SOCIAL CLASS AND EDUCATION

The impact of Class on educational attainment

The impact of Class on educational attainment

Introduction

Education opportunities are usually consistent with prevailing social classes. Children from upper-class families have better educational chances than those form middle or lower-class families. In fact, this is true in the selective school stage, thorough reorganization, and assigning of educational priority areas, together with their many compensatory timetables or systematic arrangements for schooling (Davis, 2000, pp. 98-107). The relationship between education and social class seems to be a frequent area of interest for sociological studies. Students belonging to lower-class families are made conscious of their place in the society during their education. This does not necessarily mean that they recognize the superiority of the rich, although they realize their own limitations. According to Salvador (1994), the social history of the poor is their education (Salvador, 1994, pp. 12-19).

There are some efforts to fashion curriculum around a critical class analysis, largely to empower lower- and working-class students to critique and work collectively to challenge the class structure (Weis, 1990, 12). For example, The Power in Our Hands by William Bigelow and Norman Diamond offers unit plans for classroom teachers to teach about the history of union organizing in the United States. Theoretical works by authors such as Peter McLaren delve into questions that connect education, class, and global imperialism and have implications for curriculum (Sleeter &Grant, 1991, 78). Public school curricula, however, leave little leeway for critical perspectives about class. Some critical educators turn to popular education of adults as an alternative, often drawing from writings of educator Paulo Freire. For example, John Holst studied implementation of adult socialist education within two revolutionary organizations within the United Kingdom (Sleeter, 2002, 8).

Definition of Class

A social class is a large category of people who are similar in income level, educational attainment and occupational prestige/ranking. The main concern of the social class as a social system is dual in nature (Power, 2003, p. 77). Firstly, how the social class affects/imparts on the children both commitment and capacities for performing their future adult roles, and second, how to allocate human resources within the role-structure of adult society. How these two schemes are interrelated, will provide us with some points of reference for this discussion (Demack, Drew, & Grimsley, 2000, pp. 117-143).

On the other hand, the social class may be regarded as a primary agency wherein the different capacities and components are generated. On the other hand, it is an agency of “man power allocation” (Shain, 2003, p. 27). Members of a social class share a set of values and similar opportunities to obtain desired goals and experiences. If you look closely at the structure, the scenario is that the rich people get into the finest schools, meet good friends and consequently desirable cultural capital, and lastly internalize elitist values (Roberts, 2001, p. 151).

All things being equal, students from elite schools tend to be reserved because they as seen as paragons of academic excellence (Salvador, 1994, ...