Students that are in a working-class have the tendency to underachieve in school, in contrast to those students that are middle-class, this is due to external and internal factors. External cultural factors are claimed to be a key cause of social class differences in educational achievement according to various sociologist. These factors consist of Cultural deprivation, cultural capital and material deprivation.

Students from working class backgrounds often experience economic problems (poverty) more so than any other class; this is linked to material deprivation which these pupils are exposed to throughout their time. Being in poverty could entail the students not having enough money to buy all the essential equipment that they will need for educational attainment, supported by sociologist - Bull. This is closely linked to educational under achievement for example in 2006 33% of children on pupil premium (free school meals) achieved 5 A* to C grades in comparison to 61% not on pupil premium. However, statistics cannot prove that material deprivation is the cause of under achievement as the government doesn’t always collect statistics that is supporting the claim 100%, therefore the claim cannot generalise. To support this claim sociologist Flaherty also states that having money problems in the family were a significant factor in younger children’s low attendance at school, which links to under achievements at school. The idea that children from working class backgrounds is also supported by sociologist Howard. Her claim is that children from poorer homes tend to have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals. This will ten result in absences from school which is proven to have a big impact on education achievement. In addition to this Wilkinson has studied a series of ten year olds, the lower the social background the higher the rate of hyperactivity,