The name is absent

The importance of context

expectations as a key determinant of effectiveness and pupil progress (Sammons,
1999).

3.3.2 The effects of prior parental education on schools

From theory parental education is implicated in the schools context, namely through
the channels of cultural and social capital as well as income. For example, a large
body of qualitative evidence highlights the increasing importance of the quasi-market
in terms of the impact and consequences of school choice and diversity. For example,
middle class parents are more inclined and have greater capacity to engage with the
education system (Gewirtz et al., 1995). Middle class parents and their children might
be better equipped with the cultural capital needed to ‘succeed’ within the school
context (Bernstein, 1977; Bourdieu, 1973). Many authors argue that both curriculum
and pedagogy favour those with more education in terms of their language codes and
the discourse used and the age appropriateness of educational behaviours in the home
with classroom practices.

In addition, the feedback loop from prior attainment in relation to aptitude selection
and ability grouping is also influenced by parental education. Children from more
highly educated families are more likely to be doing better in their early years. In turn,
schools that select on attainment may, in turn, benefit those from better educated
backgrounds. Similarly, there are important interactions between neighbourhood and
school contexts. Higher income parents are better able to buy houses in the catchment
areas of ‘better’ schools.

3.3.3 Summary

In summary, there is strong and robust evidence that schools are important for child
outcomes although since the Coleman report, (1966) schools have been seen as less
important than families as influences on children’s attainments. Nevertheless they are
clearly important.

Education has important benefits for parents in terms of their capacity and desire to
manage the system, finding good schools and monitoring schooling in such a way as
to create an effect of education on school quality. In a similar way as for the contexts
of neighbourhood and pre-schools, this specific role of parental education operates
largely through income, aspirations and cultural capital. Therefore schools mediate
the effects of education in an important way, being part of the explanation for the
inter-generational transmission of education. However, this well-founded theoretical
hypothesis would benefit from robust, large sample empirical analyses.

3.4. Pre-schools

Pre-schools and childcare are also salient social contexts for young children and may
act as mediators of distal parental factors and education on children’s outcomes.
There are many different types of pre-school settings and there is interesting evidence
on its differential effects (Gregg & Washbrook, 2003; see also the EPPE project). The

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