Cultural Deprivation is a term referring to the absence of certain expected and acceptable cultural phenomena in the environment which results in the failure of the individual to communicate and respond in the most appropriate manner within the context of society. Language acquisition and language use are commonly used in assessing this concept.

Proponents of this term argue that the culture of the people in the working class (regardless of race

Race

Race is classification of humans into large and distinct populations or groups by factors such as heritable phenotypic characteristics or geographic ancestry, but also often influenced by and correlated with traits such as appearance, culture, ethnicity, and socio-economic status...

, gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

, ethnicity and other factors) is inherently deficient and different from the middle class.

According to this theory, this deprivation results in the working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

remaining always poor and unable to leave their class to higher classes.

External links

• Cultural Deprivation Theory as an explanation of working class underachievement