Middle Class School

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According to Lareau, children of working class families are less likely to be academically successful throughout their life unlike children of the middle class families. "Middle-class parents tend to adopt a cultural logic of child rearing that stresses the concerted cultivation of children. Working-class and poor children, by contrast , tend to under-take the accomplishment of natural growth". ( Lareau 401) Middle class families are well involved in their children lives. They are also encouraging their children to engage in extracurricular activities, get involve in active participation in school that will drive them to question things beyond their capacity. While children of working class families do not necessarily demand the active participation …show more content…

For example, there is sometimes a choice: one may do two-digit division the long way or the short way, and there are some math problems that can be done "in one's head." Moreover, in contrast to the teacher's explanations in the working-class schools, when this teacher explained how to do math or what to do next, there was usually a recognition that a cognitive process of some sort was involved: rather than simply lead the children through a series of steps, she usuallygave several ways to do a problem, and then said, "I want to make sure you understand what you're doing." She often asked a child to say how he "did" a problem. ( Anyon …show more content…

Creativity was allowed, materials were available, direction was more specific, and the teachers over all seemed to show great compassion and care for their students. Both of these studies I believe support the claims made by Bowles & Gintis. Bowles & Gintis' claims were based in the fact that education is inherently unequal among social classes and that the children of these social classes are made ready to give their labor power through schools. Anyon adds to this to say that these are the characteristics of the classrooms and how those characteristics are translated into the social class's workplace. Anyon also adds to the argument that schools adds to the inequality of social classes. Lareau adds to the argument that these social dynamics are so engrained into our everyday lives that most of the time it’s not

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