Objectives:

When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Describe the structure of social classes in the United States.
2. Identify relationships between social class and school success.
3. Identify relationships between social class, race and ethnicity, and school achievement.
4. Describe the relationships between home environment, social class, and educational achievement.
5. Describe the claims of hereditarians, environmentalists, and synthesizers in accounting for educational achievement patterns.
6. Identify school-related reasons for low achievement among students with low socioeconomic status.
7. Describe the conclusions of earlier and recent research on whether schools equalize opportunity.
8. Describe the traditional and revisionist positions concerning the role of schools in U.S. society.

Focus and Refocus Questions:

When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions from your textbook:

Focus Questions

• What is the relationship between social class and success in the educational system?
• After accounting for social class, are race and ethnicity associated with school achievement?
• How do environment and heredity affect low achievement levels?
• What are the major reasons for low achievement among students with low socioeconomic status?
• What is the role of home and family environment in encouraging or discouraging high achievement?
• How does the relationship between social class and school achievement affect the national goal of providing equal educational opportunities for all students?

Refocus Questions

• Have you visited schools where many of the students were from a different social class from most students in schools you attended? What differences did you observe? How do you think these differences would affect achievement?
• If the middle-income segment of the population is shrinking while the low-income segment is growing, chances are good that, as a teacher, you will have low-income students in your classes. What are you doing to prepare yourself to effectively teach children from all social classes?
• How could you, as a teacher, make low-income parents feel comfortable talking to you about things they could do at home to support their child's school achievement?
• How might you, as a teacher, establish a classroom environment that can facilitate full development of a broad range of student abilities?
• Which of the reasons for the low achievement of many low-income students seem most important to you? Can you identify other possible explanations that are not listed in this chapter? (Hint: Many low-income parents move around a lot.)
• Where does your position on equality of opportunity best fit-with a traditionalist, revisionist, or intermediate viewpoint? Why?