Codes and sociology

The importance of the code theory in education lies in the fact that the school requires the use of an elaborated code but all students have access to it. The importance of this theory to sociology lies in the fact that the differential to the elaborated code does not occur randomly, but rather is controlled by the class system. Lower working class urban children tend to have a restricted code. Middle-class children possess both a restricted and an elaborated code. The two groups enter into different types of relationships and learn to express themselves in different ways through language. They do not use language for the same functions, some of which, it seems, are necessary for the school situation. When the lower working-class child is expected implicitly to exploit language for functions he normally does not express verbally, a discontinuity is created between his home and his school environment. He has learned to verbalize a certain range of meanings in his home and when he enters school, another range of meaning is required. There is, then, a very subtle, but nonetheless very real, sense in which what is taught is personally irrelevant for this child. The school system does not talk to him. Middle-class children, processing both code, experience no such discontinuity. They can use language for those functions required by the school.