What is Cultural Capital in The Early Years?

It’s critical, but hard to pin down. Maureen Hunt, Head of Early Years at Achievement for All explains what it is, why it's so important and some strategies to endow children with it.

The New Education Inspection Framework (EIF, 2019) has been the subject of debate for a while now, because the process has been bedding in. Just when you thought you had it sorted it’s all change and strange new terminology appears – ‘Cultural Capital’ is one of those terms.

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      string(5656) "developed across and beyond any partof the curriculum. Now that this argument has largelypermeated our education system, perhaps now is thetime to refocus on what particular contribution the artsand culture can play in developing these skills. There is along history of research and evidence around the impactof culture on learning. The Find Your Talent programme,timed to coincide with the development of the newcurriculum at Key Stage 3, the birth of 14-19 diplomas, andeventually the changes to the primary curriculum, as well asthe new QCA focus on personalised learning and thinkingskills, gives us a new impetus to innovate and improve ourunderstanding of what culture can do.The pathfinder programme is crucial, but can onlyever be part of the story. To achieve the transformationour children deserve, we need not just a campaign but acoalition for culture and young people. We have always hada campaign, with cultural institutions and artists, schoolsand teachers making their own case for culture. But, untilnow, this has been atomised and at times divisive: ‘My artform is better than yours/gets less funding than yours’.The prize, a universal cultural offer for all children andyoung people, has now been dangled in front of us byGovernment, and is too great to allow these divisions tocontinue.To win the argument, we first need to communicateevidence of demand – that people want this. The largenumber of applications to the Find Your Talent programmedemonstrated one level of demand, but we need tounearth the demand from parents, children and youngpeople. Second, we need to communicate evidence of 67Teaching Thinking&Creativity  Vol 9:3www.teachingtimes.co.uk   Creativity, Culture & Education (CCE)outcomes – that this is why people want this. Finally,we need to communicate evidence of our proposition– this is how we should do this. Again, the pathfinders arehelping to find out how, but we need the views of anyonepassionate about culture and young people to help createthe evidence and shape the proposition. Young peoplewill also be involved, at pathfinder and national level, indesigning this proposition.  You can register your interestat enquiries@findyourtalent.orgCulture is the means through which, as human beings,we understand and create our identities. And if that isn’tcentral to the learning game, it is difficult to see what is.Joe Hallgarten is leading the Find your Talent programme.In April 2008, the Find Your Talent programmereceived 141 applications, from which 10 areas wereselected as pathfinders:BoltonCustoms House (North and South Tyneside)Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH) (serving specific areas in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton)LeedsLeicestershire (Young Ambassadors)Liverpool City Region (serving Knowsley, Liverpool and St Helens)North SomersetShepway (serving Shepway District and including Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh)Telford and WrekinTower HamletsMany of the pathfinders are focussing on exploringhow their programmes can impact on young people’scapacities for creative and critical thinking.Bolton will be working with the CreativePartnerships programme in Greater Manchesterto focus on the development of ‘diagonal thinking’,the distinctive and uncommon ability to thinkin two complementary ways, where the brainoscillates between linear and  lateral thinking. Thesecharacteristics, often thought to be contradictory,produce a potent mix which is particularly apposite toworking in advertising and other parts of the creativeindustries.Customs House will develop with teachers andcultural professionals in North and South Tynesideways to explore the Creativity Wheel developedby Pease West Primary School in Durham. This canbe used to assess the impact of cultural activity onchildren and young people’s learning and criticalthinking skills.●●●●●●●●●●Leicester & Leicestershire are initiating ‘SmallBodies, Big Voices’ targeted at 0-5 years, their parentsand carers. The project will explore through danceand movement child centred learning and explore thelinks to the Reggio Emilio approach which will involveeach child, parent and early years setting recording andreflecting on the work and development.Leicester & Leicestershire are also using the ArtsAward as a framework for engaging young people todevelop their critical thinking and leadership skills.Schools will work together with youth groups and artsorganisations to share knowledge and expertise andto engage each other in a more critical dialogue aboutopportunity and choice in Arts and Culture. See www.artsaward.org.ukLiverpool City Region will be working with CreativePartnerships Merseyside to develop a tool for children,young people and adults to assess their strengthsand potential areas for growth in relation to PersonalLearning and Thinking Skills.  These will be mapped ontothe PLTS (Personal Learning and Thinking Skills) thata range of creative and cultural professionals workingin a range of art forms and disciplines use each day oftheir working lives. One of the aspirations is that youngpeople who feel they would like to enter the creativeindustries but don’t yet have a specific job or art formin mind can reflect upon who they are and get pointerson the types of career that would allow them to excel.North Somerset will target young people in LocalAuthority care to develop their critical and leadershipskills. The ‘virtual school’ project is using critical skillsto support the planning and delivery of a film-makingproject – ‘Barriers to Learning’. The"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Culture change

18 Jun 2009

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      string(4099) "villages.We – both men and women – are happier, healthier and more resistant to disease and despair if we satisfy the need for meaningful human contact. Our loads seem lighter, the hills literally less steep. Genuine social interaction is a force of nature. (Pinker 2014, p.309)There are some primary and secondary schools that have been designed to facilitate social interaction and successful learning. All too often, however,schools are essentially a series of corridors with rooms off them designed to accommodate 30 young people and one adult. With the addition, in many secondary schools, of tables set out in rows, it becomes clear that this is the architecture of teaching and managing rather than of learning.It is equally clear that the organisational structure is essentially linear and hierarchical based on age, perpetuating the myth that learning takes place in homogeneous cohorts with automatic progression for all – irrespective of their stage of development.  The Dunbar ‘number’If the concept of the Dunbar number1 is accepted as an indicator of potential community effectiveness and the ‘village effect’, then the size of a school might be a significant factor in terms of its potential to develop a community culture.The School Census for 2018 shows that the average size of an English secondary school is 948 students, while primary schools average 281 pupils and special schools 114 pupils (Department for Education 2018). While many children do well in the prevailing model of schools as organisations, for a significant number of children school is an alien way of life.Many of the issues with mental health, engagement and wellbeing might be related to the poor emotional engagement with school for some children. If form does follow function, then it might be that the current form of many schools is not wholly fit for purpose.Hypothetically, achieving a better structure might draw on the following principles, using the broad numerical groupings from the Dunbar number model:Students are allocated to a family (or team) of between five and eight students drawn from all year groups, with senior students as leaders. Three to four families make up a clan, with one or two adults as mentors. Four to five clans make up a ‘learning village’. Six learning villages make up a learning community/school ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is one of the great clichés but also one of the great truths. The authentic village is a context in which everyone thrives in thebroadest sense. However it does require very different approaches to leadership in order to enable the structures and processes described above to work, become embedded and so create a new paradigm for what a school might become.Authentic communitiesThere are, of course, many examples of schools achieving high levels of social sophistication using alternative approaches to the ones we describe. Special schools and early years provision are powerful examples of different assumptions and philosophies that lead to authentic communities.Perhaps the most challenging aspects of the principles that we describe in Flipping Schools involve rethinking the norms that define our understanding of leadership. In many ways we are still working with a model of leadership that resonates with historical legacies of hierarchy, control, dependency and deference.A leadership culture that enables and enhances social capital, and so community, is essentially a microcosm of the qualities of the community as a whole. Our hope is that as social capital grows, so cultural capital grows, and we move towards schools that are authentic communities manifested in kindness, quality relationships and the achievement of social justice.ReferencesDepartment for Education (2018) Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2018. London: The Stationery Office.Dunbar, R. (2010) How many friends does one person need? London: Faber & FaberPinker, S. (2014) The village effect: why face-to-face contact matters. London: Atlantic Books."
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Blogs

Flipping Schools : Now Is The Time To Turn Schools Inside Out

3 Jun 2020

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      string(5667) "In July 2017, sat in my home office reflecting on the end of another full and mainly productive academic year, there was a realisation that, as a working class Professor, I might have something to contribute to the social mobility debate. A view that would be immersed in my experience, contributing to the class consciousness that has been subject to media activity and political debate over the last year.  My aim in sharing thoughts on social mobility is to question the injustice of the current prevailing view of social mobility, that the working class have somehow failed and they should become more like the middle class. That is, pass the required exams to go to university, get a degree or two, buy their own house and live a healthy life, contributing to society and the economy. Not too dissimilar to my own story in some ways, but lacking the notion of family and the tribal effect of the working class. What is needed is an alternative way of thinking about social mobility – a way of thinking that crucially listens to, engages and involves the working class in determining what their future should be.  An alternative way that values partnership, mutuality and collaboration and which, by doing what is right, creates opportunities for all. What would different look like if we addressed working class questions, if we responded to old questions with new thinking?Why do working class children not achieve? The need to understand how and why children can learn is fundamental to pedagogy – how teachers teach.  Getting it [teaching] right for the working class remains an ongoing challenge in many schools. An appropriate starting point might be to increase understanding of how working class, disadvantaged and SEND children learn, and refocusing teacher training and professional training on the majority of the population in schools, identifying what is needed to prepare children for work. It is also about changing the mindset of the adults and services around the school to improve the outcomes for all children. I have long known that that, if you change….of adults, you improve the attitudes and behaviours of the child. Why do working class families not participate fully in early years provision?Sure Start Children’s Centres were the main vehicles for ensuring good quality family services and provision were located in accessible places and welcoming to all. The aim for every Sure Start Centre was to improve outcomes for children and families.1 There are some fine nursery settings that take that approach today. If we want working class families to fully participate in early years we need to see more of the same – to share the benefits of early years education by building a respectful relationship with families, and sustain that to help ensure growth and school readiness.Why is there not the will to stop the growth of disadvantage among the working class?Part of the problem is that the context of UK poverty has changed. Poverty is no longer just an issue for people out of work or living in social housing. It impacts on people with disabilities, people who’ve become ill and had to give up work, people in work, young people (including some just out of university), people renting from private landlords. The drive for welfare reform has been seen as an answer to the problems of disadvantage, but it’s failed to understand this changing context and, hence, the better ways (better housing, investment in communities – or reinvestment where cuts have decimated good work – and a continued drive to grow employment and provide good jobs that provide an income on or above a living wage) to address this.Why is school considered not relevant by the working class?A curriculum that is not socially and culturally relevant, that presents more barriers than opportunities will not engage children in learning.  The national curriculum in England has been developed on knowledge and learning experienced by the middle class. There are solutions to this dilemma that, if implemented, would address the needs of all children.  The first is to break down the barriers to learning by providing opportunities for all children to participate in social and cultural activities, sport, the arts, debating, volunteering, wider community based provision, museums, trips and much more. The second requires us to relate the curriculum to the social context of the child and their future.  All communities have a rich heritage, which can provide significant resources. In terms of their future, learning about the workplace can begin in primary school, increasing ambitions, breaking down barriers and providing relevance to learning. Increasing access to learning for all children should be the benchmark of a successful school.Why is working class success only measured by exam results?The annual media frenzy that follows primary phase national curriculum assessments (SATs) and secondary phase GCSE exam results only serves to remind the majority of the working class families that their children are disadvantaged, with private and grammar schools forming the majority at the top of published league tables. For the minority of working class students who do achieve, this is a demonstration that passing exams is a possibility at primary and secondary. However, recent primary SATs serve to prove the difficulties for those without the related social and cultural capital to respond to questions in the English paper.   EPI Closing the Gap research2 reminds us that it will take"
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Born to Fail? Social Mobility, A Working Class View

17 Apr 2018

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What would different look like if we addressed working class questions, if we responded to old questions with new thinking?Why do working class children not achieve? The need to understand how and why children can learn is fundamental to pedagogy – how teachers teach.  Getting it [teaching] right for the working class remains an ongoing challenge in many schools. An appropriate starting point might be to increase understanding of how working class, disadvantaged and SEND children learn, and refocusing teacher training and professional training on the majority of the population in schools, identifying what is needed to prepare children for work. It is also about changing the mindset of the adults and services around the school to improve the outcomes for all children. I have long known that that, if you change the attitudes of adults, you improve the attitudes and behaviours of the child. Why do working class families not participate fully in early years provision?Sure Start Children’s Centres were the main vehicles for ensuring good quality family services and provision were located in accessible places and welcoming to all. The aim for every Sure Start Centre was to improve outcomes for children and families.1 There are some fine nursery settings that take that approach today. If we want working class families to fully participate in early years we need to see more of the same – to share the benefits of early years education by building a respectful relationship with families, and sustain that to help ensure growth and school readiness.Why is there not the will to stop the growth of disadvantage among the working class?Part of the problem is that the context of UK poverty has changed. Poverty is no longer just an issue for people out of work or living in social housing. It impacts on people with disabilities, people who’ve become ill and had to give up work, people in work, young people (including some just out of university), people renting from private landlords. The drive for welfare reform has been seen as an answer to the problems of disadvantage, but it’s failed to understand this changing context and, hence, the better ways (better housing, investment in communities – or reinvestment where cuts have decimated good work – and a continued drive to grow employment and provide good jobs that provide an income on or above a living wage) to address this.Why is school considered not relevant by the working class?A curriculum that is not socially and culturally relevant, that presents more barriers than opportunities will not engage children in learning.  The national curriculum in England has been developed on knowledge and learning experienced by the middle class. There are solutions to this dilemma that, if implemented, would address the needs of all children.  The first is to break down the barriers to learning by providing opportunities for all children to participate in social and cultural activities, sport, the arts, debating, volunteering, wider community based provision, museums, trips and much more. The second requires us to relate the curriculum to the social context of the child and their future.  All communities have a rich heritage, which can provide significant resources. In terms of their future, learning about the workplace can begin in primary school, increasing ambitions, breaking down barriers and providing relevance to learning. Increasing access to learning for all children should be the benchmark of a successful school.Why is working class success only measured by exam results?The annual media frenzy that follows primary phase national curriculum assessments (SATs) and secondary phase GCSE exam results only serves to remind the majority of the working class families that their children are disadvantaged, with private and grammar schools forming the majority at the top of published league tables. For the minority of working class students who do achieve, this is a demonstration that passing exams is a possibility at primary and secondary. However, recent primary SATs serve to prove the difficulties for those without the related social and cultural capital to respond to questions in the English paper.   EPI Closing the Gap research2 reminds us that it"
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Leadership

The Working Class Conundrum

16 Apr 2018

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