Social Class Students With Separate Resources For Meeting Teachers

Getting an education is an important part of every child and teenager’s life, but not all get the same type of education. In Jean Anyon’s essay “From Social Class And The Hidden Curriculum Of Work”, she explains and talks about the four levels of education. According to Jean Anyon, the four levels of education are the Working-Class School, Middle-Class School, Affluent Professional School, and Executive Elite School. From my experience, I attended a working-class school named Santa Ana High School located in a low income and high crime neighborhood of the city of Santa Ana, CA. In the author’s words, a working-class school is, “A school for students with parents with low income jobs, and with an income at or below $12,000”(Anyon 138). I believe got a working-class education because we rarely used the textbooks in class, learned through common core, and taught an education from average standard courses. Also, I believe I attended a working-class school because my high school education just taught me the basic skills of attaining a minimum wage job, whereas in professional school, or elite school students are taught knowledge and skills that lead to higher wage jobs. My experience relates to author Jean Anyon’s essay because I felt the working-class school category matched my high school education. For example, in the essay she states, “In working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice”(Anyon 140). Author Jean Anyon also states, “Available textbooks are not always used, and the teachers often prepare their own dittos or put work examples on the board”(Anyon 140). Both of these examples from the essay relate to my high school education because we would often do assignments created by the teacher rather than do assignments provided by the school textbooks. From my high school education, I received a working-class education because although we did have new buildings, new technology, and a clean school campus, the high school was located in a low income, and dangerous neighborhood, and students received an education from average standard courses. In my opinion, I received a working-class

Social Class and Education”. It opens by discussing research conducted in the 1960’s in an effort to identify factors contributing to differences in the academic achievement of Whites and Blacks (Banks & Banks, 2013). Researchers hypothesized that the achievement gaps were mainly the result of disparities in school resources and characteristics, but found that there is a high correlation between achievement and socioeconomic status (SES) (Banks & Banks, 2013). Furthermore, attention is drawn to the class stratification which exists in our educational system and works to maintain inequality through exclusion strategies such as ability grouping and tracking (Banks & Banks, 2013). Evidence of the correlation between social class and

     Why do some groups not succeed in academic settings? One theory brought up in “Understanding inequality” suggests that the gap in the socioeconomic status drives the inequalities in the school system. The low and working class have less time and income to intervene with schooling. This means they have less time to meet with teachers, hire tutors, and provide continuous transportation. Therefore the lower class can’t possibly compete with the middle and upper classes. Angela Valenzuela gives the accounts of some Hispanic students’ experiences in school. These students feel that it is the inferior nature of the schools in the US that contribute to the low success

How does parent involvement affect children’s academic success in low socioeconomic areas? Does socioeconomic status and parental involvement play a major role in the academic success of teens? Many reasons can contribute to the low level of success of some teens. The thrilling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, provides readers with two scenarios, one resulting in success, and one resulting in failure. Teen’s who are raised in low socioeconomic areas, and who have a minimal level of parental involvement, tend to perform poorly in academic settings.

Despite students possessing a variety of needs and learning styles, the education system was designed for a “one-size-fits-all” in an attempt to meet every child’s needs and abilities. However, this is not the common perception by those who investigate further into the diverse environments of numerous, differing schools. Jean Anyon, in “Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work,”argues that the style of education students receive is decided by the social class of their community and is not uniform when concerning students of all types. Instead, working class, middle class, affluent professionals, and executive elites experience significantly dissimilar school environments. Not only are they treated differently, and taught differently, but they’re prepared for a certain future that corresponds with their social class. Anyon’s synthesis is validated by my own experience at the Windham schools in Willimantic, where the demographics of the school corresponded with the confining, restrictive, and strict teaching style described by Anyon as ‘working class’. My account depicts the harsh reality of how my disadvantaged community suffers through a school system that does not prepare them for a future beyond a life of blue-collar jobs. However, my experience also disproves Anyon’s model through several details in the style of learning, such as going out of a textbook, or also being graded on a right answer.

Ever wonder what kind of education we obtained or what kind of education children are receiving? According to Jean Anyon, “...the ‘hidden curriculum’ of schoolwork is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production in a particular way. Differing curricular, pedagogical, and pupil evaluation practices emphasize different cognitive and behavioral skill in each social setting and thus contribute to the development in the children of certain potential relationships to physical and symbolic capital, to authority, and to the process of work” (151). Therefore, Anyon believes that schools are not focusing on giving children the proper education and instead they provide the education based on the community’s social-class. Based on “‘I Just Wanna Be Average’” by Mike Rose and my academic experience both stories give interesting points of views regarding the type of education that was given. In Rose’s story, Rose is a young man who lived in a working class community but attended a middle class high school. Rose received a working class education but soon a new teacher arrived and changed his academic experience. In my personal experience, I grew up in a middle class neighborhood and received a middle class and a few affluent professional schooling, but moved to a working class community and started to receive a working class education. Anyon’s claim would complicate based on Rose’s story and on the education I have received based on the areas where I have lived. Every

Often times we seek motivation from those that are more successful than us. We put them on a pedestal and aspire to one day be a role model for younger generations after us. What we fail to acknowledge however is the time and hard work they put in before us. We overlook their journey and therefore miss details that could play a major impact on our path to success. Details such as their upbringing, social class, and education are things we should take a closer peek at when comparing their lives to ours. In her book Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau follows Caucasian and African American subjects from poor, working, and middle class families to understand the influence of socioeconomic class and race on adolescents raised in various households. After studying her subjects over the course of several years in their homes, schools, and extracurricular activities, she comes to conclude the greater influence socioeconomic class has on the skills acquired by children during their childhood.

This study sought to answer three research questions. Although the questions have been presented in previous chapters, they are worth presenting again.

As Jean Anyon states in “From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, cause the different educate level of the family, the difference between the community as well the different teachers all are the biggest influence to make vast differences between each of the same subjects within each school, as well as the relationship between the students and the teachers. Anyon points out that lower income families working with a less skilled job, so their children are taught to get a simple class and go to work as soon as they can. As a teacher who give lesson to those students, they don't really make an effort to make sure that the students understood completely what they were learning and getting the right answer at the time. (167) The middle-class schools consisted of parents with skilled jobs, the students were taught to follow directions with the goal of getting the right answers, and teachers will make sure that the students understood what they were learning, and students were encouraged to speak their minds.

The purpose of this review is to narrate and provide the details of published academic studies about the

This chapter sets out the results of survey, the analysis, and critical discussion of the findings. The data have been collected from 80 respondents. The analysis and discussion are supported by the relevant literature from Chapter 2 in order to ascertain if the findings disprove or support the existing literature.

The articles for this review come from recent studies, and will cite a few important historical data where relevant.

Introduction and Rationale for Conducting the Research - Include in this section a brief review of pertinent literature and any available preliminary data. (1 page maximum)

These findings are evident in the studies conducted by Hembree and Dessart (1986), Rich (1990), Ruthven (1990), Alexander (1993), Pavia (1996), Porzio (1997), and Abalajon (2001). A few studies, however, specifically that of

Chapter – II reviews the available literature and concepts used in the study. Here, various earlier studies have been discussed elaborately in order to know the research gap for the study.