Social Class, Language and Education: International Library of Sociology I: Class, Race and Social Structure (International Library of Sociology)

192 Pages·2003·0.98 MB·English

by  Denis Lawton

T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l L i b r a r y o f S o c i o l o g y
SOCIAL CLASS, LANGUAGE
AND EDUCATION
F o u n d e d b y K A R L M A N N H E I M
T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l L i b r a r y o f S o c i o l o g y
RACE, CLASS AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE
In 21 Volumes
I The Changing Social Structure in
England and Wales Marsh
II Class in American Society Reissman
III Class Structure in the Social Consciousness Ossowski
IV Co-operative Communities at Work Infield
V Co-operative Living in Palestine Infield
VI Colour and Culture in South Africa Patterson
VII The Deprived and the Privileged Spinley
VIII The First Years of Yangyi Commune Crook
IX The Functions of Social Conflict Coser
X The Home and Social Status Chapman
XI The Marginal Situation Dickie-Clark
XII Negroes in Britain Little
XIII Neighbours Bracey
XIV The People of Ship Street Kerr
XV Social Class, Language and Education Lawton
XVI Social Mobility in Britain Glass
XVII The Sociology of Colonies - Part One Maunier
XVIII The Sociology of Colonies - Part Two Maunier
XIX Stevenage Orlans
XX Studies in Class Structure Cole
XXI Working Class Community Jackson
SOCIAL CLASS, LANGUAGE
AND EDUCATION
by
DENIS LAWTON
First published in 1968 by
Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 1968 Denis Lawton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copyright holders of
the works reprinted in The International Library of Sociology. This has not
been possible in every case, however, and we would welcome correspondence
from those individuals/companies we have been unable to trace.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Social Class, Language and Education
ISBN 0-415-17633-6 (Print Edition)
Class, Race and Social Structure: 21 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17826-6 (Print Edition)
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-00129-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17529-8 (Glassbook Format)
CONTENTS
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page vii
LIST OF TABLES ix
I Social Class and Educational Opportunity:
the demographic evidence 1
II Motivation, Sub-culture and Educability 7
III Empirical Evidence on the Relation between
Language and Social Background 20
IV Language and Thought 38
V A Critique of Bernstein’s Work on Language and
Social Class 77
VI An Experimental Study of the Speech and Writing of
some Middle- and Working-class Boys 103
VII Some Proposed Intervention Programmes in the U.S.A.
and Great Britain 144
VIII Conclusion 156
BIBLIOGRAPHY 162
INDEX 175
v

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I first became interested in the question of language and social class at
my first teaching post in a secondary school. I was teaching English, and
it soon became very noticeable that many of the pupils labelled as ‘diffi-
cult’, or even ‘ineducable’ (although they were in the top 12 per cent of
the population as regards intelligence) and who were grouped together in
the bottom stream of the third or fourth year had in common not a lack of
intelligence but certain social attitudes and linguistic difficulties. I found
that my work as a teacher was illuminated by the study of sociology, and
in particular by the research of Basil Bernstein. This book is an attempt to
analyse the educational implications of language and social class from a
theoretical point of view, and also to make some practical suggestions for
the attention of educationists. I feel very strongly that this is an area
where any attempts to ‘reform’ teaching methods and curriculum should
be based on sound theoretical principles.
I should like to express my thanks to a number of colleagues at the
London Institute of Education who have discussed certain aspects of
this book with me, and made helpful suggestions: I am particularly grate-
ful to Miss Nancy Martin and Professor Basil Bernstein for letting me take
up much more of their time than I could reasonably expect.
I must also thank the Headmasters of the two schools mentioned in
Chapter VI, and also the pupils at those schools who uncomplainingly
took part in the experiment.
Finally, I am very grateful to Miss Sophie Bowlby who for several
months generously acted as unpaid research assistant, and to my wife
who has typed and re-typed, read and re-read the many drafts of this
book with only an occasional murmur of complaint.
DENIS LAWTON
vii

LIST OF TABLES
1. Social Origins of Boys Entering Secondary Grammar Schools
Before and After 1944. England and Wales page 2
2. Percentage of Children at maintained Grammar Schools
achieving 5 or more ‘O’ levels. England and Wales 5
3. Analysis of Sentence Length of Hearing Children.
Heider and Heider (1940) 22
4. Open-ended Sentence Completion Test 116
5. Ego-centric: Socio-centric Sequences 118
6. Content Analysis: Percentage of Utterances falling into each
of four Categories 122
7. Comparison with Bernstein’s Results 125
8. Discussion: Linguistic Measures 132
ix