Correlation between a Students Social Status and Academic Performance - Research Paper Example

Introduction Social status and academic achievement have a positive correlation in that social status of a student affects the way they perform in any learning institution. Many children who are rejected by their fellow classmates due to their social status always have low marks, low grades and mostly drop out of school. Social status and academic performance have a distinctive relationship. Although education is being provided to all children regardless of their social origin, the social status of a child has become a major problem affecting their academic performance in school (Olympia et al 2002). Members who come from low status social groups show very low levels of intelligence and academic achievements. This is in terms of grades in all levels. On the other hand members from high social status group tend to perform quite well in academic and intellectual levels in all school grades and levels. In particular society, the low status groups are based on race, social class or social wealth, religious relations lineage, caste membership or other group distinctions in the society. According to U.S. Census Bureau (2001), many environmental factors are also relative responsible for poor academic achievements of children from the low social status group. These environmental factors include lack of security in neighborhoods, lack of parental support, lack of intellectual resources like books, noisy and over congested neighborhood; these and other environmental factors provide a less conducive environment for studying (Bennett& Lu 2000). Discussion Members from low social status class in the community engage in various mechanisms to fight for their status by using certain mechanism in the society. Though these mechanisms are of great benefit to them, they lack ways of pursuing them to success to their cost. They work too hard to boost their social status class in the society that they do not find time to concentrate on their academic achievements. Social status is affiliated with so many factors in the community today. They include social adjustments, performance, competence, social inhibitions and many more factors. All these factors play a major part in academic achievement in school. Other aspects of social status include leadership, aggression acceptance and peer performance. These too have an influence on the academic performance or their intellectual ability at some point in life. Social status affects the academic performance of an individual in many ways. To start with, social status leads to biasness. According to US Department of Education (2001) these biasness leads to unfair judgment and allocation of task when it comes to academic performance. In some learning institutions, teachers are always expectant that their students will perform according to their status. Teachers also tend to associate more with the students from high class who perform well in class leaving the child from low status class help them in case of a problem. Social status affects the way children relate to each other, how they perceive each other and even how they understand each other (Prasad‐Gaur et al 2001). Children from the families in high social status disregard children from low social status and they mostly have no association. Children from low status families lack the necessary education facilities like books, writing materials, libraries etc. This makes it very hard for them to do their research and finding the necessary material to help in academic performance. These children do not a chance to go to day care units, baby class, kindergartens; as a result, their level of education when they join the nursery class level is still lower that those children who attended the other units of learning before joining nursery or grade one level (Puma 2000). Many children from low status families stay very long in school due lack o school fees, and other necessities to attending school. As a result, they end up missing many years outside school looking foe alternatives to get school fees and other school requirements. The longer the child stays in schools, the more their learning skills become exhausted and hence their ability to comprehend something decreases. According to Rainwater and Smeeding (1995) while doing their income survey realized that in the 1990s, many families in the United States had more income than many families in other nations. After census was conducted by the U.S Census Bureau in 2001, it was noted that the poverty rate level for young people aged below 18 years dropped from 16.9% in to 16.2% in 2000.This affects the academic performance of children in learning institutions. During the census, it was found out that children from America remained the poorest by age group. Out of the approximately 12 million children, one third was living in extreme poverty in families who have earnings below 50 % of the poverty line. This has had adverse effect on the academic and intelligence capacity of the children living under extreme poverty (U.S. Census Bureau 2001). The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has carried out various tests trying to analyze the correlation between social status and academic achievement inn the United States. In 1996, NAEP data showed mathematics achievements was adversely affected by the low level of poverty in the society which is brought about by the social status ones. The impact of low level of poverty leads to lack of the basic necessities to the family. Basic necessity are important for healthy living to enhance growth in all body aspects; physically, mentally, emotionally and even socially. Social status has a big impact on the academic achievement of any individual in nay learning institution (Payne & Biddle 1999). In another survey conducted by Council of Great City Schools in 2001 shows that districts with high concentration of poverty perform the poorest in academic matters. This comes as a result of lack of necessary educational facilities and equipments like books, libraries, and laboratories. Mostly the children who attend these schools come from the low status class and hence their parents cannot afford to equip the school effectively due to lack of finances (Campbell & Beaudry 1998). Social status accounted for 45.5 % of variation between districts and 41% among schools that were within the districts. It is also in these districts schools where there is congestion of pupils and students due to lack enough facilities in the school. The schools also lack qualified teaching personnel due to poor payments. As a result of all these problems, their level of education is very low compared to schools with many children from the high social status class. They have larger classes and are therefore less congested (Harkreader & Weathersby 1998). They have most of the necessary learning facilities and well qualified personnel to teach them. This really boosts their level of education and intelligence achievements over the children from low status class who are very poor and cannot afford quality education. According to another research known as The longitudinal Evaluation of School Change (LESCP) In Title 1 Schools conducted by U.S Department of Education in 2001 shows that individual poverty and schools poverty have a clear and a negative effect on student performance and the students who go to learning institution with poverty stricken children perform even worse than they did before. The strengths of the social status in districts schools has led to distributed performance between the social classes (Entwisle et al 2001). As a result efforts are still being implemented to help in equitable distribution of resources to help boost the social status of the children in the institutions .It is also seen that low income students have low performances as a result of psychological stress due to their financial needs. To further show the relationship between schools performance and the social classes. The Education Trust in 2001 did a research and discovered that 4,577 schools nationwide which were at the top of their state in performance had at least 50% low income or at least 50% minority students in relation to other schools with higher income earning which had higher grade levels. This evidently shows that the social classes play a major role in academic achievements of students. Families from high status have good source of income and they mostly get all their academic needs satisfied (Bankston & Caldas 1998).On the other hand, children from poor families lack the basic academic requirements like books, uniform or some of them even lack food which is essential for academic achievement. It is however noted that many in many of these research that mathematics is the mostly affected subject with poor performance when compared to other subject like literature. Social class is also affected by the economic status in a country. The economic status in the society is affected by other factors such as race, culture, infrastructure facilities, health facilities and many more predisposing factors. Racial differences also have a part to play in the performances of students in relation to the social classes in the community. Globally, many countries have been fighting this aspect of racial discrimination to no avail. Some races are seen to be superior to others and this has led to fights; both physical wars and emotional wars by use of insulting language. In other continents like Africa, they term it as tribal discrimination where children are discriminated due to the tribe they come from. In 1990s there was a segregation between the white people and the African American whereby the whites were viewed to be in the class of people with high status socially while the African American were regarded to be n the low class. As a result, the whites had their own learning institutions while the African American had their own. The schools for the white people had all the necessities for a learning institution and hence their academic performance; while the schools for the African American did not have enough facilities required in a learning institution (Bankston & Caldas 1998). Due to this the education level among the African American was low when compared to the education level of the white people who had all the necessities for learning. Policies were however formed aimed at desegregation of the white people and the African American to unite them to come up with a solution to the story of social class differences. It was estimated that about 31% African American children were living in poverty than the white children who were estimated t have 13%.The research also showed that majority of these children lived with single parents who were welfare dependant.(Rector et al 2001)Racial minority status was possibly correlated with lower qualification among the teachers too. This also affected the academic performance of the students in those institutions. Correlation also seems to exist between gender and social status and this also has its own effects on the academic achievement and intellectual ability. Although men claim to be the head of the family, when it comes to education matters, they are far behind from women. Women are known to be good readers in class and outside men compared to men. National Survey of Reading Attitudes states that, females have more positive attitude when they are in groups than the male towards educational academic and recreational reading. Women value learning significantly than men. As a result there is a social class that is created between boys and girls; this tends to affect the academic performances and individual and collectively as an institution. Women are taken to be better speakers than men due to their interest in reading and learning academically and also recreationally (Bennett & Lu 2000). According to results from the analysis of National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988,the data indicates that a large percentage of female were placed in classes of the students with high ability and the a big percentage of male were placed in classes of the low ability students. This clearly shows the differences between both genders in relation to education capacity and this has brought about division in the social status. Many of the boys are mostly under retention due to poor performance. The promotion policies have been taken higher and hence the students are forced to study harder to be promoted (Roderick et al 2000). Social status is also attributed to school dropout due to discrimination among the students from the low status level. These students are discriminated against by the students from higher social classes both verbally and physically. There are also chances of teachers being involved in the harassment of children due to their social status and social class in the society. Many of these students drop out of schools also due to lack of schools fees, lack of parental support, stress, or at times mental disorders. They are also sometimes faced by health problems as a result of poor health, lack of hygiene at home and post traumatic stress. Furthermore, students also drop out of schools as a result of retention. In 1999, almost a third of the retained students dropped out of schools after realizing that they were not going to be promoted to the next grade.(Roderick et al 2000).Retention has also decreased the academic performances and progress. Race, social status and gender all have a big roe they played in retention issue. The incidences of retention was racially similar with 40% to 50 % were African American and Hispanics while between, 25% to 35% were whites. Conclusion In conclusion, it is very evident that there is a very high positive correlation between social status and academic achievements. The society should however come up with policies to help in reducing discrimination in the society be it gender, race, religion and others from of community which have hugely contributed to the emergence of social classes in the community nowadays. Social status should not put people apart but they should be a way of bringing people in the community together to help in building the society. Social status has brought about social classes which have lead to so many evils in the society. The government should also embark on equal distribution of resources to enhance equality in wealth to avoid discrimination between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ thus creating social status. Improvement in academic performance makes a student gain self esteem, good self image and have confidence (Bennett & Lu 2000). 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