The Effect Of Socioeconomic Status on

Education

Conrad Tyler Blackburn

Defining Socioeconomic

Status Different definitions Indicator of parents’ education,

occupation, and family income Ormrod’s definition includes “related

factors” SES is very broad. Also extremely important.

SES and Academic

Achievement Higher rate of success with more

parental involvement and more academic resources.

Stats show higher levels of parental involvement and academic resources with higher SES families.

Huge literacy gap between high and low SES students.

By age 3 children of high SES parents speak about 1,100 words.

By age 3 children of low SES parents speak about 525 words.

SES and Academic

Achievement Huge IQ gap by age 3. 117 for high

SES compared to 79 for low SES. Reasons: Words spoken by parents,

487-178. And encouragement vs. discouragement, 6.25:1 encouragements for high SES vs. 2.6:1 discouragents for low SES

Reading probably the most important skill in education.

SES and Teachers

Teachers have extremely large impact on students.

Student-teacher relationship especially important at early ages.

Teachers do not always give all students an equal chance.

75% of teachers in low SES schools have a low self efficacy in their teaching ability.

SES and Student Relationships

By age 5, low SES children are already prejudiced towards those of a higher income.

Those of higher SES tend to try to avoid those of low SES.

This creates tension between the two groups from kindergarten and beyond.

Teachers tend to favor students of high SES.

This adds to the tension between low SES and high SES.