Education as a tool of social and cultural differentiation in works of Basil Bernstein

The paper analyzes the current issue of inequality in education because of the cultural differences in children. Modern society is considered providing equal access to education for children of different social groups. However, several studies show the initial obstacles to the democratization of education. One of them belongs to British researcher Basil Bernstein. He discovered the so-called “cultural codes”, i.e. the specific grammatical constructions and the ways of thinking, which bring together the representatives of groups with different levels of income and backgrounds. Children with equal IQ of different social strata are perceived by the teachers not in the same way primarily because of the irregular way of expressing their ideas. More than that, it is difficult for children of the low stratum to perceive the speech of teachers and children of the high stratum. That leads to poor academic progress of children of the low stratum and labelling them as “not smart”. Ethnic mix in one class leads to quite the same consequences exemplified by Mexican children and indigenous children of the Russian Far East. The education system has not been radically changed since the beginning of the century. At present, it does not consider all social and cultural changes in the context of the world globalization and the democratization of society. Therefore, the author proves the need to revise the current situation in the delivery of school education.