Hidden Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Class

Abstract

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.

How social-class stereotypes maintain inequality

“…Academic situations are pregnant with arbitrary, implicit standards that advantage upper- middle-class students, perpetuating inequality. As suggested, “changing the construal that the classroom is a level playing field can offer better learning opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds” [34:8]. Teaching students about stereotype threat may help undermine its effects [24].…”

“…Therefore, middle- and upper-class students are more equipped to face academic challenges and are more familiar with academic expectations. Such familiarity represents cultural capital, and its lack creates inequitable comparisons in educational contexts [34**]. In one experimental study, even the way different performances are normally showcased in classrooms (i.e., raising a hand when students think they have the correct answer) is sufficient to disrupt fifth- and sixth-grade working-class students’ achievement.…”

“…In a second study, manipulating the students’ familiarity with a new learning task (as a proxy of social class), those who lack familiarity performed worse when differences in performances were showcased (vs. not showcased). However, making students aware of their hidden disadvantage (i.e., some students have more familiarity with the task than you) drastically attenuated the effects of the lack of familiarity (Study 3; [34**]).…”

Poor peer work does not boost student confidence

“…A recent meta-analysis suggests that contrasts are much more likely in settings similar to the education setting in our focus, that is, when participants are not primed or instructed to focus on similarities, and when comparing ability on novel dimensions (Gerber et al, 2018). Other studies presenting peer work imply that observers are contrasting rather than assimilating (Goudeau & Croizet, 2017;Rogers & Feller, 2016). In sum, this body of work led us to expect that participants presented with a peer's work on an assignment they had not yet seen or done themselves (i.e., a novel dimension) would engage in contrast more than assimilation.…”

“…For instance, people tend to be overconfident when they think they are better than others-a phenomenon called "overplacement" (Prims & Moore, 2017). Research examining overconfidence and social comparisons generally shows that social comparisons decrease confidence (Goudeau & Croizet, 2017). Particularly, relevant evidence of this in the context of student confidence comes from Rogers and Feller (2016) who used behavioral measures to show that students were "discouraged by peer excellence."…”