CHAPTER 11

SOCIAL CLASS, RACE

AND SCHOOL
ACHIEVEMENT
 Reasons for Low Achievement
among Low Status Students

Over the past forty years, much research has been

aimed at understanding and overcoming the academic
deficiencies of low achieving students in general
and low-achieving students from working-class or
poor families in particular.
 Major Factors for Low
Achievement among Low-Status
Students

01. 02. 03.

Home Heredity vs Obstacles in

Environment Environment the Classroom
 01.
Home Environment

 Children’s families are the most important agent in their early

socialization and education.
 Characteristcis of the home environment closely reflect the
family’s social class.
 Many working class-class students grow up in homes that fail to
prepare them well for school. Even though their parents may stress
the importance of education, these students tend to functions
poorly in the typical classroom.
Children’s home environments cultivate three key
sets of characteristics important to their school
achievement:

 Knowledge and understandings

 Cognitive and verbal skills
 Values and attitudes
 Knowledge and Understandings
 Middle-class children are more likely than working-class
children to acquire a wide knowledge about the world outside
the home through access to books and cultural institutions,
parental teaching, and exploration of diverse environments
 Knowledge and understandings acquired through exposure to the
wider world are helpful to children when they enter school.
 Working-class students today may experience even greater
disadvantages than in the earlier eras because they tend to
have less access to computers at home than do middle class.
 Cognitive and Verbal Skills
 Students’ cognitive and verbal skills also reflect social-class differences
in family language environments.
 Basil Bernstein has found that both the middle and working-class children
develop adequate skills with respect to “ordinary” or “restricted”
language, but middle-class children are superior in the use of “formal” or
“elaborated” language.
 Ordinary, restricted language is grammatically simple, relying on gestures
and further explanations to clarify meaning.
 Elaborated, formal language is gramatically complex and provides greater
potential for organizing experience within and abstract meaning system.
 Many scholars believe that facility in using elaborated language helps
middle-class children excel in cognitive development.
 Values and Attitudes
 Socialization practices in many working-class homes ill-prepare children to
function independently in the school and classroom.
 Many children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are at a disadvantage
because their socialization appears to emphasize obedience and conformity,
whereas middle-class families tend to stress independent learning and self-
directed thinking.
 Parents at the upper end of the social scale are more inclined on principle
to use democratically based, highlt verbal means of control, and this kind
of discipline is likely to produce personalities who can both identify
successfully with the system and use it for their own ends.
 Values and Attitudes

 Parents choose on principle to use a highly authoritarian, mainly non-

verbal means of control, in which words are used more threaten and
bamboozle the child into obedience than make him understand the rational
behavior.
 The child born into the lowest social bracket has everything stacked
against him including his parents’ principles of child upbringing.
 Differences in child-rearing practices reflect the fact that many working-
class environments are relatively dangerous for children, and parents use
methods that do not help at school but do prepare their children to
function in this hostile environment.
 Home Environment
 The importance of the home and family environment for general
intellectual development has also been documented in studies by
J.McVicker Hunt, Martin Deutsch, and other researchers. These studies
generally indicate that environmental stimulation in working-class
homes is less conducive to intellectual development, on the average
than it is middle-class homes.
 Deutsch outlined factors, such as lack of productive visual and tactile
simulation, that limit learning readiness in many disadvantaged
children.
 Deutsch and others develop indexes of environment disadvantage that
correlate even more closely with IQ scores and school success than do
social-class indicators.
 Home Environment
 The environmental disadvantage theory holds that early developmental
years are more important than later years.
 As pointed out by Benjamin Bloom, David Hamburg, and others, the most
rapid development of many human characteristics, including cognitive
skills, occurs during the preschool years.
 The child’s intellectual development is affected even during the
prenatal stages by the mother’s general health, her diet, her alcohol
intake and drug usage, and stress other emotional factors.
 Although we can counteract learning deficits tha arise from
disadvantaged early environments, it is, as this implies more difficult
to produce changes for older children; we need a more powerful
environment to bring about these changes.
 Home Environment
 As a society, we should use more of our resources to address early
environmental problems and disadvantages.
 Compensatory education tries to remedy the effects of environmental
disadvantages by providing preschool education and imporved instruction
in elementary and secondary schools.
 Concern is growing regarding the negative effects on cognitive
performance that improvished environments can produce as scientists
learn about how the brain develops and what this knowledge might mean
for educators.
 In general, neuroglogists and other investigators have reinforced
Bloom’s conclusions about the importance of positive home environment
in the first two or three years of life, when the brain is growing
rapidly and establishing billions of neural connections.
 Home Environment
 In addition to emphasizing the value of good preschools, many educators
are exploring the implications for devising devising instructional
methods that take into account how the brain works. However, it may be
some time before we know enough to anticipate substantial improvements
in curriculum and instruction based on an understanding of how the
brain functions and develops.
 No universal patterns distinguish all middle-class families and
students from all working-class families. Many children from working-
class families do well in school, and many middle-class children do
not. Many families with low-socioeconomic status provide a home
environment conducive to achievement and the great majority of low-
income parents try to offer their children a positive learning
environment.
 Home Environment

 It also appears that the child-raising methods of

working-class families probably are becoming more
like of those of middle-class families.

 Chidren form low-income, working class homes are

still proportionately likely to grow up in an
environment that inadequately prepares them to
succeed in contemporary schools.
02. The Heredity-versus-Environment
Debate
The past century has seen heated controversy about whether
intellegence, which relates strongly to school
achievement, is determined primarily by heredity or by
environment.
 Hereditarian View
 When IQ tests were undergoing rapid development early in the
twentieth century, many psychologists believed that intelligence
was determined primarily by heredity.
 Hereditarian view of intelligence thought that IQ tests and
similar instruments measured innate differences, present from
birth, in people’s capacity. When economically disadvantaged
groups and some minority groups, such as African American scored
considerably below other groups, hereditarians believed that the
groups with the lower scores were innately inferior in
intellectual capacity.
 Hereditarian View
 According to Arthur Jensen, Richard Hernstein, “Heredity is a major factor in
determining intelligence accounting for up to 80 percent of the variation in IQ
scores.
 Jensen published a highly controversial study in the Harvard Educational Review in
1969. Pointing out that African Americans averaged about 15 points below two races
in learning abilities and patterns.
 Critics have countered Jensen’s arguments by contending that a host of environmental
factors that affect IQ, including malnutrition and prenatal care, are difficult to
measure and impossible to separate from hereditary factors.
 IQ tests are biased, and do not necessarily measure intelligence.
 Jensen believed link intelligence primarily to heredity.
 His critics continue to respond with evidence that environmental factors, school in
particular, have a major influence on IQ.
 Environmentalist View
 By the middle of the twentieth century, numerous studies had
contradicted the hereditarian view, and most social scientists
took the position that environment is as important as even more
important than heredity in determining intelligence.
Social scientists who stress the environmentalist view of
intelligence generally emphasize the need for continual
compensatory programs beginning in infancy. Many also criticize
the use of IQ tests on the grounds that these tests are
culturally biased.
 Environmentalist View
 Many attribute the differences in IQ scores between African Americans and whites,
for example, to differences in social class and family environment and to systematic
racial discrimination.
 Scanda Scarr and Richard Weinberg studied differences between African American
children growing up in their biological families and those growing up in adopted
families. They concluded that the effects of environment outweigh the effects of
heredity.
 Thomas Sowell, after examining IQ scores collected fro various ethnic groups between
1920 and 1970, found that the scores of certain groups, including Italian Americans
and Polish Americans, have substantially improved. Other studies indicate that the
test scores of African Americans and Puerto Ricans have risen more rapidly than
scores in the general population in response to improvements in teaching and living
conditions.
 Environmentalist View
 James Flynn, who collected similar data on other countries,
found that massive gains in IQ scores in fourteen nations have
occurred during the twentieth century. These improvements,
according to Flynn’s analysis, largely stemmed not from genetic
improvement but form environmental changes that led gains in the
kinds of skills assessed by IQ tests. Torsten Husen and his
colleagues also have concluded, after reviewing large amounts of
data, that improvements in economic and social conditions and
particularly in the availability of schooling, can produce
substantial gains in average IQ from one generation to the next.
 Synthesizers’ View
 Synthesizers’ view of intelligence holds that both heredity and
environment contribute to differences in measured intelligence.
 For example, Christopher Jencks, after reviewing a large amount of data,
concluded that heredity is responsible for 45 percent of the IQ variance,
environment accounts for 35 percent, and interaction between the two
(“interaction” meaning that particular abilities thrive or wither in
specific environments) accounts for 20 percent. Robert Nichols reviewed all
these and other data and concluded that the true value for heredity may be
anywhere between environment and heredity yields each individual’s actual
intelligence.
 Synthesizers’ View
 In impoverished families much of the IQ variation correlates with
quality of environment, whereas in wealthier families (which
presumably provide an adequate environment) heredity exerts a
greater influence on children’s intelligence. In this view, even
if interactions between heredity and environment limit our ability
to specify exactly how much of a child’s intelligence reflects
environmental factors, teachers and parents should provide each
child with a productive environment in which to realize his/her
maximum potential.
 Obstacles in the
Classroom

We have noted that the home and family environment of many working-class
students lacks the kind of educational simulation needed to prepare students for
success in the classroom. However, certain school and classroom dynamics also
foster low achievement. The following list highlights some of the most important
classroom obstacles to achievement that working-class students face.
 1. Inappropriate curriculum and
instruction

 Curriculum materials and instructional approaches in the primary

grades frequently assume that the students are familiar with
vocabulary and concepts to which working-class students have had
little or no exposure.
 After grade 3, much of the curriculum requires advanced skills that
many working-class students have not yet acquired; hence they fall
further behind in other subject areas.
 2. Lack of previous success in
school

 Lack of academic success in the early grades not only detracts from
learning more difficult material later; it also damages a student’s
perception that he or she is a capable learner who has a chance to
succeed in school and in later life. Once students believe that they
are inadequate learners and lack control over their future, they are
less likely to work vigorously at overcoming learning deficiencies.
3. Ineffective fixation on low-level learning

 When a student or group of students functions far below

grade level, teachers tend to concentrate on remediating
basic skills in reading, math and other subjects. This
reaction is appropriate for some achievers who need
intensive help in acquiring initial skills, but it is
damaging for those who could benefit from more challenging
learning experiences and assignments.
 4. Difficulty of teaching conditions in
working-class schools
 As students fall further behind academically and as both
teachers and students experience frustration and
discouragement, behavior problems increase in the classroom.
Teachers have more difficulty providing a productive learning
environment. Some give up trying to teach low achievers or
leave the school to seek less frustrating employment
elsewhere.
 5. Teacher perceptions of student
inadequacy
 Teachers in working-class schools may see low achievement in
their classrooms and conclude that many of their students
cannot learn. This view easily becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy because teachers who question their students’
learning potential are less likely to work hard to improve
academic performance, particularly when improvement requires
an intense effort that consumes almost all of a teacher’s
energy.
 6. Ineffective homogeneous
grouping
 Educators faced with large groups of low-ahievers
frequently address the problem by setting them apart
in separate classes or subgroups where instruction can
proceed at a slower pace without detracting from the
performance of high achievers. Unfortunately, both
teachers and students tend to view concentrations of
low achievers as “slow” groups for whom learning
expectations are low or nonexistent.
 Homogeneous Grouping

 Many schools and classrooms group students ability in

specific subjects, separating the slower learners from
the faster ones or the more advanced from the less
advanced. Advocates of homogeneous grouping argue that
it is both fair and effective, but critics have
charged that it harms students, particularly low
achievers.
 Is placing students in homogeneous groups by
ability a generally effective approach for
classroom instruction?

PRO ARGUMENTS
 Heteregeneous class with students at many different levels, teachers cannot
give the slowest learners the special attention they need.
It is unfair to high-achieving students who are capable of learning quickly
to slow pace of instruction to suit average students.
 Homogeneous grouping encourages the growth of an esprit de corps among group
members.
Many teachers are more effective with certain kinds of students than with
others.
 Homogeneous grouping indicates to parents that the school recognizes
differences in learning styles.
 Is placing students in homogeneous groups by
ability a generally effective approach for
classroom instruction?

CON ARGUMENTS
 Ability grouping tends to stereotype slower learners and hamper their progress.
 Although hig-achieving students may be hindered in heterogeneous setting, they
will remain motivated as long as they sense that teachers appreciate their
talents.
 A group spirit may develop among high achievers who feel a special honor in being
placed together, butw achievers will feel stigmatized, often leading to negative
group attitudes.
 Only a few extraordinary teachers have the necessary skill, patience, and
ethusiasm to work effectively with an entire group of low achievers.
 Parents of low achievers are rarely pleased at seeing their children separated
from others.
 7. Service-delivery problems

 Great difficulty in delivering educational services

effectively in classes or schools with a high
percentage of low achievers.
 The serious problems endemic in such overloaded
schools make it difficult for educators to function
effectively.
 8. Overly large classes

 Classes too large for teachers to provide sufficient help to

overcome learning problems often lead to ineffective instruction
for low-achieving students/ Teachers of large classes find it
particularly hard to help low achievers master complex skills
such as critical thinkinh, reading, comprehension, mathematics
problem solving, and other higher-order skills.
 9. Teacher preparation and
experience
 Studies of hig poverty schools in big cities have shown that
teachers at schools with concentrations of low-SES students tend
to have less preparation and experience in teaching their
subjects than teachers at schools with mostly middle-class
students.
 Many analysts believe that upgrading teacher training and
preparation and hiring teachers with appropriate experience
should be priority goals in efforts to improve the achievement of
low-income and working class students.
 10. Negative peer pressure

 Several researchers have reported that academically oriented

students predominantly working class schools are often ridiculed
and rejected for accepting school norms.
 John Ogbu and Signithia Fordham, have described negative peer
influences as being particularly strong among wokring class
African American students.
 11. Differences in teacher and
student backgrounds
 Teachers from middle class backgrounds might have difficulty
understanding and motivating disadvantaged pupils.
 In the case of white teachers working with disadvantaged minority
students, differences in dialect, language, or cultural
background may make it difficult for the teachers to communicate
effectively with their students.
 12. Incompatibility between classroom
expectations and students’ behavioral
patterns and learning styles

 Teachers may also be unprepared for diversity in their students’

learning styles of many working-class students or non-minority
students.
 When teachers gear their classroom expectations to the learning
styles and behavior of high-achieving, middle class students,
such style differences can lead to school failure.
 13. Accumulating effects of information-
poor homes and neighborhoods

 Disadvantages associated with growing up in an impoverished

environment accumulate not just in infancy and early childhoood,
but cascade further as children proceed through school.
 Research indicates that students in poverty neighboorhoods and
schools relatively limited access to high-quality print and
digital materials, during summer vacations and other time away
for school fall further and further behind middle-class students
in achievement.
Great minds discuss ideas;
average minds discuss
events; small minds discuss
people.”

Eleanor Roosevelt