The Role of Social Class and Social Status in Teaching and Learning

1. The Role of Social Class and Social Status in Teaching and Learning Chapter Thirteen (c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.  All rights reserved. Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e

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

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

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

5. 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

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

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

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

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

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

11. Traditional social class markers include: • Family income • Prestige of one’s father’s occupation • Prestige of the neighborhood one lives in • The power one has to achieve one’s ends in times of conflict • The level of schooling achieved by the family’s head con’t. (c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.  All rights reserved. Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e

12. For purposes of analysis, American society can be divided into five social classes: • A very small upper class or social elite • A somewhat larger upper middle class professionals, corporate managers, or leading scientists • A large middle class white-collar workers, small business owners, teachers, social workers, nurses, sales and clerical workers, etc. • A somewhat smaller working class • blue-collar workers, employees in low-paid service occupations, temporary employees, and those whose income level means relatively constant struggle • A lower class • sometimes 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 (c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.  All rights reserved. Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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