Educational Implications of Socioeconomic Status Matrix - Essay Example

If someone with unemployed or working class parents enters the school system at an academic level behind those of other students (through no fault of their own or their parents), they will find it difficult to move up a track in the current system. This is not only because teachers will have lower expectations of this individual due to their socioeconomic class, but because the curriculum currently focuses predominantly on those in the upper echelons of society without providing insight into movement between classes or the importance of the working class throughout history.

All of these factors combined will ensure that most students in the lower classes will remain unmotivated and unenthused by the education system and find it difficult to engage their intellectual capacity (Gollnick & Chinn, 2005, p71). Conversely, the upper-middle and upper classes flourish under the current education system. Not only does their economic status allow students from these backgrounds to attend expensive private schools which generally have better equipment (and better paid staff who may be more enthusiastic due to this benefit), but their social status encourages these students to attain the best academic achievements.

High teacher (and parental) expectations will push students into the higher academic tracks, allowing them to attain results that will push them towards the jobs held by their parents – teachers, lawyers, doctors, academics and high-powered businessmen (Gollnick & Chinn, 2005, p64). This seems unfair when compared with the fate of the lower classes as discussed above, who may have the same intellectual capacity and perhaps even outperform some of their upper-middle or upper class schoolmates, but suffer from an educational inequality.

Race also plays a part in educational equality (Gollnick & Chinn, 2005, p67) Those who are members of oppressed groups are found in higher numbers in the unemployed, homeless or working class groups. Combined with the factors mentioned above, these groups are often underrepresented in class materials, again meaning that these groups will engage less with the curriculum. White able-bodied males, who occupy a higher proportion of the upper-middle and upper classes, are overrepresented in class materials and thus may feel encouraged to perform.

There has not been much discussion of gender in the text, but it can be assumed that often classroom materials focus on the history and experiences of the male gender and this is an inequality that also needs to be addressed. References Gollnick, D. M., & Chinn, P. C. (2005). Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society & Exploring Diversity Package (7th ed.). Prentice