Hidden Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Class

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Goudeau ◽  
Jean-Claude Croizet
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
School Contexts ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Regular Classrooms ◽  
Working Class Students

Three studies conducted among fifth and sixth graders examined how school contexts disrupt the achievement of working-class students by staging unfair comparison with their advantaged middle-class peers. In regular classrooms, differences in performance among students are usually showcased in a way that does not acknowledge the advantage (i.e., higher cultural capital) experienced by middle-class students, whose upbringing affords them more familiarity with the academic culture than their working-class peers have. Results of Study 1 revealed that rendering differences in performance visible in the classroom by having students raise their hands was enough to undermine the achievement of working-class students. In Studies 2 and 3, we manipulated students’ familiarity with an arbitrary standard as a proxy for social class. Our results suggest that classroom settings that make differences in performance visible undermine the achievement of the students who are less familiar with academic culture. In Study 3, we showed that being aware of the advantage in familiarity with a task restores the performance of the students who have less familiarity with the task.

scholarly journals Time and money explain social class differences in students’ social integration at university.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Integration ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Exclusion Effect

Working-class students tend to be less socially integrated at university than middle-class students (Rubin, 2012a). The present research investigated two potential reasons for this working-class social exclusion effect. First, working-class students may have fewer finances available to participate in social activities. Second, working-class students tend to be older than middle-class students and, consequently, they are likely to have more work and/or childcare commitments. These additional commitments may prevent them from attending campus which, in turn, reduces their opportunity for social integration. These predictions were confirmed among undergraduate students at an Australian university (N = 433) and a USA university (N = 416). Strategies for increasing working-class students’ social integration at university are discussed.

“I Need Help!” Social Class and Children’s Help-Seeking in Elementary School

2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (6) ◽  
pp. 862-882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McCrory Calarco
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Unequal Opportunities ◽  
Do So

What role do children play in education and stratification? Are they merely passive recipients of unequal opportunities that schools and parents create for them? Or do they actively shape their own opportunities? Through a longitudinal, ethnographic study of one socioeconomically diverse, public elementary school, I show that children’s social-class backgrounds affect when and how they seek help in the classroom. Compared to their working-class peers, middle-class children request more help from teachers and do so using different strategies. Rather than wait for assistance, they call out or approach teachers directly, even interrupting to make requests. In doing so, middle-class children receive more help from teachers, spend less time waiting, and are better able to complete assignments. By demonstrating these skills and strategies, middle-class children create their own advantages and contribute to inequalities in the classroom. These findings have implications for theories of cultural capital, stratification, and social reproduction.

scholarly journals Social Class, Identity and the ‘Good’ Student: Negotiating University Culture

2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Pearce ◽  
Barry Down ◽  
Elizabeth Moore
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
University Culture ◽  
University Experiences ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
The University

Through the use of narrative portraits this paper discusses social class and identity, as working-class university students perceive them. With government policy encouraging wider participation rates from under-represented groups of people within the university sector, working-class students have found themselves to be the objects of much research. Working-class students are, for the most part, studied as though they are docile bodies, unable to participate in the construction of who they are, and working-class accounts of university experiences are quite often compared to the middle-class norms. This paper explores how working-class students see themselves within the university culture. Working-class students' voices and stories form the focus of this paper, in which the language of ‘disadvantage’ is dealt with and the ideologies of class identity explored.

scholarly journals Age differences explain social class differences in students’ friendship at university: Implications for transition and retention.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Social Class Difference

The present research tested the hypotheses that (a) working-class students have fewer friends at university than middle-class students, and (b) this social class difference occurs because working-class students tend to be older than middle-class students. A sample of 376 first-year undergraduate students from an Australian university completed an online survey that contained measures of social class and age as well as quality and quantity of actual and desired friendship at university. Consistent with predictions, age differences significantly mediated social class differences in friendship. The Discussion focuses on potential policy implications for improving working-class students’ friendships at university in order to improve their transition and retention.

scholarly journals Class Diversity and Youth Volunteering in the United Kingdom

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 95S-113S ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Dean
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Young People ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Diverse Populations ◽  
Widening Access ◽  
The United Kingdom

This article utilizes Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and cultural capital to offer some explanation as to why there is a lack of class diversity in formal volunteering in the United Kingdom. Recent studies have shown that participation in volunteering is heavily dependent on social class revolving around a highly committed middle-class “civic core” of volunteers. This article draws on original qualitative research to argue that the delivery of recent youth volunteering policies has unintentionally reinforced participation within this group, rather than widening access to diverse populations including working-class young people. Drawing on interviews with volunteer recruiters, it is shown that the pressure to meet targets forces workers to recruit middle-class young people whose habitus allows them to fit instantly into volunteering projects. Furthermore, workers perceive working-class young people as recalcitrant to volunteering, thereby reinforcing any inhabited resistance, and impeding access to the benefits of volunteering.

Tightening bonds and professional access

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Payne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Participation Rate ◽  
Student Diversity ◽  
Social And Cultural Capital ◽  
Occupational Outcome ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Personal Qualities

This chapter extends the sceptical discussion of meritocracy to higher education, and access to employment. The professions’ partially successful attempt to achieve a closed shop restricts entry by those from less advantaged homes, and the less academically skilled of their own children. Data on qualifications and ‘personal qualities’ required for recruitment show detailed connections between social and cultural capital, and occupational outcome, are complicated. Higher education is status stratified: not all degrees are equal. The Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (‘HEIPR’) exaggerates the number of graduates; other statistical sources do not include data on social class. Increasing student diversity does not automatically increase mobility: working class students continue to be disadvantaged once they enter university. Meritocratic and individualistic explanations of mobility are inadequate.

Paradise Lost? Patterns and Precarity in Working-Class Academic Narratives

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Deborah M. Warnock
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Student Debt ◽  
Survivor Guilt ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Impostor Syndrome

Through an analysis of eight collections of autoethnographic essays written by working-class academics and published over the span of thirty-two years, I identify stable themes and emergent patterns in lived experiences. Some broad and stable themes include a sense of alienation, lack of cultural capital, encountering stereotypes and microaggressions, experiencing survivor guilt and the impostor syndrome, and struggling to pass in a middle-class culture that values ego and networking. Two new and troubling patterns are crippling amounts of student debt and the increased exploitation of adjunct labor. I emphasize the importance of considering social class background as a form of diversity in academia and urge continued research on the experiences of working-class academics.

scholarly journals Mastery of Cultural Capital, Social Class Segregation of High Schools and Winning at Sport

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pat Rubio Goldsmith ◽  
Richard D. Abel
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Capital Theory ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Cultural Capital Theory ◽  
Resistance Theory ◽  
Using Data

According to cultural capital theory, middle-class families cultivate their children’s cultural capital to promote their social mobility through success in school. We advance the explanatory power of the theory by measuring cultural capital in terms of mastery rather than participation or attendance using data on more than 12 thousand schools about their success in interscholastic athletics. We find that predominantly middle-class schools win more contests and by larger margins than economically integrated and predominantly working-class schools. The margins of victory become larger as the social class differences between the opposing schools grows. We also find evidence consistent with resistance theory because predominantly working class schools also experience success, albeit relatively modest. Our findings have implications for cultural capital theory, resistance theory, and our methods for studying them. By measuring mastery of cultural capital, we identify large social class differences among participants in cultural capital and a close alignment between middle-class culture and school culture.

Seeking Attention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McCrory Calarco
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Personal Connections ◽  
Working Class Students

Chapter 5 examines social class differences in children’s efforts to seek attention from teachers. Regardless of social class, students wanted—even craved—attention. Middle-class and working-class students differed in the types of behaviors for which they sought attention and the strategies they used to get teachers’ attention. Middle-class students sought attention for their unique talents, skills, and experiences, and they did so in overt ways. Working-class students instead sought attention primarily for their commonalities with and helpfulness to others. They also did so in more oblique ways and only when it was clear that teachers had time to provide attention. Those class differences in attention-seeking had meaningful consequences. Through their more frequent and more difficult to ignore bids for attention, and through their success in persuading teachers to grant those requests, middle-class students had more opportunities to share stories with, receive validation from, and make personal connections with their teachers.

Seeking Assistance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McCrory Calarco
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Working Class Students

Chapter 3 highlights social class differences in children’s efforts to seek assistance from teachers. When confronting challenges at school, most middle-class children readily sought assistance from teachers. They were also proactive and persistent in making requests. Working-class children instead tried to deal with problems on their own. Although they occasionally asked for help from teachers, they did so when it was apparent that requests were welcome and would not result in reprimand (e.g., when teachers approached them to offer assistance). Working-class students were also less insistent in making requests. They raised their hands rather than calling out or approaching teachers directly, and they rarely asked follow-up questions, even when they were still confused or struggling. Those differences in assistance-seeking also had real consequences. Middle-class students received more help than did their working-class peers. As a result, they were often able to complete their work more quickly and more accurately.

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