1. a) Schools that take either only boys or only girls.

b) Boys could do better if more classwork would be active and practical, as boys tend to
have different skills and interests while most schools are based only on writing and reading.
Schools could also use positive discrimination in order to give some advantages to boys
which would help them to achieve higher grades.

c) Formal education takes place in classrooms, where there is a set syllables and set
content to be taught and learned, while informal education is more based on experience and
takes place outside classrooms at home, work or through daily interactions. Also informal
education can be a hidden curriculum and take place inside classrooms but it is not part of
formal content which is learnt during the lesson.

d) Girls and boys get ascribed status of gender and through primary and secondary
socialisation the two sexes may be taught how to behave according to their gender. For
example boys will be taught to be more masculine while girls more feminine and because of
this, girls and boys can tend to choose subjects in school which are thought to be
"masculine" and "feminine" and fit their gender. For example girls may choose subjects
associated with arts which is usually considered for girls rather than technology and maths.
Another point is that girls may find that laboratories and textbooks which might be outdated
will be dominated by boys, so they will think that those subjects are not from them. Boys on
the other hand, will tend to choose subjects which are considered for boys. Boys will most
likely also see their future as breadwinners and so will choose subjects which are considered
good for future good professions, such as math and sciences. On the other hand, it could be
because of the school's hidden curriculum, where girls as mentioned previously, will see
some subjects not for girls and can even be discouraged to take them. It can also be
because of the role models children pick, as they may see for example, female teachers
doing different subjects from male teachers and so students may affiliate some subjects with
genders just because of teachers.

e) Type of school individuals attend affect their life chances, as schools can affect students
in many different ways. The good schools with good teachers can make a difference to the
life chances of all pupils.

Schools should be organized and teachers shall do their job professionally and well as it
affects children's educational achievement and therefore life chances. For example, there
should be an atmosphere or ethos in the school which reflects teachers professionalism and
all teachers sharing a commitment to the aims and values of the school.

Good schools in good areas are better than those in poor areas, as good schools will attract
better teachers, while teachers in poorer schools might be less motivated as they get little
payment and also will not try to help students as the teacher might already label students as
failures based on the students social class because mostly working-class children will live in
poor areas. Another school factor would be, what type of students does the school have, as
usually individuals may be affected by the environment. For example if school is mostly
dominated by working-class students, or students with bad attitudes then those students
may also not take education seriously and not try hard. If the school has an anti-school
sub-culture, some students may also be affected for this especially by peer pressure and
also rebel against the school.

The school system is also an important factor as students will attend schools that are based
on streaming or selective education, like in Grammar schools and Secondary modern
schools. Those who would go to secondary modern schools would be labelled as failures as
those schools offer basic education compared to Grammar schools. Marxists would argue
that it is a class problems, as the working-class would usually go to secondary modern
schools and middle-class would usually go to Grammar schools, which means that
middle-class would already be more confident about their future while working-class
students would already feel as failures and stay on the same level.

Functionalists argue that today, in modern industrial societies, we have meritocracy and that
comprehensive schools would allow all students to complete, and the social classes have
social mobility to go up in the level of social stratification. On the other hand, there are now
private schools for money that could offer better education compared to other normal state
schools. This shows how important what type of school does the individual go to, as schools
can offer different systems for education and different teachers. One of the systems opposite
to streaming would be setting, when children are taught in classes of similar ability for a
particular subject. This could avoid labelling.

On another hand, individual factors can also affect life chances and educational
achievement. Social class can play a huge role in education, as each class has a different
status and amount of wealth to go to specific schools. Working-class students for example,
can't go to better schools of they live in a poor area or can't afford a good private school.
Another factor would be material deprivation and cultural deprivation which affects how
students achieve in their education. An example of material deprivation would be any kind of
problems in the home background, like students in the working-class may not afford
materials for studying or home factors such as not having a quiet place to study at home.
Cultural deprivation would be the aspects of values and attitudes from the home and family
background that prevent some children from achieving in school. For example, if a student
has a fatalistic attitude, he will probably have a self-fulfilling attitude, which means if he gets
a bad mark in a particular subject he can decide he is not good at that subject and not even
try to study for it which affects his educational achievement. Another example would be the
need for immediate rather then deferred gratification, where students may having short-term
aims, wanting rewards straight away instead of setting up long-term aims.

Besides this, other individual factors such as linguistic influences, cultural capital of a student
and sometimes gender and ethnicity can also be important. Teachers can have stereotypes
about gender or ethnicity which can affect students' education, as teachers may think that
some type of group of people can't do particular subjects. Linguistic influences would be the
ability of students to use restricted and elaborated codes at the right time, as schools value
only elaborated code when it comes to education and teachers would appreciate students
who use elaborated code in their class and works, as it is a formal language. Cultural capital
would be the knowledge, language, attitudes and values that students may have, and those
who have them, will likely be more favoured by the teachers and achieve better.
To conclude, types of school individuals attend affect their life chances because of different
school factors but also the student's background and home factors are as important as the
Scholl factors and can also affect the life chances of those students.