Towards Educational Inequalities: The School-biographies of Youngsters from High(Prestige)School and Special Vocational School in Poland

Author(s):

Alicja Sadownik

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 05, Marginalised Youth: Social Capital Indicators, School Biographies and Future Plans

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-11

08:30-10:00

Room:

B3 314

Chair:

Dolf van Veen

Contribution

1. Topic: Educational inequalities on the secondary level of schooling in Poland 2. Research question: How do the structural forces appear in educational carriers and personal ways of thinking of youths from "good" and "bad" schools? a) How do the students from "good" and "bad" schools define their educational carrier? b) How do they understand "their place" in the world, in the social structure? c) How do they "live" and what they feel about every-day life at school? c) What are they future educational aspirations? 3. Objective: The description of Polish educational system from the power-less perspective of students who are excluded form the main-stream education, diagnosed as slightly mentally disabled and put into the special school. 4. Theoretical Framework: Critical Theory of Education (P. McLaren, S. Ball, M. Apple, A. Giroux, P. Freire, P. Bourdieu, B. Bernstein); Gender Studies; Radical Sociology

Method

1. Methodology: qualitative; critical (thick) description 2. Qualitative research methods: ethnography, observation, interviews, analyzing school documents.. (I spent one year in the special vocational school and two months in prestige high school) 2. Instruments: diary, digital-voice-recorder

Expected Outcomes

1. The democratic dream of equal educational opportunities does not work in Polish reality. 2. The youths, representing low level of economical/cultural capital and antisocial behavior are being moved from one school to another. Finally (at the age of 12 - 13) they become diagnosed as slightly mentally disabled and put into the special school. 3. 67% of the students of the special school live in one, recognized as poor and dangerous, neighborhood: GDANSK ORUNIA. 4. Every day live in special vocational school is, on one hand, empowering (In every day interactions, in everyday conversational rituals they increase their self-esteem). On the other it excludes them from the "real" world (chances for good work and salary) There is a "silent agreement" between students and teachers about "no teaching and learning". The students are not given a good vocational training, they do not feel educated enough to get a job, and they fail on the vocational exams, but they starts to feel good in their position of "slightly mentally disabled", marginalized. They start to feel proud of negative freedom (having "nothing to lose" and living "here and now") . 4. The everyday life in high-prestige school is full of competition. The economical status and gender seems to be the most significant factors of distinction-games taking place in the reality of the classroom. 5. The High(Prestige)School students from the lower middle-class define their being in "THIS" school as an effect of their hard-work. They feel strong and able to graduate the most famous universities if they keep up working. They do not "feel good" at school. They don't interact with the students form upper middle-class. 6. The students from upper-middle class define their being in "THIS" school as NATURAL consequence of the family position and the "place" of living (eg. "In my neighborhood all the youths are attending THIS school"). The male-students feel under pressure of being the "classroom stars". 6. The female-students form High(Prestige)School are "silent and invisible" during the lessons. The are not self-confident. They know they have to work hard to get good marks because the teachers don't remember them from being active on the lessons. The don't feel strong enough to speak in the public. They never feel prepare enough. 7. The Special Vocational School female-students divide into two groups. The first one is "silent". The second is loudly and violently fighting for being respectable, but this kind of femininity is not accepted by teachers. These girls are much more often punished by the teachers or headmaster.

References

M. W. Apple, Education and Power, ARK PEAPERBACKS, Boston London Henly 1985 S. Ball, Education Policy and Social Class: The selected works of Stephen Ball, Rputledge, New York 2006 B. Bernstien, Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Cirtique, ROWMAN Publishers, New York Oxford 2000 W. Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge New York 2006 W. Labov, Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular, University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 1998 P. McLaren, Life in schools. An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education, Longman, London – New York 1989 G. Rieman, F. Schutze, Trajektoria“ jako podstawowa koncepcja teoretyczna w analizach cierpienia i bezładnych procesów społecznych [w:] Kultura i Społeczeństwo nr 2/1992 J.A. Scimecca, Education and Society, Holt Rienehart and Winston, New York 1980 S.P. Spitzer, N. K. Denzin (red.), The Mental Patient: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, New York San Francisco Toronto London Syndey 1968 P. Thomson, Schooling the rustbelt kids. Making Difference in Changing Times, Trentham Books, London 2002 P.E. Willis, Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs, Saxon House, Famborough 1977 P.E. Willis, Profane Culture, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1987

Author Information

Alicja Sadownik

Univeristy of Gdansk

Institute of Education

Gdansk

170

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