by Fran Ansley who sees the emotional support provided by men as a safety valve for the frustrations produced in the husband by working in a capitalist system:

‘When wives play their traditional role as takers of shit, they often absorb their husband’s legitimate anger and frustration at their own powerlessness and oppression.’

(NB This analysis is essentially a more critical view of Parson’s ‘warm bath theory’ – the theory of the stabilisation of adult personalities – in Marxist-Feminist terms this is not ‘different but equal’ roles, it is a case of different an unequal – and this inequality benefits capitalism)

Also, because the husband has to pay for his wife and children he cannot easily withdraw his labour power even if he is exploited. This reduces his bargaining power in relation to his employer and makes it more likely that he will put up with a low wage rather than risk being sacked by striking for a higher wage.

As an economic unit the nuclear family is a valuable stabilising force in capitalist society. Since the husband-father’s earnings pay for the production which is done in the home, his ability to withhold labour is much reduced’ (Margaret Benston, 1972).

The reproduction of labour power

Capitalism also benefits from women being the primary child carers. As with domestic work childcare is done mainly by women for free, and from a marxist-feminist perspective this is women bringing up the next generation of workers for the capitalist system.

The traditional nuclear family not only physically reproduces cheap labour for the the ruling class, it also teaches the ideas that the Capitalist class require for their future workers to be passive.

Diane Feeley (1972) argues that the family is an authoritarian unit dominated by the husband in particular and adults in general. The family has an ‘authoritarian ideology which teaches passivity, not rebellion and children learn to submit to parental authority thereby learning to accept their place in the hierarchy of power and control in capitalist society.

Ideological conditioning

Ideologies about domestic work and childcare being naturally women’s work are mainly responsible for keeping this system in place.

Back in the 1970s at least women generally didn’t question their roles as housewives and mothers.

Evaluations of the Marxist Feminist Perspective on The Family

Marxist-Feminism has too narrow a focus on the role of economics in ‘causing’ patriarchal relations at home. This is a problem when women are in subordinate domestic roles in many pre-capitalist societies, suggesting patriarchy is a more general problem.

Marxist Feminist analysis doesn’t seem to hold up to social changes which have taken place since the 1970s:

  • There are many more job opportunities for women in 2023 and no gender pay gap for younger workers, suggesting the end of the breadwinner role for men.
  • This gives women a lot more freedom to be the main or equal income earners and the majority of households are now dual-earner households meaning Marxist-feminist analysis no longer applies.
  • Many more women today live alone and don’t have children, this analysis doesn’t apply to them.
  • social policies such as the shared parental leave act (2015) and more free child care for children as young as nine months (2024) make it easier for mothers to avoid the full-time domestic and housewife role.

The only real support for Marxist feminism today lies in the fact that when women become mothers they are more likely to take time off work than fathers and they do more housework (still today), but most women are in paid work most of their working lives, so even this is pretty weak evidence.

There might still be a case that the lives of working class women and single mothers are relatively worse off because of capitalism: maybe this theory selectively applies to families with lower incomes; maybe single parents (85% of whom are women) have higher poverty rates because capitalism doesn’t value their free childcare sufficiently.

However, you certainly can’t argue that the root cause of women’s exploitation at home is caused by capitalism because capitalism (as neoliberalism) has intensified in Britain since the 1970s but women’s lives in general have improved.

Research supporting Marxist Feminism

Being a father seems to push men into the breadwinner role and women into the caring role.  

Becoming a young mother results in more women leaving work, but has the opposite effect on young men. 

For 25 to 34 year olds the respective employment rates are:

  • 86% for non-fathers compared to 92% for fathers 
  • 89% for non-mothers to 69% for mothers. 

So childless young women are MORE likely to be in employment than childless young men, but this changes drastically when those young women have children. Young women, it seems, are far more likely than men to leave employment and become the primary child carers.  

Source: How does motherhood affect paid work?

Women then gradually return to work as children get older…

31% of women with a 1 year old are in employment compared to 49% with an 18 year old. The percentages of men in work with children aged 1 to 18 are level. 

This suggests many mothers still want (or have to work) but nonetheless it is still women who take the career-penalties associated with taking time off work to be the primary carers. 

A (2019) longitudinal study Employment Pathways and Occupational Change after Childbirth  examined the pathways of men and women returning to work and found that of women working full time prior to childbirth only 44% returned to work full time after 3 years. 

There was some variation: those with degrees were twice as likely to return to full time work (so 88% after 3 years) and those working for the public sector or large organisations with over 50 workers were also more likely to return to work full time.

Related Posts

Feminist perspectives on the family (which covers all three types of Feminism)

The Liberal Feminist Perspective on the Family

The Radical Feminist perspective on the family

Sources used

The material above is adapted from Haralambos and Holborn: Sociology Themes and Perspectives.

Ingles, D (2015) An Invitation to Social Theory

The Liberal Feminist Perspective on the Family

We need more equal working relationships to have more equal domestic relationships!

Last Updated on June 28, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Liberal Feminists argue there is nothing inherently wrong with the traditional nuclear family or the public-private divide between work and politics on the one hand private family life life on the other.

While liberal feminists are keen to see greater equality in the private, domestic sphere they believe that feminists should mainly focus on campaigning for social polices which promote equality in the workplace and other areas of the public sphere because greater equality within the family is something that can be achieved through empowering women in politics and work.

The more political and economic freedom women have, they more power they have in domestic life to demand that men pull their weight or to simply leave unequal relationships if they so choose and go it alone, or find a better partner.

This fits in the with liberalist idea that family life is private: political campaigns focus on public life and then then largely leave it up to women to make what choices are best for them in their private, family lives. Liberal feminist campaigns focus on social polices and legal frameworks which give women the freedom to make those choices.

Jennifer Somerville: Feminism and the Family

Jennifer Somerville (2000) (1) suggests proposals to improve family life for women that involve modest policy reforms rather than revolutionary change. She can thus be characterised as a liberal feminist, although she herself does not use this term.

To Somerville, many feminists have failed to acknowledge progress for women such as the greater freedom to go into paid work, and the greater degree of choice over whether to marry or cohabit, when and whether to have children, and whether to take part in a heterosexual or same-sex relationship or to simply live on their own.

the declining gender pay gap in the UK 1997 to 2022.

The increased choice for women and the rise of the dual-earner household (in which both partners in work) has helped create greater equality within relationships. Somerville argues that ‘some modern men are voluntarily committed to sharing in those routine necessities of family survival, or they can be persuaded, cajoled, guilt-tripped or bullied’. Despite this, however, ‘women are angry, resentful and above all disappointed in men.’ Many men do not take on their full share of responsibilities and often these men can be ‘shown the door’.

Somerville raises the possibility that women might do without male partners, especially as so many prove inadequate, and instead get their sense of fulfilment from their children. Unlike Germain Greer, however, Somerville does not believe that living in a household without an adult male is the answer – the high figures for remarriage suggest that heterosexual attraction and the need for intimacy and companionship mean that heterosexual families will not disappear.

However, it remains the case that the inability of men to ‘pull their weight’ in relationships means that high rates of relationship breakdowns will continue to be the norm which will lead to more complex familial relationships as women end one relationship and attempt to rebuild the next with a new (typically male) partner.

Somerville argues that many young women feel some sense of grievance about inequalities in their domestic lives but do not feel entirely sympathetic towards the feminist movement more generally, and so there is little support for some of the more radical political agendas of radical and marxist feminists.

Liberal Feminist Polices for Improving family life

Feminists should focus on policies which will encourage greater equality in work which should help women demand and cajole men into doing their fair share of housework and childcare.

One set of policies which Somerville thinks particularly important are those aimed at helping working parents. The working hours and culture associated with many jobs are incompatible with family life. Many jobs are based on the idea of a male breadwinner who relies on a non-working wife to take care of the children.

Three types of social policy which can help working parents include:

  • encouraging employers to have more flexible working hours, allowing mothers and fathers more freedom to choose the days they work and the times they start and finish work.
  • Policies which encourage equal sharing of maternity and paternity leave, such as the recent shared parental leave act (2015)
  • Policies which provide more free childcare for younger children, such a the government recently brining in care for children as young as 9 months (from 2024).

The final two policies are summarised in this post on social policy and the family.

Liberal Feminists also support the monitoring of the promotion and pay of women in higher level professional careers because this is where the gender pay gap is largest.

Evaluation of the Liberal Feminist Perspective on the Family

Support for Liberal Feminism

There is more support for gradual changes such as making small adjustments to social policy compared to more radical solutions suggested by radical feminists, thus liberal feminist strategies are more practical and have more chance of succeeding.

There does seem to be a correlation between women’s empowerment in public and working life and greater gender equality at home. More specifically, some recent research (link forthcoming) has found that more flexible working arrangements lead to men doing a more fair share of the housework.

Support for traditional gender roles is declining: a relatively recent edition of the British Social Attitudes Survey measured support for traditional gender roles and found that in 2017 only 9% of people surveyed believed women should be the primary child carers and housewives, down from 42% (!) in 1984. 

Dual earner households are the norm in 2022

In 2022…. 

  • 50% of couples consisted of both men and women working full time 
  • The man worked full time and the woman worked full time in 44% of couples
  • The woman worked full time and the man worked part time in only 3% couples. 

However In 2012 the percentage of female full-time, male part-time couples was 2.6%, so the main change has been a shift from male-full time to female part-time couples towards both partners working full-time. What we are NOT seeing is a shift towards females in the main breadwinner role. 

Criticisms of Liberal Feminism

The shift to working from home during the Pandemic, and more generally has resulted in women doing a greater share of the domestic work, while flexible working hours at work (where men and women still go out to paid work but can pick their start and end times) results in domestic work at home being shared more equally. 

This kind of supports Liberal Feminism because it suggests when men and women retreat more into the domestic sphere, more inequality is the result, but if they spend more time in the public sphere (at work) with more flexibility, then more equality at home is the result. 

Radical Feminists argue that liberal feminism fails to recognize the extent that women are still unequal to men in domestic life. Despite progress towards gender equality in the workplace it is mainly mothers that lose out compared to fathers when children come along which criticises the Liberal Feminist view that focussing on the public sphere is sufficient to bring about equality in domestic life.

Women still do more housework than men!

Radical Feminists also criticise liberal feminists for focusing mainly on heterosexual relationships and limiting their analysis to s*x differences between biological males and females.

A Liberal Feminist Perspective on the Family – A Summary

  • Causes of inequality in relationships – A combination of two things – (1) Mainstream working culture which requires long and inflexible working hours which are still based on the idea of the main breadwinner, (2) Men refusing to pull their weight in relationships.
  • Solutions to Inequality – Increase female empowerment in the public sphere through reformist social policies designed to make working hours more flexible, shared parental leave and more free child care.
  • Criticisms – 100 years of gradual reform and women still do more housework! It also only looks at heterosexual relationships.
Related Posts

Feminist perspectives on the family (which covers all three types of Feminism)

The Marxist Feminist perspective on the family

The Radical Feminist perspective on the family

Sources

(1) Sommerville, J (2000) Feminism and the Family: Politics and Society in the UK and USA.

Haralambos and Holborn – Sociology Themes and Perspectives 8th Edition

ONS – Gender Pay Gap in the UK 2022.

An article from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2014) – Women put at particular disadvantage by the requirement to work full time

Workingmums.co.uk – A site which works with policy makers and employers to encourage more flexible working hours

Liberal Feminism is one of three main perspectives on the family, within the A-level sociology families and households topic. For a briefer summary of this perspective on the family, along with Marxist and Radical and Feminism, please click here.

Is Marxism Still Relevant Today?

Last Updated on August 27, 2021 by

A summary of eight possible ways in which some aspects of Marxist Theory and concepts might still be relevant today…

This is a summary of this more in depth post which goes into much more detail on why we should all be Marxists!

Eight ways in which Marxism is still relevant today

  1. A class based analysis of global society is still relevant if you look at things globally.
  2. Exploitation still lies at the heart of the Capitalist system if you look at the practices of many Transnational Corporations.
  3. If you look at the recent bank bail outs it appears that those with economic power still have disproportionate influence over the superstructure.
  4. If you look at how individualised we have become it appears that many people are still under ideological control – but we don’t realise it.
  5. Work is still Alienating for many people.
  6. Economic crises are still inherent to the capitalist system and that in recent years these crises have become more severe and more frequent.
  7. Capitalist exploitation is so bad in some parts of the world that there is vehement resistance to it.
  8. In Britain there are tens of thousands of people who call themselves Communists and who sympathise with Marxism and the wider anti-capitalist movement. Left Wing criticisms and the anti-capitalist movement is still very much alive today.

Signposting and Related Posts

This material is relevant to any sociology students revising for the social theories part of their A Level Theory and Methods with Crime and Deviance Exam.

Other related posts include:

The Traditional Marxist Perspective on Society 

Eight Criticisms of Traditional Marxism 

Eight Ways in Which Marxism is Still Relevant Today – the more in-depth version of this post.

The Marxist Theory of Society Revision Notes – a summary of all of the above.

Marx: Key Ideas for First Year Sociology

Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, ideological control, false consciousness, revolution and communism.

Last Updated on September 15, 2023 by Karl Thompson

The Marxist Perspective is a central theory within A level Sociology. This post outlines some of the key concepts of Karl Marx such as his ideas about the social class structure, his criticisms of capitalism and communism as an alternative.

The material below is written for 16-19 year old students in their very first two weeks of studying A-level sociology. I would deliver this as part of a two to three week-long module in ‘introducing sociology‘.

This post deliberately simplifies Marx’s ideas to make them understandable for students who haven’t been exposed to them before. For more nuanced, accurate and in-depth posts on Marxist theory see the links at the end of this post.

Karl Marx: Six Key Ideas

  1. Capitalist society is divided into two classes: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.
  2. The Bourgeoisie exploit the Proletariat by extracting profit from them.
  3. Those with economic power control other social institutions.
  4. The bourgeoise excerpt Ideological control over the proletariat: they control their minds rather than controlling them through physical force.
  5. The proletariat exist in a state of False Consciousness: they think inequality and exploitation, for example.
  6. Revolution and Communism are necessary to improve the conditions of the working classes.

Karl Marx’s Ideas: Historical Context

Karl Marx (1818- 1883) was alive in the middle of the 19th century, and it is important to realise that his theories stem from an analysis of European societies 150 years ago.

picture of Karl Marx
Karl Marx.

Marx travelled through Europe during the mid and later half of the 19th century where he saw much poverty and inequality.  The more he travelled the more he explained what he saw through unequal access to resources and ownership of property. He argued that the working class (proletariat) in Britain (and elsewhere) was being exploited by the ruling class (bourgeoisie).

The ruling class paid the working class less wages than they deserved, made them work long hours in poor conditions, and kept the profit from the sale of the goods produced. Thus, the ruling class got richer and the working class became increasingly poor, and had no way of improving their prospects.

Marx argued they only way the working classes could improve their conditions was to come together and overthrow the ruling class in a revolution. Equality for all in the shape of Communism would replace an unequal capitalist system. 

The rest of this post expands on six key ideas of Karl Marx.

Capitalist society is divided into two classes

The two main classes in capitalist societies are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Bourgeoisie are the owners of capital, such as land businesses, and the proletariat are the workers.

The Bourgeoisie or the Capitalist class own and control the ‘means of production’. The mans of production consist of land, factories and machines that could be used to produce goods that could then be sold for a profit. These are a tiny majority, but they own the majority of wealth.

The Proletariat do not own the means of production and can only gain a living by selling their labour power to the bourgeoisie for a price. The proletariat are the largest class, the masses, who own almost no wealth.

Marx recognised that the class structure was a little more complex, with a middle class of small tradesmen, for example. However these two main classes are the important ones.

Marxism class structure
A slightly more complex version of Mars’s Class Structure

The bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat

Marx argued that the bourgeoisie maintain and increase their wealth through exploiting the working class.

The relationship between these two classes is exploitative because the amount of money the Capitalist pays his workers (their wages) is always below the current selling, or market price of whatever they have produced. The difference between the two is called surplus value.

Marx thus says that the capitalist extracts surplus value from the worker. Because of this extraction of surplus value, the capitalist class is only able to maintain and increase their wealth at the expense of the proletariat.  To Marx, Profit is basically the accumulated exploitation of workers in capitalist society.

Marx thus argues that at root, capitalism is an unjust system because those that actually do the work are not fairly rewarded for the work that they do and the interests of the Capitalist class are in conflict with the interests of the working class.

Those with economic power control other institutions in society

Marx argued that those who control the Economic Base also control the Superstructure – that is, those who have wealth or economic power also have political power and control over the rest of society.

The Economic Base (The Mode of Production): Consists of the forces of production (tools, machinery, raw materials which people use to produce goods and services)and the relations of production (social relations between people involved in the production of goods and services). Together these make up the mode of production

The Superstructure: all other institutions: The legal system, the mass media, family, education etc. These are then used to bring about Ideological Control and ultimately False Consciousness.

Ideological Control

Marx argued that the ruling classes used their control of social institutions to gain ideological dominance, or control over the way people think in society.  Marx argued that the ideas of the ruling classes were presented as common sense and natural and thus unequal, exploitative relationships were accepted by the proletariat as the norm.

One example of how ideological control was achieved in Marx’s time was through religion. Christianty at the time argued that poverty was a virtue because Jesus was poor. The church taught that poor people should should accept their poverty in this life, but be good people and seek their rewards in eternal heaven. Marx argued that religion acted like Opium, making people feel good about being poor, and this helped to maintain the unequal social order.

Ideological control leads to false class consciousness

The end result of ideological control is false consciousness – where the masses, or proletariat are deluded into thinking that everything is fine and that the appalling in which they live and work are inevitable. This delusion is known as False Consciousness. In Marxist terms, the masses suffer from false class consciousness and fail to realise their common interest against their exploiters.

marxism: ideological control

Commodity Fetishism

A fetish is an object of desire, worship or obsessive concern. Capitalism is very good at producing ‘things’. In capitalist society people start to obsess about material objects and money, which is necessary to purchase these objects. Material objects and money are worshipped in capitalist societies. Some people even need material objects to construct identities – this is partly responsible for keeping most of us in ‘false consciousness’

Revolution and Communism 

As far as Marx was concerned, he had realised the truth – Capitalism was unjust but people just hadn’t realised it! He believed that political action was necessary to ‘wake up’ the proletariat and bring them to revolutionary class consciousness.

Eventually, following a revolution, private property would be abolished and with it the profit motive and the desire to exploit. In the communist society, people would be more equal, have greater freedom and be happier.

communism picture. People with fists in the air, cartoon.
Communism (Image Source).

Criticisms of Traditional Marxism 

  • Marx’s concept of social class has been criticised as being too simplistic. Today, there are clearly not just two social classes, but several; moreover, most people don’t identify with other members of their social class, so it is questionable how relevant the concept of social class is today.
  • Clearly Marx’s predictions about capitalism ending and the ‘inevitable success of communism’ have been proved wrong with the collapse of communism.
  • Capitalism has changed a lot since Marx’s day, and it appears to work for more people. Capitalism today is less exploitative, so maybe this explains why it still continues to this day?

Evidence that Marxism is still Relevant Today

Contemporary Marxist sociologists argue that Marxism is still relevant in many ways. For example:

In the Family

Parents want the perfect family and they compete with one another for the best house, car, holiday and the best dressed/most successful children etc. This is encouraged through advertising and TV programmes. Significant sums of money are spent in pursuit of the “perfect” family.

This benefits the bourgeoisie in two ways:

  • Parents work harder at work improving profits for their companies owners – the bourgeoisie.
  • Parents spend more of their salary on providing this lifestyle – this benefits the bourgeoisie as they can make more profits by selling goods and services to the parents. 

Furthermore, it makes parents feel “happy” about family life and society generally, even though they might work 12 hour days for an average salary, rarely seeing their family. Lastly, children grow up watching their parents behave in this manner and then replicate it as adults with their own families.

The Media

The mainstream media is controlled by few wealthy individuals who promote the ideas and beliefs that maintain the bourgeoisie’s wealthy position in society. This encourages people to accept beliefs which benefit capitalism and legitimise (justify) the exploitation of the proletariat (workers) as normal. The media justify exploitation and even make it into games shows.

Education

Education Encourages people to accept hierarchy and to be obedient. This is good for capitalism as it creates students who will later become good workers. Also, schools emphasise high achievement and high flying jobs – implicitly this means highly paid jobs, better profits for company owners and more exploitation for the workers.

Schools also encourage the idea people get what they deserve in education, when in reality educational achievement is primarily a result of the chance circumstances of your birth i.e. who your parents are.

Signposting and Related Posts

This post has been written as an introduction to Marxism for A-level sociology students in their very first two weeks of study. I would deliver this as part of a two to three week-long module ‘introducing sociology‘.

Related posts for the first year of A-level sociology include:

The Marxist Perspective on the Family

The Marxist Perspective on Education

More advanced posts on Marxism:

The Traditional Marxist Perspective on Society – for second year!

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

Marxism: Find out More!

  1. Read Marx: A Beginner’s Guide by Andrew Collier
  2. Read Francis Wheen’s biography of Karl Marx.
  3. http://www.marxism.org.uk – a pretty useful overview of what Marx’s basic ideas and Marxism more generally.
  4. Marx quotes.

Videos introducing Karl Marx’s Ideas 

There are a lot of videos on YouTube on basic Marxism, but to my mind the two below are the most useful as introductions. Having said that, they both still contain A LOT of complex information, so don’t worry too much if you find you don’t understand everything in either or both videos!

Crash Course – Karl Marx and Conflict Theory 


This is probably better for a first year university student, but it’s still a reasonably easy introduction.

The School of Life – Karl Mark Political Thought 


This is a little heavier going than the video above, but maybe more accessible as the narrator speaks slower, and it also comes to the firm conclusion that Marxism is still relevant today!

Exploring the Experience of Poverty in the UK

some documentaries providing qualitative evidence on the experience of poverty in the U.K.

Last Updated on December 13, 2022 by Karl Thompson

This post provides some qualitative sources of data which explore what it’s like to be poor in Britain today, follows on from a previous post on ‘defining and measuring material deprivation in the UK’ .

One of the things you need to look at for the AS Education module is the extent to which material deprivation is responsible for educational underachievement. While statistics give you an overview of the extent of poverty, and a little bit of information of the kind of things poor people can’t afford, they don’t give you much a feeling of what it’s like to actually live in poverty.

To get a feeling for day to day challenges of living in poverty you need more qualitative sources, and ‘thankfully’ we are blessed with a number of recent documentaries which look at the experience of living with material deprivation in the UK.

Watch the documentary sources below and then answer the questions/ contribute to the discussions below. The videos have all been selected because they focus on material deprivation and education in some way.

Poor Kids

This 2011 documentary from the BBC focuses mainly on the experience of younger children in the U.K.


Britain’s Hungry Children

(A Channel 4 Report, 2013)

Cites research drawn from 2500 food diaries kept by children in the UK – Some of whom live on less than half of the recommended calories. Also highlights the importance of lunch clubs to feed hungry children.


Finally watch this video – This shows you a case study of one girl from a poor background who actually made it into the best school in the area, against the odds. It’s a bit slow, but later on it gives an insight into the struggle her mum faces to raise enough cash to meet the ‘hidden costs’ of education (she has to resort to a ‘pay day loan’).

Questions/ tasks for discussion:

Q1: Draw an ‘ageline’ (like a timeline, I may have just invented the word) showing how material deprivation affects 3 year olds to 18 year olds in different ways.

Q2: From a broadly Marxist Perspective, the effects of material deprivation on children are structural, or objective if you like. Being brought up in poverty and having a poorer diet, and living in lower quality housing effectively cause poor children to do less well in education. This means that, all other (non material) things being equal (same school, same intelligence, same motivation etc) a poor kid will always do worse than a rich kid. Do you agree? Be prepared to explain your answer.

Signposting and Related Posts

This material is useful as part of an introductory module in sociology.

You might also like this related post: The effects of material deprivation on education

Social Class and Educational Achievement Essay Plan

Last Updated on January 11, 2019 by

Evaluate the extent to which home based, rather than school – based factors account for social class based differences in educational achievement (30)

sociology essay plan social class education 2

 

sociology education revisionFocusing on home background initially, we can look at how material and cultural factors might affect a child’s education.

The lower classes are more likely to suffer from material deprivation at home which can hold children back in education because of a lack access to resources such as computers, or living in a smaller house means they would be less likely to have a quiet, personal study space. In extreme situations, children may have a worse diet and a colder house, which could mean illness and time off school. According to Gibson and Asthana, the effects of material deprivation are cumulative, creating a cycle of deprivation. This would suggest that home background influences a child’s education.

Also, the amount of money one has and the type of area one lives in affects the type of school a child can get to. Richer parents have more choice of school because they are more likely to have two cars or be able to afford public transport to get their children to a wider range of schools. Also, house prices in the catchment areas of the best schools can be up to 20% higher than similar houses in other areas – richer parents are more able to afford to move to these better schools. At the other end of the social class spectrum, those going to school in the most deprived areas may suffer disruptions in school due to gang related violence. All of this suggests that location, which is clearly part of your ‘home background’ in the broader sense of the word, is a major factor in educational achievement.

Cultural deprivation also has a negative effect on children at home. Bernstein pointed out that working class children are more likely to be socialised into the restricted speech code and so are less able to understand teachers at school compared to their middle class peers who speak in the elaborated speech code. The classes are also taught the value of immediate rather than deferred gratification, and so are less likely to see the value of higher education. In these theories, home background influences children all the way through school.

Although the concept of cultural deprivation is decasdes old, more recent research suggests it is still of relevance. Fenstein’s (2003) research found that lower income is strongly correlated with a lack of ability to communicate, while research by Conor et al (2001) found that being socialised into poverty means working class students are less likely to want to go to university than middle class students because they are more ‘debt conscious’.

Cultural Capital Theory also suggests that home background matters to an extent – this theory argues that middle class parents have the skills to research the best schools and the ability to help children with homework – and to intervene in schools if a child falls behind (as Diana’s research into the role of mothers in primary school education suggested). However, cultural capital only advantages a child because it gets them into a good school –suggesting that it is the school that matters at least as much as home background. There wouldn’t be such a fuss over, and such competition between parents over schools if the school a child went to didn’t have a major impact on a child’s education!

In fact, one could argue that probably the most significant advantage a parent can give to their child is getting them into a private school. To take an extreme case, Sunningdale preparatory school in Berkshire costs £16000/ year – a boarding school which confers enormous advantage on these children and provides personalised access via private trips to elite secondary schools Eton and Harrow. In such examples, it is not really home background that is advantaging such children – it is simply access to wealth that allows some parents to get their children into these elite boarding schools and the schools that then ‘hothouse’ their children through a ‘high ethos of expectation’ smaller class sizes and superb resources.

Similarly, the case of Mossborn Academy and Tony Sewell’s Generating Genius programme show that schools can overcome disadvantage at home – if they provide strict discipline and high expectation.

Although all of the above are just case studies and thus of limited use in generating a universal theory of what the ‘major cause’ of differences in educational achievement by social class might be, many similar studies have suggested that schools in poorer areas have a lower ethos of expectation (from Willis’ classic 1977 research on the lads to Swain’s research in 2006). It is thus reasonable to hypothesis that the type of school and in school factors such as teacher labelling and peer groups might work to disadvantage the lower classes as Becker’s theory of the ideal pupil being middle class and Willis’ work on working class counter school cultures would suggest, although in this later case, Willis argues that the lads brought with them an anti-educational working class masculinity, so home factors still matter here.

Finally – Social Capital theory also suggests that home background is not the only factor influencing a child’s education – rather it is the contacts parents have with schools – and later on schools with universities and business – that are crucial to getting children a good education, and making that education translate into a good job.

So is it home background or school factors that matter? The research above suggests home background does have a role to play, however, you certainly cannot disregard in school factors in explaining class differences in educational achievement either – in my final analysis, I would have to say that the two work together – middle class advantage at home translating into better schooling, and vice versa for the working classes.

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For links to more essays, please see my main page on exam advice, short answer questions and essays.

The Effects of Material Deprivation on Education

The Effects of Cultural Deprivation on Education