Social Class Impact on Schooling and Education Quality

The School as a Socializing Agent

How does the school cater to the diversity of social classes? Do they try to treat everyone equally? Studies have been conducted to answer these questions.

Teaching Disparities Across Social Classes

U.S. Studies: Research shows that teachers teach differently depending on the neighborhood area. From these studies, we can identify specific types of schools based on their socioeconomic surroundings:

Working-Class and Middle-Class Education

• Neighborhoods of the working class: Teachers primarily transmit discipline (regardless of whether students learn).
• Middle-class schools: Students are taught to understand the material to defend themselves. However, instruction is often limited to the transfer of knowledge.

Professional and Executive Class Schooling

• Schools for children of professionals: Knowledge requires individual learning. Teachers are not merely dedicated to transmitting information; they use different findings to try to teach students how to think. For these children, knowledge comes from their own thoughts.
• Schools for children of top executives: Students learn to think for themselves (they are not taught to think like the teachers, but to develop their own reasoning). They are encouraged to acquire habits for solving problems. For example, mathematics is taught as a decision-making process, and discussions are conducted on topics such as social stratification.

The Hidden Curriculum and Teacher Expectations

The source of knowledge in high-level schools is to think and solve problems individually. Based on these observations, it is not necessary to have different types of explicit curricula. Even when the curriculum is the same, students do not learn it the same way because teachers explain differently according to the social class to which the students belong. Teachers hold different expectations for their students based on these backgrounds.

Global Studies and Educational Outcomes

Other studies have been conducted in countries such as Portugal and Spain. These studies show that the best-prepared teachers can choose their centers. Consequently, the least prepared schools (generally those with lower social groups) are less valued. Past OECD surveys conducted every three years indicate that the number of correct answers in private schools is higher than the rate in public schools.

PISA Findings and Extracurricular Factors

According to PISA, the quality of the lowest levels is found in public schools. Other findings suggest that extracurricular activities favor the acquisition of knowledge, and these opportunities are more prevalent in the higher classes, where children specialize from a young age. Most members of the upper-middle class try to send their children to private schools, while most members of the lower classes remain in public schools. This, added to the cultural level of the family, determines the quality of teaching.