Living in a Social World
Psy 324: Advanced Social Psychology
Spring, 1998

Socioeconomic Status and Education
By
Nathan Brown & Riki Evans

   Educational underachievement and low scores on standardized tests are very high among children of lower socioeconomic status (Levine & Nidiffer, 1996) including those living in poverty and those without homes at all. Levine and Nidiffer (1996) report that children born in poor areas of the United States are "twelve times as likely to grow up in poverty, four times as likely to have unemployed parents, six times as likely to live in a single-parent family, seven times as likely to speak English poorly, more than three times as likely to not complete high school, twenty times as likely to not graduate from college, four times as likely to be unemployed, and more than three times as likely to die before reaching adulthood." The lack of high quality role models among parents and neighbors, large amounts of stress related to lower socioeconomic status, and other factors that divert children’s attention from education may be responsible for lower achievement among lower socioeconomic status children.

    The Syracuse University Family Development Research Program conducted an intervention program from 1969 to 1975 that provided financial support to families of low socioeconomic status with young children. The program found that when they provided financial support to families with low socioeconomic status the children of the families tended to include education as an important part of their lives, and were more likely to stay out of trouble that might otherwise deter occupational pursuits. Prosocial attitudes also tended to be valued. It is possible that such conclusions could be interpreted as financial assistance to improve the conditions of socioeconomic disadvantaged young people increased their aspirations.

    Stipek, Ryan, Rosaleen (1997) looked at the aspirations of kindergartners over a two year period of time. Although those children of lower socioeconomic groups did illustrate poorer cognitive skills, motivation differences were not yet present. This may lead one to believe that dealing with the impact of being of lower socioeconomic status reduces a child’s aspiration as they age. Walpole (1997) suggested that nine years after entering college, students of lower socioeconomic groups had lower levels of income, educational attainment, educational aspirations, and graduate school attendance than those of higher socioeconomic status. Race was not indicative of the above mentioned.

   Peterson (1997) suggests that low parental literacy and low amounts of reading negatively influence children’s reading achievement in school. Parents of lower socioeconomic status were more likely to affect their children’s reading behavior in this way. Writing was also less developed among children of lower socioeconomic status and Peterson also believes this to be due in part to lack of parental involvement. Interventions to overcome this are often school based and are directly aimed at all children within the educational institutions at which it is implemented.

    Socioeconomic status impact can discourage a child’s use of their imagination. Wonder and Rollin (1996) suggest that youth of low socioeconomic status have few environmental factors to help in developing imaginations. They also spent less time in imaginative activity than those in higher socioeconomic groups. This is unfortunate since imaginative activity also fosters a great deal of achievement advancement (Rogoff, 1990). However, when Wonder and Rollin instituted an intervention, the lower socioeconomic status children were able to increase their imaginative ability.

    McKerrow (1997) suggests that schools many not foster the needed environments for disadvantaged children to learn. Schools often group children according to ability which may not be considered an advantage by parents of lower socioeconomic status. Children of lower socioeconomic status often tend to live in areas lacking in social support and without role model influence conducive to higher education achievement (Levine & Nidiffer, 1996). Thus, school has the potential to allow for learning by both more skilled peers and adults. Organizing the class for ability gradings, may serve to decrease this function, thus, serving to advantage those of higher socioeconomic status over those of lower socioeconomic status.

    Stereotypes of children with different socioeconomic status can influence teachers’ expectancies of children and children’s motivation. This in turn can lead the teacher to treat the students differently and, therefore, provide different levels of education for the child with a low socioeconomic status as compared to the child with a high socioeconomic status. One reason for this may be the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecy suggests that people’s behaviors in interpersonal interactions with out-group members can lead to behavioral confirmation of their stereotypes (Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977). In other words, people’s expectations about others influence their strategies for interacting with these members of the out-group. In turn these strategies may draw out certain behaviors from the person that allow people to confirm their initial hypothesis about the members of the out-group. Darley and Gross (1983), showed that stereotypes of people of different socioeconomic status affected subjects attributions for expectancy incongruent behavior. When subjects were led to believe that a child was from a high socioeconomic status family, they remembered the child’s success on difficult items and minimized their failures on easy items. However when the subjects were led to believe that the child was from a low socioeconomic status family, they attended to and showed better memory for their failure on easy items.

    Also teachers may fall victim to the fundamental attribution error when interpreting the behaviors of children. When a child of low socioeconomic status answers a question incorrectly the teacher may attribute this to the child’s disposition. That is, the teacher assumes that the child couldn’t answer the question because he or she isn’t capable of answering that kind of question because he or she doesn’t have the intelligence to do so. However, when a child of low socioeconomic status answers a question correctly the teacher attributes the child’s answer to situation factors. That is, the teacher assumes that the child simply got lucky or that someone told the child the answer. The opposite is true for a child of high socioeconomic status. When the answer a question correctly the teacher attributes their answer to their disposition-the child is intelligent. However, when the answer a question incorrectly the teacher attributes their incorrect answer to situation factors such as the way the child is feeling that day or the manner in which the question was asked.

    Pisapia (1994) suggests that those of lower socioeconomic status have lower amounts of access and usage time of computers in their schools due to uneven distribution of finances to schools. The inequalities in the rich and poor students in computer usage stem from not only from lack of equal access, but also lack of access to computer literature and computer assistance in learning. Students are also often subject to gender bias and stereotyping within education software. Pisapia suggests that one of the most important ways of bridging the gap between rich and poor students is to not only increase access to computers and computer usage literature, but to also educate the parents on computer learning in order that they can assist their children. Parental help in learning how to use computers is more readily available for those of higher socioeconomic status. This can be an extremely difficult disadvantage to overcome, but an important one. The majority of jobs being formed today revolve around high technology.

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References

    Darley, J. M., & Gross, P. H. (1983). A hypothesis-conforming bias in labeling effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 20-33.

    Lally, R. J. (1987). Long range impact of an early intervention with low-income children and their families. The Syracuse University Family Development Research Program. ED 296019.

    McKerrow, K. Ability grouping: protecting relative advantage. Journal for a Just & Caring Education, 3, 333-42. EJ547342

    Peterson, M. (1997). Low-SES literacy backgrounds: effects on formal schooling. ED408559

    Pisapia, J. (1994). Technology: the equity issue. ED411340

    Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: cognitive development in social context. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Snyder, M., Tanke, E. D., & Berscheid, E. (1977). Social perception and interpersonal behavior: on the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 656-666.

    Stipek, D. J., Ryan, R. H . (1997). Economically disadvantaged preschoolers: ready to learn but further to go. Developmental Psychology, 33, 711-23. EJ549598

    Wonder, N. M., Rollin, S. A. (1996). Adolescents' use of imagination in lower socioeconomic environments. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 10, 3-17. EJ547080

    Walpole, M. (1997). College and Class Status: The Effect of Social Class Background on College Impact and Outcomes. ED408885

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