“Social Class in School: Students’ Perspectives”

Ellen Brantlinger

                Schools and peer groups play an important role in developing social roles and shaping a child’s self- perception.  With this knowledge, the consequences of class distinctions, socioeconomic stratification, and conflict, have a negative effect on the outcomes of a child’s success in school and their self-esteem.  Low-income and high-income students are segregated in almost all aspects of daily life; they live in separate neighborhoods and attend different elementary schools.  The information on this type of segregation is important because it plays a role in how students entering school are labeled by their teachers and peers.  For example, low-income students may be labeled as “grits”, and high-income students labeled as “preppies”.  These labels result in long-term social and emotional damage to children from low-income backgrounds.   

                Regardless of their social status, adolescents share views on the causes of poverty and wealth. Over one half of low-income adolescents and 70% of high-income students believe that poverty is caused by personal characteristics within a person’s control.  A group of low-income and high-income adolescents (from ages 13 to 18) were asked open-ended questions to discover their thoughts about social class and schooling.  This study addressed issues including social isolation, views on the causes of wealth and poverty, social class and school status, relations with teachers, and school as a source of stress for low-income students. 

                “Class distinctions and conflict are ever present in the ongoing life of school, and there is a dominant/subordinate delineation in adolescents’ thinking about social classes… school is not a socially neutral setting” (p.4). Low grades, tracking, special education placements, and humiliating interactions with teachers were key factors in the cause of stress for low-income participants, whereas for high-income adolescents, school was a positive and privileging experience.  Students interpreted and equated high intelligence with high-class status and low intelligence was lower class status.  Lower class students had more failing grades, grade-level retentions, lack of extracurricular participation and peer/teacher rejection that resulted in a cycle of low self-esteem and angry reactions to others. 

                Strategies to improve the school climate for alienated and rejected students include promoting integration, encouraging a sense of belonging by creating schools within schools, and increasing student participation in school governance.  “There is widespread acknowledgment that students from various social, ethnic, and racial backgrounds differ in the extent to which their performance meets school standards, but accepted school practices meant to address such differences result in segregation, differentiation, and humiliation for many children” (p.5).  The significance of this information can lead to reforms aimed at reducing the impact of social stratification by social class in schools.

 

Reference:

 

Brantlinger, E. (1995).  Social Class in school: Students’ perspectives.  PDK International.  Originally retrieved October 10,2004, from

     http://www.pdkintl.org/edred/resbul14.htm.

 

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