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Why do students and schools fail?

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Please help to me to understand the following theories with a brief explanation/ summary of the following theories as to why schools fail:

> Deficit theories-genetic or cultural inferiority as the cause of academic failure
> Economic and social reproduction-the argument that schools reproduce the economic and social relations of society and therefore tend to serve the interests of the dominant classes.
> Cultural incompatibilities-school and home cultures are often at odds.
> Social, Economic and Cultural compatibility theories-Cultural-Ecological theories and Immigrant and Minority experiences,
> Resistance theory,
> Complicating theories of identities and cultures within school structures

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Solution Summary

Explanation of and discussion of several theories of why students and schools fail

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Just an FYI: Many of these overlap.

>Deficit theories-genetic or cultural inferiority as the cause of academic failure. This one is rather Darwinian in foundation, and by that I mean the Theory of Evolution. This theory espouses that some of us are not so far advanced, genetically, as are others, and our educational system is "weeding out" the genetically mentally inferior. If that is too elitist for you, the other side of that coin is the cultural inferiority theory, which is more democratically (politically) correct in explaining differences in achievement. This theory espouses the idea that it is not that everyone is not created equal, it is that *environmental factors* inherent in their culture and upbringing have stifled their native intelligence, at least somewhat, and caused the differences in educational attainment we see exhibited in our students. Therefore, if only everyone had equal access to the same advantages, we would all be brilliant, given our equal share of intelligence potential. Yeah, right.

>Economic and social reproduction-the argument that schools reproduce the economic and social relations of society and therefore tend to serve the interests of the dominant classes. This theory is an imperialist/elitist sort of argument, and is patently against everything liberals believe in. This theory espouses the idea that just because a student is in an Ivy-League school, they will "rise" to perform at Ivy-League standard levels. If an Ivy-League student were to be placed in a barrio or slum school, they would "sink" to perform at those expected rotten levels - it is a social "rub-off" ...

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