Rewards for Conformists

This situation is transfered into the family. By subtle pressures the child is trained to adopt the norms of behaviour the parent requires, and thereby regulate its own behaviour without constant recourse to rules and discipline.

At school, the middle class child finds its own family conditions reproduced. Our education system values and rewards this ability to conform to certain norms of behaviour and to internalise them while retaining flexibility and critical reflection within those norms. Obviously the children of the middle class have a head start in the exam stakes. It is hardly surprising, that the kids with all the advantages succeed.

Many university departments state quite openly that they reward those who internalise the departments norms. For example, the Sociology Department's list of criteria for marking some essays at 101 level was the following: "Marks will be awarded for identifying what the question requires, then providing it." This approach requires the internalisation of the assumptions of the questions. Within that framework, 'independent' thought was also rewarded.

Thus, exams are not really important, as the level of IQ is not an important requirement for being a success in the economy. The important ability that is required to be a success is a class characteristic learned in the home. One of the major function of education and examinations in this society is to obscure this fact and throw a smokescreen around the inequalities of status and reward that are perpetuated in our society. Ability is not of major importance in determining the success of the individual, jobs need not be hierarchical and rewards unequal You suffer exams to help hide these facts.