Underachievement Of Working Class Pupils In Britain In The 1960s And 1970's
In Britain in the 1960s and 1970 sociologists were examining the levels of underachievement of working class pupils. It was clear from the evidence that they were underachieving compared to the middle classes in terms of gaining access to selective schools, achievement at 16 - O Levels/CSEs/GCSEs entry to university and further training. In other words, it was clear that working class children were most likely to end up doing working class jobs. Despite this evidence, it was not entirely clear how working class pupils failed. This was revealed by the pioneering work of Paul Willis (1977). Whereas previous explanations of working class failure in the education system tended to provide very mechanistic approaches which were based on the logic