Chapter 13

Improving Schools for All Children:

The Role of Social Class and Social Status in

Teaching and Learning

 McGraw-Hill/Irwin  ©2012 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.

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The No Child Left Behind Act (2001)

• The most far-reaching, controversial, and potentially expensive effort to reform public education, which includes:o Accountability provisions, mainly accomplished through

repeated testing of all students, especially in reading and matho Uniform standards in all major content areas such that

accountability measures can be effectiveo "Highly qualified" teachers for core subject areaso Competition through charter schools and voucher programso "Adequate yearly progress" by all schools, reported to the

public

 

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Pedagogies: Old and New

• Teachers in schools with significant poverty, urban and rural, are often tempted to “dumb down” the curriculum.

• Attitudes that assume poor children are culturally deprived and can't expected to do high-level work can be counterproductive and even harmful.

• Teaching should remain respectful, exciting, engaging, and challenging.

 

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Roles: Old and New

• Teachers also come from varied social class backgrounds and often bring their class-based knowledge, attitudes, and values with them into the profession just as students do.

• When teachers—regardless of their own class backgrounds—are consciously prepared to be aware of, to think, and act in multicultural ways, they are more likely to be effective in teaching students from diverse backgrounds, including students from various social class backgrounds.

 

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Place of Content Knowledge: Old and New

• School curricula can play a role in preparing students for different roles in society based on their social class.

• Studies reveal a differentiation of actual content by social class along several dimensions:o Emphasis on “advanced” versus “basic” skillso Emphasis on conceptual understandingo Emphasis on range and variety of academic taskso Degree of repetitiono Extent of topic coverageo Attention to “practical” or vocational knowledge

 

 

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Assessment: Old and New

• Evaluation often differs by social class, with higher-class students evaluated on thinking skills, while lower-class students are often evaluated on whether or not they've followed directions or gotten the right answer.

• Lower-class students may be inadequately prepared to do well on standardized tests.

• Assessments for wide social class variation should measure student growth across time.

 

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Perspectives on Social Class and Social Status

• Most Americans believe they live in a classless, egalitarian society.

• American ideology claims that upward mobility is clearly possible through proper attention, diligent effort, and some luck.

• 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.

 

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Definitions of Social Class

• Social class is one kind of 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.

• Traditional U.S. social class markers include:o Family incomeo Prestige of one’s parents' occupationo Prestige of the neighborhood one lives ino The power one has to achieve one’s ends in times of conflicto The level of schooling achieved by the family’s head

 

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• For purposes of analysis, American society can be divided into five social classes:o The upper class or social elite, who have generally inherited

social privilege from otherso The upper middle class—professionals with extensive higher

education o A large middle class—white-collar workers, small business

owners, teachers,  nurses, etc.o A somewhat smaller working class—blue-collar workers,

employees in low-paid service occupations,often with little job security and no benefits

o A lower class—sometimes called the working poor—those who work at low-paying jobs, as well as those who may not work at all; the latter are sometimes called the underclass

 

 

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Social Class and Child-Rearing Practices

• Parents from different class backgrounds emphasize different values when raising their children. For example, working-class parents may stress neatness, obedience, and good manners, while middle-class parents stress curiosity, self-control, and consideration of others.

• Varying social practices may lead to differences in school performance. Working-class students may believe that less is expected of them by their parents, and they may have lower facility with language, leading them to do poorly in school.

 

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Definitions of Social Status

• Social status refers to a hierarchical position in society (or one’s social group) determined not so much by one’s wealth (or lack of it), but by the prestige, social esteem, and/or honor accorded with one within one’s own social milieu.

• One’s status may differ from the viewpoints of different observers; star athletes, for example, may be accorded different status by students and teachers.

 

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The Importance of Teacher Expectations

• Teacher expectation refers to the attributions that teachers make about the future behavior or academic achievement of their students, based on what they presently know about them.

• 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.

 

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Characteristics of a Culturally Responsive Teacher

• Culturally Responsive Teachers:o understand how their learners construct knowledge;o learn about their students’ lives;o are socioculturally conscious;o hold affirming views about diversity;o use appropriate instructional strategies; ando are advocates for all students.

 

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Social Class and School Funding

• School funding in the U.S. is largely funded through local property taxes; thus, school districts where property is highly valued can raise more money to support their schools.

• A number of court cases have been filed disputing the property tax as an equitable way of funding schools. Rulings in these cases have been mixed.

• Rose v. Council for Better Education (1989) significantly changed the way Kentucky schools were funded and operated.

 

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Accountability and the Educational Standards Movement

• Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, the debate about how well our children are learning has continued.

• The National Council on Education Standards and Testing, convened by Congress in 1992, concluded that creating national standards and assessments was both feasible and highly desirable.

• In 1994, the goals from Goals 2000 were written into legislation, the Educate America Act, which awarded states additional money for education and gave them considerable flexibility in how the money could be spent. 

• However, the passage of No Child Left Behind gave the federal government more responsibility over state plans for accountability, largely based on standardized testing.

 

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Standardized Testing

• Standardized testing is based on the assumption that schools have not been adequately teaching basic knowledge.

• Concerned educators and some well-informed politicians question the benefits of standardized tests based on:o A gap between the stated purpose of a test and what it actually

measureso A possibility of cultural bias in the questions on a given testo Questionable uses of standardized testso The narrow approach and application of tests

 

 

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NCLB: Highly Qualified Teachers

•  Highly qualified teachers:o Must hold a bachelor’s degreeo Be certified or licensed by their states on the basis of rigorous

tests in subject matter pedagogyo Veteran teachers or teachers who have been teaching prior to

when the mandate went into effect (the 2005-2009 school year) must demonstrate, in ways determined by each state, their competence in the subjects they teach.

•  In 2004, some provisions for flexibility were introduced to allow for easier recruitment of teachers in some rural and urban schools, and several subject areas such as foreign language, mathematics, and science.

 

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NCLB: Adequate Yearly Progress

• Adequate Yearly Progresso By 2014, all American students will be proficient in all subjects.o Defined by each state in such a way that states can measure

progressive achievements of schools and districts over time, and then report results on an annual basis to school districts and the public.

o Schools that do not meet AYP for 95% of their students or for 95% of students in specified sub-groups for two consecutive years begin receiving a series of increasingly severe sanctions.

 

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Perspectives on Multiple Forms of Assessment: Demand vs. Support

• At the heart of alternative assessment lies the belief that all students can learn. However, some teacher mindsets are more conducive than others.

• In the demand model:o Students are perceived as workers who are obliged to do a

better job.o Students who do not succeed are said to have chosen not to

study or not to have earned a given grade.o Responsibility is removed from the teacher and attention is

deflected away from the curriculum and the context in which learning is supposed to occur.

 

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• In the support model:o The assumption is that students are active contributors to the

learning process.o Teachers are responsible for guiding and stimulating students’

natural curiosity and desire to learn.o Teaching and learning become child- or student-centered.o The goal is to help students build on their desire to make

sense of and become competent in their world.

 

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Guiding Principles of Supportive Assessment

• Assessment should not be overdone, or students will become preoccupied with performance rather than learning.

• The best evidence of educational success is observing the behavior of children.

• In order for students to take risks in learning, they must perceive that the school is a safe and caring place.

• Any responsible discussion about assessment must attend to the quality of the curriculum.

• Students must become part of the discussion in determining the criteria by which their work will be judged and then play a role in that judgment.

 

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Ethical Issues

• Assessment is a subjective process that may turn into bias.

• The official labeling of children and identification of cognitive difficulties happens chiefly in the elementary years. Inadequate or biased assessments can result in over-representation of ethnic and language minorities, which may mark children into their adult lives.