ABSTRACT
Lower class children, says Cohen, fail at school because they are culturally and intellectually deprived, and because the middle class status system of the school is foreign to their lower class socialization. Many Australian schools are moving towards competition against the individual’s own past performance instead of against the performance of other children. Schools can function successfully by motivating children to achieve goals of absolute worth rather than by motivating children to do relatively better than other children. Primary school results bear no relation to future increments in status except in so far as they indicate the likelihood of good secondary school performance. This is just as true for ipsative results as it is for competitive results. Many policy makers have inferred from Albert Cohen’s theory that an effective way to reduce delinquency is to provide greater educational opportunities for lower class children.
