ABSTRACT
A great deal of research, theory, and plain speculation has been centred in recent years on the relationship between social class and education (Jackson and Marsden 1962; Bernstein 1960, 1965; Douglas 1964; Lawton 1967; Floud, Halsey, and Martin 1957; Klein 1965). The research reported below is intended to throw some light on important questions arising out of the work of these investigators and writings based on this work. Does the working class child evaluate his school experience less positively than the middle class child? Furthermore, given free choices among different evaluative indices in respect of a given lesson, does he make different choices as compared with the middle class child? Finally, does the relationship between working class and middle class pupil evaluation of school experience differ as between types of school (comprehensive, grammar and secondary modern)? Because the results of this study question certain recently established ‘orthodoxies’ in education thinking, it is necessary to provide a little background. What follows is a somewhat oversimplified view which sketches in a few broad lines to frame what is really a highly confused and complex field of study.
