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Schooling in Relation to Classes A variety of factors affect the quality of schooling that children receive based on their position in the social hierarchy of classes. These classes generally are summed into what is known as the upper class, middle class, and lower class. Factors that influence the quality of education that these classes reciveve include child rearing, social capital, and schooling.

Childrearing

Childrearing is defined as "the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood." Childrearing is a major factor in the development of children in each of the classes, and is largely important for their concept of the organization of everyday life, language styles and use, parental relationship to institutions, amount of involvement (love, care, and warmth), and social reproduction in general. Child development beings very young and the manner in which the child is raised affects the way they mature, and ultimately develop. There are four types of child rearing practices; authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and un-involved. Based on the position in the social hierarchy, different methods of childrearing are utilized.

Types of Parenting

Type	Level of Nuturance from Parent to Child	Level of Communication between Parent and Child	Level of Expectations of Parent for Child	Level of Parent control over child
Authoritarian	Low	Low	High	High
Authoritative	High	Moderate	High	High
Permissive	Low	Low	Low	Low
Un-involved	High	Moderate	Low	Low

Upper Class

Children in the upper class of society are taught at a young age to be culturally enriched, and to have a strong character. Both the parents of the children and the schools they attend affect the upbringing and development of the children. Parents place special emphasis on their children's academic, professional and social skills; Parents provide to them the knowledge of upper class manners and habits, language and style of speaking, and intimate knowledge of the on goings of the upper class. Parents of this class bring up their children in what is known as the authoritative parenting style, where they set general guidelines for children to follow, and expectations for etiquette, but allow their children to remain autonomous and independent, so that they may develop into independent and critical thinkers. Since upper class parents have great enough funds to make sure to expose their children to many diverse and enriching experiences, children are given higher amount of cultural capital. Once the child is of sufficient age, they are often sent off to prestigious boarding schools, where the main focus is to reinforce the polite manners that parents instill; an upper class woman expressed this idea to sociologist Diana Kendall saying, "[schooling is] a very long term investment in a child's life...representing something they will have with them forever. It enforces the polite training [the children] receive at home." Parents maintain a close involvement with school, so that they can be intimately related to their child's educational progress, as schooling is highly important for social mobility and standing. Schooling is used to instill polite and mannered behavior, but also to develop the characters of the children; making them individuals capable of self reliance in the competitive world of life, and to have values and beliefs that correspond with these notions. This is important because the schools and the parents believe that they are helping to shape the future prominent members of society, corporate leaders, and politicians- in short those who will be a controlling force behind society, and so desire that the aspirations of the upper class remain consistent.

Middle Class

The Middle Class consists of the upper middle class and the middle class (also known as the lower middle class) both of which have multiple common notions and ideals, and desires for the future of their children, the major distinction stemming from level of education, and thus resulting in the economic level each family has. This idea is explained by a study done by Hong Xiao where he found that,

"...[a] study of parental values based on a representative sample of Americans 18 and over indicated that the more education parents had, the more likely they were to value autonomy, the capacity to make informed, uncontrolled decisions, and to want such conditions for their children. In particular, women in positions that were privileged and exhibited autonomy...were especially likely to value autonomy and transmit this value to their children."

Upper Middle Class

Parents of the Upper Middle Class generally raise their children in much the same way that parents of the upper class, with the exception of a difference in the amount of funding the family has to indulge in enriching experiences for their children. Parents of the upper middle class bring up their children in the authoritative style, much like the upper class, however, the parents of the children are more directly involved with their children and try to bring their children up in a warm, nurturing, and supportive environment. Parents exert some control, but only do so to serve as general guidelines that will keep their children safe, and instill trust from their children. Parents also highly value independent thinking, as well as self-reliance, and self-confidence and so try to pass on these traits to their children. Since parents of the upper class better finances to spend on education, housing, and luxury items they can afford higher quality and cultural human capital. Parents in this class have more effective social capital due to familial and community ties. Parents of upper middle class are more educated and have greater experience with middle class means which means they have more effective guidance for children. A study done by David Demo and Martha Cox reflects active and close parent involvement with children. “…One review of investigations involving young children in the 1990s indicated that the majority of the many studies on the attachment between parents, particularly mothers and their children, has involved the upper middle class families.” Parents of this class also believe in helping their children understand that the world is complicated and will take skill to survive, and so parents emphasize education as a very important component of social mobility and so make sure to help their children learn and understand their school material more effectively, and put special emphasis on cultivating their child’s ability to express themselves. In addition, parents also make sure to have an established connection and relationship with their child’s teacher, so that if the need for additional help arise the parents can seek it out. To make sure to cultivate well rounded individuals, parents of this class try to expose their children to a variety of capitals that will help them with life, parents develop their child’s human capital by making sure to sign their children up for athletic teams, music lessons, dance lessons, and art activities, parents develop social capital by making sure that any physical, psychological, or behavioral problems are helped and remedied by professionals and experts. Horvat, Weinger, and Lareau found an example of the measures parents go through to make sure their children develop social capital properly in their research when they encountered,

“…[a] mother who learned that her son’s teacher felt he had a learning disability, the mother, with a Master’s in Clinical Psychology, brought in her own psychologist , who contested the teacher’s evaluation, concluding the boy had above average intelligence and abilities. School officials were [then] forced to reevaluate the child’s situation”

Parents of the upper middle class also bring up their children to have a sense of entitlement- wherein the child is that they have the right to question others opinions and make sure that the child’s opinion will influence a course of action taken, and ultimately will effect the outcome of any decision or situation.

Middle Class/ Lower Middle Class

Typically, the lower middle class and the working class are compounded into the working class in general, though they are two separate entities, both with unique identifying characteristics. Parents in the lower working class still maintain principles of the upper middle class, in which the lower middle class still prizes autonomy and self-reliance. However, this class is sometimes subject to what if known as neglectful parenting, where the parents feel that their children should not need the nurturing and attention that parents of the upper middle class give. Parents of the lower middle class are also known to advocate the “sink-or –swim” approach to parenting, where in an effort to make their children have a sense of self-reliance, that the parents believe necessary to navigate and survive the adult life, children receive no support from their parents, no matter how great their need or struggle. In a study done by Elliot Currie, he concluded that parents of this class had a strong conviction that,

“… they should seldom help their children and that no matter how great the youth’s vunerability, the preeminent importance of individual’s competitive struggle for success required them to handle life’s demands and difficulties by themselves. These children received little or none of the nurturing support and guidance that many [upper] middle class peers obtained.”

Parents of the lower middle class are also less likely to teach their children to have a sense of entitlement, and are not as likely to seek out any additional help for their children, or interact with others on their behalf, believing that the child should do so themselves.

Working Class

Time-out, painting by Carl Larsson

There are characteristics of child rearing that are typical for middle-class parents. They tend to put an emphasize on the importance of following rules and respecting elders. They are also likely to resort to physical punishment, and value conformity and externally imposed rules. Parents use directives when speaking with their children, using phrases such as "stop," or "eat your dinner, now". These demands leave no room for discussion. Children generally not encouraged to express themselves. Middle class families are likely to engage in outside activities such as going to museums or a park. For the working-class, a more common outside activity is visiting a relative's house where children will socialize with cousins or other relatives their age. They emphasize hanging out at home where children will typically watch television or play video games. Working-class families are likely to view social networking differently than other classes. They see it as self-serving, a situation where individuals make contacts to serve selfish ends and as taking advantage of others. Consequences of these traits for working-class children are that they matured in a narrow social setting, receive fewer resources, and feel less entitlement.

Lower Class

Parents of the lower class are generally uneducated and incapable of giving their child an advantage of any sort of valuable capital that the parents of the upper, middle, and working classes are able to. Children are taught to depend on their family, both internal and extended, for social capital and support, and the parents of the lower class teach their children to have a realistic view of the world and the hardships that will be present. Parents of this class typically take a totalitarian or permissive/democratic approach to childrearing. Parents of this class are subject to working long hours, and to have little time for breaks, because of this they have little to no interaction with their child’s teacher and so cannot seek help for their child if it is needed and do not instill in their children a sense of entitlement, which also leaves their child at a disadvantage when needing help in school, as they were never taught any means by which to seek it out, let alone know that there is a resource there to seek out for them.

Totalitarian parents are more likely to be controlling, resort to more physical punishment for the breaking of rules, and provide little to no warmth, support, or nurturing qualities. In a study done by Karen Seccombe, she found that totalitarian parents typically result out of financial and psychological stresses of poverty.

Conversely, permissive/democratic parents typically try to bring up their children with warmth, and try to make sure to pay close attention to their child’s emotional stability and try to support them emotionally. Permissive/ democratic parents are also less likely to resort to overtly physical punishment that totalitarian parents take part in. In permissive/ democratic childrearing families resiliency is highly promoted, as the parents believe that this characteristic is important for their children as they try to emerge in the adult world, as well as providing some means to have access to social mobility.

Education Among the Classes

Education in America is historically thought of as the "great equalizer." It is said that no matter the background, children can receive a quality education that will help them to attain employment success. An examination of the classes based on child rearing, social ties, and schooling reveals how social capital can make or break the educational and occupational success on an individual.

The Middle Class

Citizens categorized under the American middle-class give education a great importance, and value success in education as one of the chief factors in establishing the middle-class life. Parents place a strong emphasis on the significance of a quality education and its effects on success later in life. The best way to understand education through the eyes of middle-class citizens would be through their process of social reproduction as middle-class parents breed their own offspring to become successful members of the middle-class. This process can best be seen through three key elements: childhood, schooling, and networking as members of the middle-class consciously use their available sources of capital to prepare their children for the adult world.

Childhood

The middle-class childhood is most prominently characterized by an authoritative parenting approach with a combination of parental warmth, support and control. Parents set some rules establishing limits, but overall this approach creates a greater sense of trust, security, and self-confidence. Though not every middle-class family fits under such a specific, yet broad definition, this style of parenting reflects greatly the middle-class attitude toward childrearing. Teach your children through an active role as parent, which includes a relatively positive parent/child relationship, where the parent plays an active role in the child’s life, making sure to be there for emotional support and guidance in order to shape one’s children into proper, hardworking middle-class citizens.

In addition to an authoritative parenting style, middle-class parents provide their children with valuable sources of capital. By spending a lot of time helping their children learn to express themselves effectively, middle-class parents are equipping their children with cultural capital. In a study done by sociologist Annette Lareau, she uses an example of nine-year-old Alex, a middle-class child at the doctor’s office getting his regular check-up. Alex's mother has suggested he start thinking of a few questions to ask. When the doctor mentions a confusing term to Alex, his parental guidance provides him with the confidence to ask questions and assert himself, whereby he proceeds in conversation with the docter, offering up his own opinions and even putting to test the doctor's. Middle-class parents want their children to understand and appreciate the life provided to them in a complicated and sometimes threatening modern world, to appreciate that living well requires a careful study of this world, and do this by painstakingly explaining the reasoning for the decisions and orders they issue.

Valuing the importance of networking, as outlined below, middle-class parents provide human capital to their children by frequently singing up boys and girls for various adult-run activities, such as soccer, dance, or music lessons; sometimes having as many as three or four per week or even more. These activities provide children with several social networks in addition to school or church. They also give parents a chance to further their own networks, often in order to spring forward the interests of their children. Such interests of social networking parents take human capital and turn it into social capital as they either directly intervene on their children’s behalf or locate friends, colleagues, other parents or hired professionals to help solve physical, psychological, or legal problems their children face. Middle-class families utilize their capital resources in order to maintain or develop further their status as members of the middle-class, often hoping to rise to the upper-middle or upper-classes.

Through such sources of capital as mentioned above, children from middle-class families develop a sense of entitlement. A result of the investments in capital provided and encouraged by parents, middle-class children are far more likely than their working-class or lower-class counterparts to feel this sense of entitlement.

Schooling

Probably the most important part of middle-class childrearing is the preparation of children to be successful in school. Following the sense of entitlement given to middle-class students from their parents, going to college is an assumption. The striking majority of middle-class children have no reason to question the thought of going to college; never an option, but always an assumption that a college degree is a prerequisite to success in life. This thought can be seen even more so from parents with higher education, whose greater appreciation for autonomy leads them to want the same for their children.

Following in the trend of middle-class parents to take advantage of their capital in order to secure the future of their children, middle-class families choose their housing based on the school quality in the area. This creates two problems, one with the middle-class and another with the public schooling systems. In order to get the best education for their children, parents will specifically move into wealthier neighborhoods to ensure their child’s place in the better school, even if the housing situation is too expensive for them. This creates an acceleration of debt in middle-class families. As a result of middle-class families who steer clear of the poorer school districts, a "savage inequality" is created in public schools, where wealthier districts thrive off from no shortage of funding, but poorer districts continue to stay under-resourced and underfunded.

Parents of middle-class children make use of their social capital when it comes to their children’s education as they seek out other parents and teachers for advice. Some parents even develop regular communication with their child’s teachers, asking for regular reports on behavior and grades. When problems do occur, middle-class parents are quick to “enlist the help of professionals when they feel their children need such services."

The middle-class parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling underlines their recognition of its importance. Some would even argue that the middle-class is the key to a better educated nation.

As mentioned above, middle-class families value the significance of getting a quality education all the way through college. They stress the importance of college either as preparation for the job world or as a foundation for post-graduate training. However, middle-class parents have become increasingly concerned about their children getting into the college of their choice. The fierce competition to get into the most prestigious colleges rises each year as upper-class and upper-middle-class parents take preparations to ensure their children’s success. While the upper levels of society use their resources to make sure their own child have secured spots for their future through the leagues of high-ranked colleges and universities, non-affluent students are left behind. This includes most middle-class families, who send their children to state schools and universities or community colleges because their resources only extend so far. Other middle-class parents who have been preparing their children for college since preschool, can take advantage of academic achievement scholarships to pay for their child’s higher education. Elite schools, such as Harvard, Yale and other Ivy League schools, boast of diversity, but really only those with the financial capital can see it as a reality. Such trends in higher education reveal that social reproduction dominates the society. Even children from the middle-class cannot overstretch their capital boundaries and will likely use their own higher education background to reassure their spot in the middle-class, rather than move upward socially.

Networking

The middle-class understands that in order to fully take advantage of the middle-class life, it’s all about who you know. The middle-class often provides its members with access to potentially helpful family members, friends, and community individuals and groups as well as various professionals or experts that the lower classes either cannot connect to or cannot afford. Doob reminds us that “middle-class people are joiners—open to information and influence from various members of their class” (page number here). What he means by this is that members of the middle-class are far more likely to reach out for help from other middle-class families than individuals from lower classes who either don’t have access to such networks or do not feel confident enough to look for them.

The Working-Class

Education is a large contributing factor to the continuing social reproduction in the working-class. In order to examine the how education is different for working-class children compared to other classes, one must first look at how they are brought up and their social ties.

There are characteristics of child rearing that are typical for middle-class parents. They tend to put an emphasize on the importance of following rules and respecting elders. They are also likely to resort to physical punishment, and value conformity and externally imposed rules. Parents use directives when speaking with their children, using phrases such as "stop," or "eat your dinner, now". These demands leave no room for discussion. Children generally not encouraged to express themselves. Middle class families are likely to engage in outside activities such as going to museums or a park. For the working-class, a more common outside activity is visiting a relative's house where children will socialize with cousins or other relatives their age. They emphasize hanging out at home where children will typically watch television or play video games. Working-class families are likely to view social networking differently than other classes. They see it as self-serving, a situation where individuals make contacts to serve selfish ends and as taking advantage of others. Consequences of these traits for working-class children are that they matured in a narrow social setting, receive fewer resources, and feel less entitlement.

Elementary Education

The working-class has fewer financial and non-financial resources than the middle class, and because of this they are less successful than the middle class in communicating with their children and/or relating to their teachers. The late 19th century showed conflict between working-class parents and teachers on punishment policies. Physical punishment generally preferred by working-class parents was becoming opposed by teachers and administrators. At the same time Italian immigrants opposed schooling for their children, especially girls who were suppose to be focused on getting married, and producing and taking care of their families. As a result, children left school early, and developed a bad opinion toward education.

A problem some working class neighborhoods experience is middle class families who live in these areas and enroll their children in schools outside the community. In Greenpoint-Williamsburg, an area of Brooklyn, New York, middle class families living in this area were enrolling their children in schools in Manhattan and other areas with “better” schools. In this area it is require that children attend their local schools for elementary and middle education, then attend their choice of secondary education facility. Middle class parents are able to avoide this restriction by applying for private or gifted programs in the schools they desire. Their reasons for rejecting local schools are the schools “teaching to the test,” overcrowding, and the school not allowing tours of the facility. This creates problems in the local schools whose populations are mostly working-class and low-income families, they include loss of public education money, and the segregation of social classes among the children in the local schools. Segregation of the classes diminishes social integration and the formation of social networks within the community that the working-class children can use to advance their social capital and there for their lives in a variety of ways.

Secondary Education

Christopher Doob states that many working class children find themselves in vocation education tracks preparing them for manual labor, and is characterized as preparation for "neck down" jobs. Yet, criticisms are widely spread between the positive and negative sides of vocational programs. About 16 percent of secondary school courses are career centered. A study following eighth graders from 1988 to 2000 found that those students who took part in vocational training courses found better jobs, spent more time employed, and earned more money than those who applied without the training. In Massachusetts, the high school drop out rate is 3.4%, but for vocational schools in the state it is half that, as reported by Project Dropout. Students continue to take regular academic courses, and have to pass their state standardized test to graduate, while at the same time gaining outside emergence that regular high schools do not usually provide. In New Jersey 75% of vocational graduates go on to secondary education. There are two usual reasons for opposing vocational schools: one is that they are a place where schools send unruly children, the other that they sent students on a specific career path that diminishes their opportunities. Educators who oppose technical schools believe that a general education is more beneficial.

Higher Education

"Generally working-class students' chances at attending college are fairly limited". Even if they are set on the path toward college it is goal that will be difficult to achieve. The first "wall" they are likely to come up against is a low sense of entitlement. Doob states that there are there there factors that contribute to the working-class having a low sense of entitlement : Middle class peers that display the convention that working-class individuals don’t belong in college, parents who lack the knowledge about applying to college and the funds to help pay for it, and high school councilors and teachers who feel working-class students are not college material.

Renny Christopher identifies as a class division, “first-tier selective admissions schools and second-tier, open registration, regional two and four year colleges”. He states that the first-tier creates the professional material class, and second-tier creates the academically skilled, manageable class. He first looks at the facts, a 2001 U.S. department of education report stated that 54% students who parents did not go to college, will themselves go to college. It also states that first- generation students have a lower rate of finishing their bachelor’s degree. Twice as likely to leave before their second year and less likely to return. Though this difference didn’t exist at two-year colleges. The statistics suggest that some factors for discouragement only exist at the four-year level. From the information we can also interpret that the first generation students he speaks about consists mostly of working-class students, this is consistent with the low self entitlement that Doob talks about. Christopher finds that working-class students in college are set at a disadvantage because they don't know how to "work the system" like their middle class counterparts. They also feel unwelcome, and are afraid of their finical disadvantage being found out. One of the largest obstacles one in the college setting is that their professors don’t know how to teach the working-class, let alone know how to help them deal with the culture shock of an “academic world.” Working-class students are also faced with academic language, something that they wouldn’t be familiar with.

A solution posed to help working-class students acclimate into the college setting is collaborative and active learning techniques vs. competitive and lecture. This is a popular technique being taught to college education majors who plan to work with high school students. Collaborative teaching is considered beneficial because it would take into consideration the benefits of student-centered learning. This technique is based in active learning which would help working-class students take the skills they have and transfer them into a learning environment.

The Poor

Many critics assume that poor parents are unconcerned with their child's schooling. However, most of the time that's simply not the case. For poor parents it is more difficult to devote the time needed to support their children's education due to work hours, multiple jobs, etc. This next section is going to explore the concepts of poor children's schooling.

Childcare and Schooling

Poor parents are more likely to seek informal childcare than middle class families. Informal childcare is most likely a grandparent or sibling. Parents understand the value of adequate childcare, they just can't afford it most of the time. There has been research that that associates the quality of childcare with the affects of their development. This research concludes, "Conducting this research over five years with 451 families in three cities, the investigators found that on various cognitive measure involving such issues as the children's ability to reason and to solve problems, those in center-based programs scored consistently higher than those in informal care". Furthermore, compared to middle class families, poor children are less likely to attend these center-based programs.

A question rises asking if poor children have the same opportunities to obtain a quality education like their counterparts in society? The unfortunate answer is no. Children in poverty are severely affected in terms of education. Because most school districts are funded by property taxes they lack proper funding to educate their students appropriately. Schools can't afford to fund enough teachers, and teachers that were educated in the field they are teaching. Without the proper funds, schools continue to stay in poverty-stricken conditions. Students tend to do more poorly in schools in these conditions. The likelihood of them going on to college, or even finishing high school, is slim to none. There are several reasons for this that are caused by the environment they are raised in: juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, and dependency on parents that have low incomes. Parents are most likely working more than one job or long hours to get out of the conditions they are in, because of this they don't have the time to commit to their children's school life. The lack of this extra support is also a cause to more students in poverty-stricken areas dropping out.

Funding Inequities

The problem with providing schools with funding is that a large part of this funding stems from a towns property taxes. If a town is in poverty then the property taxes are not going to provide much funding for the schools, causing the schooling to provide an inadequate education for students because of a lack of good teachers, facilities, and resources. Without good teachers, a student is not going to learn what they should. Most of the time they have teachers teaching a subject that they did not study or are qualified in.

Another disadvantage that students are going to have in impoverished areas is their class size. Because poor school districts are unable to employ an amount of teachers that are needed, students are forced to have classes that have a size of 22 to 25 members. There counter parts are going to have anywhere from 13 to 17 students in the classroom. Because their class sizes are so large they don't receive the individual attention from a teacher that they would need to succeed. Smaller class sizes are going to provide the most success for students.

Often times when poor families move to a different area they gravitate to areas that are already poor or have the same impoverished conditions they came from. This is because it is hard to break the barrier to exceed what they've been accustomed to. Researchers have developed a name for areas like this: urban war zone is a poor, crime-laden district in which deteriorated, violent, even war-like conditions and underfunded, largely ineffective schools promote inferior academic performance, including irregular attendance and disruptive or noncompliant classroom behavior. It has also been proven that students do better when their school districts and buildings are smaller.