Assess and explain the impact of social class on inequalities in educational outcomes.

Class distinction provides not only feelings of inferiority for the lower-classes, but monetary inadequacy as well. Higher-class children have an advantage from birth since they are guaranteed large sums of money at some time in their lives. Furthermore, it is known that it takes money to make money in a capitalistic system and so the inheritance laws only widen the gap between the rich and poor, keeping the lower-class exactly where they started: on the bottom.

Although most American views prosperity as an individual effort, still the society is stratified and there is no way to ignore the class factors on individuals. The educational and economical life of a child still depends on the educational level of their parents and the wealth they inherit from their parents.

According to Bynner and Joshi (1999) class differences have persisted since the late 1950’s. It can be seen that all studies carried out by various theorist came to the same conclusion that middle class pupils tend to do a lot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more exams, stay on at school for longer and are five times more likely to go to university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from nursery school to university, processes like labelling or the self fulfilling prophecy take

With the growing importance of higher education, more people than ever are attending college. According to a middle-class parent, “[Higher education] seen as a means of developing a career and getting secure employment.” (30, Higher Education, social class and social mobility) Moreover, “parents believe that their children need a university education to get on in life… over the past decades (parents) fearful that without a degree their children will be in danger of downward social mobility. (32, Higher

We live in a culture where success is increasingly defined by a paycheck and is seemingly as important to the parent as the child. Raising children to be “successful” is increasingly becoming an obsession for upper-middle-class-parents, who encourage certain activities and scores to provide their child with the best chances of attending elite schools. The article focuses on the inherent advantage upper-middle-class parents provide but fails to mention those who the parent’s action affects: their children.

maxine hingston Assess the claim that social class differences in educational achievement are primarily the result of school factors

In Gillian Evans’ book of ‘Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain,’ she mainly draws attention between the link of social class and education. Children, who have been brought up in a working class background, do not really have much of a head start in education in comparison to children who come from middle/upper-class backgrounds (Evans, 2006). Educational and economic status of parents plays an essential role on the road to success for their children. What’s more, her chapter proposes that children from working class backgrounds are innate to possess a low level of intelligence, but it can still be argued that a minority of children who come from working class backgrounds do tend to get great results (Evans, 2006). The author has illustrated an outlook on the social structure of intelligence and the way in which a child’s and parents relationship can have an impact on their level of understanding (Evans, 2006). It is commonly known that children tend to always pick things up and the learning process is

Socioeconomic status plays a key factor in the type of education a child receives today and ultimately functions to keep individuals in the class they are born into. Those who are part of the lower class receive the bare minimum in education with the end goal being blind obedience, while the upper class is educated in a way that encourages self-regulation, individual thought, and creativity. These vast differences in education are no mistake and are put in place for overall control.

In Robert Putnam’s “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis”, we are introduced to stories that give us glimpses into the lives of youth across America. The stories represent and act as examples of the two very different groups of youth living in our nation today: children born to parents who are educated, and children born to those who likely only graduated high-school and are struggling to stay afloat economically. There are the rich kids and the poor kids, and, as his book and his research illustrate, the gap between the two continues to grow. National trends regarding rising income inequality, the disappearance of the working-class family, and growing class segregation show that the lives and experiences of rich kids and poor kids are drastically different and continue to veer further and further apart. The subject of his book is the “nationwide increase in class inequality- how the class-based opportunity gap among young people has widened in recent decades” (p. 19) and his thesis is that instead of simply talking about inequality of income among adults, we have to focus on this opportunity gap and work to begin closing it.

Bowles and Gintis argue that education is the reason that this does not happen, as it legitimising class inequality by producing ideologies that justify why this inequality is fair and inevitable. Bowles and Gintis describe education ‘as a giant myth-making machine’ like the myth of meritocracy, which means that it is untrue that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve, that rewards are based on effort and so on. A reason for achieving high income is argued to be determined more from your family and class background rather than ability or educational achievement. This serves the higher classes as it makes it appear that they gained their roles in the workforce by an equal opportunity but in reality, that is not the case, they use this to trick working class pupils to accept inequality. This means that the education system exists not only to allocate and train young people for their future work roles but also to accept the roles they are given and for the bourgeoisie to keep their power.

The founders of America’s universal education system prided themselves in building a system that offered everyone the opportunity to educate themselves in order to become mobile in class hierarchy. If someone is expressing interest in furthering a career, a common tip is to pursue higher education. Education is thought of as the “avenue to social mobility,” (Armstrong 12). However, the United States’ current educational model is contradictory to this premise, as money is arguably necessary to access opportunity.

relatively poor families not only well past the income achieved by their parents but also past the income achieved by many of their peers with more advantaged family backgrounds who did not obtain equivalent education” (Isaacs, Sawhill, & Haskins 34). To put it in another way, obtaining a degree is the best way, perhaps the only way, to possess economic stability. Now, if we look at it from the country’s perspective, education can be part of the solution to the wealth gap, because the occurrence of poverty in the United States is directly related to educational level. A college degree is the ticket to the middle class and beyond. Today, obviously, the idea that everyone should attend to college is indisputable. But there is definitely nothing magical about its price. As higher education institutions keep on rising its tuitions and fees.

The rich people have the money to splurge and they can still maintain a luxurious lifestyle. In the text titled Who Rules America?, Domhoff outlines the opportunities and lifestyle of the upper class. He explains economic inequality through the descriptions of the rich and their actions. As said in the text, “American upper class…unique style of life” (p.253). The kids of the rich attend private schools and receive unconditional treatment to maximize their success. From private tutors to boarding schools, the parents spend money like it is nothing. Meanwhile, offspring’s of the poor attend public schools and do not have the means for extracurricular activities or enrichment programs. The author continues to mention the benefits that the children receive by attending the private institutions and forming alliances in these schools that creates a social circle for the future. As said in the text, “this private system benefits primarily the upper class and provides...networks that will be with them throughout their lives” (p.255). The implications of their children attending private schools is that these children get a better learning experience for their future and will be well prepared. They will be qualified for embracing the world compared to the children of the poor, who received only public education. This form of economic inequality puts the poor at a disadvantage and hinders the success of their

Brown (1997) argues that middle class families impose values onto their children regarding education from a young age; they place high importance on educational qualifications as they are aware that the job market is becoming increasingly competitive (cited Ball and Vincent, 2001). This suggests that middle-class pupils value school and try to get as much as they can out of it, thus have higher levels of attainment than working-class pupils.

In Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, a student’s chances of academic success are greatly influenced by factors such as ‘ parental wealth, occupational status, education and aspirations’ (Argy, 2007:para3,