the role of social class and social status in teaching and learning chapter thirteen (c) 2006 the...

The Role of Social Class and Social Status

in Teaching and LearningChapter Thirteen

(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e

Differences between Rural and Urban Poverty

Both are equally devastating, but urban poverty usually gets more attention

Residents of rural areas are often the keepers of important American history and traditions

Rural residents are often more isolated than their urban cousins

This often results in lack of access to good-paying jobs and health care


Pedagogies: Old and New

It’s important not to “dumb down” the curriculum, but the same old pedagogical methods are often self-defeating

Pedagogical methods should not assume a deficit model, but should take into account the culture of the people

Teaching should remain respectful, exciting, engaging, and challenging


Roles: Old and New

Teachers also come from varied social class backgrounds and often bring their “class knowledge” with them

Class attitudes toward teaching differ: Middle-class teachers tend to think about being

sure to do a good job Lower-class teachers often are more concerned

with “conscientiously putting in required hours”


When teachers—regardless of their own class backgrounds—learn to be aware of, to think, and act in multicultural ways

they are more likely to be effective in teaching students from different backgrounds, including students from different social class backgrounds.

con’t.(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e

Place of Content Knowledge: Old and New

Studies reveal a differentiation of actual content by social class along several dimensions: Emphasis on “advanced” versus “basic” skills Emphasis on conceptual understanding Emphasis on range and variety of academic tasks Degree of repetition Extent of topic coverage Attention to “practical” or vocational knowledge


By the time students reach high school, placement in various “tracks,” (e.g., college-bound, vocational, commercial, etc.) can be found to be fundamentally related to social class patterns

As a result, students from different social classes quite often leave school with very different educations


Assessment: Old and New

Assessments for wide social class variation should measure student growth across time

Assessments themselves should be varied in order to effectively analyze a number of hard-to-get-at skills, such as: The ability to identify, analyze, plan, and allocate resources The ability to work effectively with others The ability to understand complex interrelationships The ability to work with a variety of technologies


Perspectives on Social Class and Social Status

Most Americans believe they live in a classless society

Upward mobility is clearly possible through hard work

Nevertheless, we know there are variations in economic standards of living, in status of different occupations, and in expectations or life chances among American citizens


Definitions of Social Class

Social class is one kind of a stratification system that “layers” the population in terms of worth or value

“Assignment” to one social class or another is often done by outside observers of the population

con’t.


Traditional social class markers include:

Family incomePrestige of one’s father’s occupationPrestige of the neighborhood one lives inThe power one has to achieve one’s ends in times of conflictThe level of schooling achieved by the family’s head

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For purposes of analysis, American society can be divided into five social classes:

1. A very small upper class or social elite2. A somewhat larger upper middle class

professionals, corporate managers, or leading scientists3. A large middle class

white-collar workers, small business owners, teachers, social workers, nurses, sales and clerical workers, etc.

4. A somewhat smaller working classblue-collar workers, employees in low-paid service occupations, temporary

employees, and those whose income level means relatively constant struggle

5. A lower classsometimes called the working poor—those who work at low-paying jobs, as

well as those who, by virtue of the fact that they may not work at all. The latter are sometimes called the underclass


Social Class and Minority Group Membership

The issue of class is complicated by a fairly large overlap among lower-middle-class, working-class, and lower-class membership and membership in minority groups

The issue here is that it may not be individual initiative that results in lower-class status, but structural oppression of particular groups of people


The Working Poor

Defined as those people who do work but in jobs that are minimum wage or slightly above, with no benefits and little job security

Recent changes in welfare laws, while they have encouraged many to enter the workforce, may also account for the increase in the number of working people facing poverty


Social Class and Child-Rearing Practices

People who share similar socioeconomic status also often share similar cultural knowledge, attitudes, and values

Parents from different class backgrounds emphasize different values when raising their children

Social class does not necessarily determine success in school (or in life); but, in general, there needs to be some other influence that strengthens a child’s will to succeed and expectation of success


Definitions of Social Status

Social status refers to a hierarchical position in society (or one’s social group) determined not by income but by prestige, social esteem, and/or honor

One’s status may differ from the viewpoints of different observers; star athletes, for example, may be accorded different status by students and teachers


The Importance of Teacher Expectations

Teacher expectation refers to the attributions that teachers make about the future behavior or academic achievement of their students

When a teacher expects a student to do poorly (or well), and the student does, in fact live up to that expectation, it is called a self-fulfilling prophecy


Social Class and School Funding

A number of court cases have been filed disputing the property tax as an equitable way of funding schools Serrano v. Priest (1971, 1976)

California Supreme Court found that dependence on property tax violated equal protection principles in the state constitution

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973)

U.S. Supreme Court found that dependence on property tax did not violate the 14th Amendment


Rose v. Council for Better Education (1989)—Kentucky

The Kentucky Supreme Court found that the property tax was, indeed, inequitable, defining “an efficient system of public schools” in the following way:

The establishment, maintenance, and funding of common schools in Kentucky is the sole responsibility of the General Assembly

Common schools shall be free to all Common schools shall be available to all Kentucky children


Common schools shall be substantially uniform throughout the state

Common schools shall provide equal educational opportunities to all Kentucky children, regardless of place of residence or economic circumstance

Common schools shall be monitored by the General Assembly to ensure that they are operated with no waste, no duplication, no mismanagement, and with no political influence

The premise for the existence of common schools is that all children in Kentucky have a constitutional right to an adequate education


The General Assembly shall provide funding which is sufficient to provide each child in Kentucky an adequate education

An adequate education is one which has as its goal the development of the seven capacities recited previously:


Sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changing civilization;

Sufficient knowledge of economic, social, and political systems to enable the student to make informed choices;

Sufficient understanding of government processes to enable the student to understand the issues that affect his or her community, state, and nation;

Sufficient self-knowledge and knowledge of his or her mental and physical wellness;


Sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical heritage;

Sufficient training to prepare for advanced training in either academic or vocational fields so as to enable each child to choose and pursue life work intelligently; and

Sufficient levels of academic and vocational skills to enable public school students to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics, or in the job market


Ethical Issues

The school, as a middle-class institution, has a responsibility to provide access to middle-class knowledge, attitudes, and values to all children; when it fails to do so, it fails part of its responsibility in a democracy

Poverty rates are measurably higher among minority populations, especially African American and Latino


Efforts to improve public schooling make the need to provide affordable higher education also imperative

Social class differences require that attention be paid to subtle and often relatively invisible beliefs and values


Ethical Issues

Something to Think About

Because the United States professes to be a fairly classless society doesn’t make it so; indeed, the combination of ethnicity and social class may, in the end, give us our most perplexing and important problems.


the role of social class and social status in teaching and learning chapter thirteen (c) 2006 the...

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