Inside Hillview High School
Hyacinth Evans
Evans Report

1 The social reproduction theory focuses on the schools effort to reproduce the existing social and economic inequalities. In regards to that it also “focuses on the state or society and its need for certain kinds of labor in a capitalist economy.” (Evans, pg. 138) This theory fails to address how they sort the students to the classes they belong in and how social inequality receives contribution from the school. Along with that, it doesn’t acknowledge human action and agency and ignores teaching, learning, curriculum enactment and student teacher interaction.” (Evans, pg. 173) I personally don’t like the fact how some children in the 9X group are academically able to do the same work as 9A children but aren’t put in there. They’re also not fought hard enough for but there are some teachers that did take that factor into consideration to try and help them. Many of the students that are in the 9X category are from not getting a high score on the CXC examination. Many of them also come from low socioeconomic families, to where the assumption is drawn that, tat is how the child may become. Teachers who taught 9X students put blame on the social status of living. Stated here, “They attributed the disruptiveness and restlessness of students mainly to their social background and to the communities in which they lived and secondarily to factors within the school, factors over which they as teachers exercised some control. Cultural Reproduction Theory addresses many topics that are relevant to educators. Such as “attitudes, behavior, manners and linguistic competence, all of which are important in any institutional setting and which influence learning.”
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(Evans, pg. 138) This theory has a lot of emphasis towards “the role of student’s cultural capital and the ways in which the school rewards knowledge and skills that students bring to the school.” (Evans, pg. 138) It’s also beneficial in the streaming process at Hillview High School. Yet at the same time it doesn’t show a great deal of relevance towards academic achievement at Hillview high School. The reason being because of streaming being such a success “shaping teachers’ and students expectation, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of streaming from cultural production,” (Evans, pg. 138) The theory tends to ignore the behavior of the students and the teachers. The students easily stray from their school work, hold conversations with others or just get up and leave the class. Teachers on the other hand don’t use their time productively, lack control over their students and they even come into their own classroom late without any concern. Realistically, that lacks a tremendous amount of structure nor should it be tolerated in any way. When the Cultural Ecological Theory is functioning, it “speaks to students’ psychological adaptation to this valuation and treatment in the form of reduced expectations and resistance to schools.” (Evans, pg. 138) There are two factors that have an influence on the schools racially subordinated groups: 1) “How society at large and the school treat students from these groups (the systems). 2) How racially subordinated groups respond to those treatments and to schooling (community forces).” (Evans, pg. 174)

3 System Forces “refer to the historical relationship of dominance, oppression, power and discrimination that are present in the wider society and replicated in the school system.” (Evans, pg. 174) The system forces “create psychological adaptive responses on the part of students and their parents. Students see that family members with an education are unable to get ahead or even get started in the job market.” (Evans, pg. 174) The curriculum is what is involved in Pedagogy that is culturally responsive to subordinate groups. Supposedly they believe that there is a connection between the curriculum and pedagogy to a racist society that devalues some racially subordinated and working class groups. The combination of the curriculum allows these students to make connections to their own culture and experiences. Students from subordinated groups that would be culturally relative is the relation between the teacher and the student. Teachers should look beyond the curriculum in order to have a connection to their students, to focus in on being caring of each students desire. The theories that apply to the 9X students at Hillview High School are social reproduction theory, cultural reproduction theory, cultural ecological theory, cultural production theory and culturally relevant knowledge. Social reproduction theory focuses in on reproducing the existing social and economic inequalities. Cultural reproduction “emphasis’s the roles of students cultural capital and the way in which the school rewards the knowledge
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and skills that students bring to the school.” (Evans, pg. 138) Cultural Ecological Theory “considers the value placed on the social group as well as the treatment of the group by the wider society.” (Evans, pg. 138) Cultural Production Theory “highlights students production of an oppositional peer culture that works against the norms, values and goals of the school.” (Evans, pg. 138) Lastly, the curriculum “to which culturally relevant knowledge is critical to students learning and achievements.” (Evans, pg. 139) The similarities and differences of 9A and 9X are as follows, 9A and 9X students both received about the same grades on the GSAT. Also they are both “influenced by the peer culture of class, that teachers had developed different expectations for students in these two classes and that classroom learning environments differed by stream.” (Evans, pg. 126) The differences are that “students in 9A gained on average two points more in mathematics, but scored 0.6 points less in language arts.” (Evans, pg. 125) Lastly the curriculum for 9X “was adjusted in ways that simplified subject matter for some students without addressing the need for creating challenging learning opportunities for the majority.” (Evans, pg. 128) Transmission Model of Teaching, can be extremely pervasive for secondary and tertiary institutions. Yet this model isn’t conductive to the development of understanding. Stated by Connell, “this method of teaching, together with the curriculum causes poor working class children much difficulty in learning.” (Evans, pg. 7)
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Evans doesn’t agree with the Transmission Model of Teaching. She feels that “the absence of instructional materials and the focus on the written or spoken word resulted in loss of interest among students and their ability to understand concepts.” (Evans, pg. 146) Evans also suggests that “to improve teaching and to ensure quality teaching, professionals should be provided to teachers on a ongoing basis.” (Evans, pg. 147) The voices of the students was astonishing just to think that they could possibly care this much, which is great. They viewed themselves as bright students, holding high expectations. “They felt that their achievement depended upon hard work and they felt that working hard was important to success.” (Evans, pg. 106) Many students viewed that education was highly important, to some it was an escape route to try and better themselves. One issue that was mentioned by the faculty and the students as low self of stream. The next issue that is on the top of that is the fact of having financial issues. “Students financial difficulties often led to friction between teachers and students.” (Evans, pg. 108) The next issue is the friction between them and their parents, “some times it’s parents what they do and say.” (Evans, pg. 109) The sad thing is that a lot of students didn’t really ever feel a connection with their teacher. So they never felt like they could talk to them or their schedules didn’t work with one another. Many students choose Hillview High School due to its convenience to their homes, friends and what was being taught. A student stated, “sometimes when
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you come to school, you just feel lazy because it’s not exciting. You really want to learn. But sometimes…it’s boring and the teachers are not exciting. They don’t teach exciting things.” (Evans, pg. 11) The Modernist View “of school emphasize its role in the cultural and social shaping of the young and in providing knowledge and discipline that have national, regional and now global significance.” (Evans, pg. 143) For the modernist view of this school, “schools build on the work of family and have ameliorative effects on individuals and ultimately on the nation state and society. This view of the school does not specify the nature of the family and its relation to the school and the wider society nor does it consider the economic and social conditions of the nation state.” (Evans, pg. 143) The modernist view is more beneficial for some social groups than others and it also is beneficial to the school at the same time. Evans feels that streaming “fails to meet expectations for improved students learning and achievement. In fact it has been shown that it increases the inequality in achievement.” (Evans, pg. 145)