Christie (2002) has argued that "It is in language that the business of schooling is still primarily accomplished, whether that be spoken or written …". Therefore it is reasonable to assume that a child's level of success or otherwise in the education system is largely dependent on his/her ability to tap into the formal linguistic mode of instruction in operation in schools. Failure to do so may lead to significant clashes between the child and the school on several levels. Reimer (1997) is concerned that "Our major threat today is a world-wide monopoly in the domination of [people's] minds". Such a threat is embodied primarily in the education system where "People understand the world by means of language… But language is used … to obscure and to distort reality as well as to render it lucid. … A minimum breadth of language skill is necessary in order to protect one's interest in the world" (Reimer, 1997). Reimer's position is supported by Bernstein (1973) who notes that the process of socialisation is 'a complex process of control'; an argument that Freire (1972) developed in relation to the rural masses of Latin America who were disempowered by their inability to participate in the linguistic processes and subsequent exercise of power.Educational disadvantage refers to a situation whereby individuals are largely omitted from the process of development and are seen to derive less benefit from the education system than their peers. It is estimated that approximately 16% of the school going population is educationally disadvantaged (Kellaghan, 1995). Against such a bleak background, this paper will investigate the fact that social and economic exclusion is a feature of our linguistic society. It will explore the divisive nature of language and its intrinsic power which has resulted in considerable and sustained inequalities in society, particularly within the formal education system. Early research by Davis (1951) in this area, which subsequently influenced Bernstein (1973, 1974, 1977), will be used to argue that lower socio-economic groups have a different language structure than the higher groups. The paper will elaborate on Bernstein's (1973) argument concerning the tensions and conflicts that face a child on entering formal education whose immediate responsiveness, which has been learned from his/her social structure, conflict with the mediate responses required by formal education. This paper will trace the logical, social and psychological implications of the use of a public language within the education system. It will be argued that these logical considerations effect what is learned and how it is learned, and so effect future learning. It will conclude that as the child from a middle socio-economic grouping is capable of responding to, manipulating and understanding a public language, Expressive Symbolism and a formal language as a result of his/her social environment, it places them at a distinct advantage within the education system. Baseline data (including surveys, interviews and observations) examining pupils' language use and their linguistic interactions with their peers, gathered from over 150 different groups representing the full spectrum of primary aged children and a cross section of disadvantaged and advantaged schools will be presented and analysed in an effort to investigate how schools operate linguistically. Attention will be focused on the linguistic differences that can exist between pupil and teacher in disadvantaged areas, and the extent to which a cultural discontinuity based upon two different systems of communication can exist between the school and the community of the child in the lower socio-economic grouping.