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Kiara Shuford Megan Keaton English 1102 15 April 2013

Joining the Conversation: Step 3 When we read the article, Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, in class the article focused more on the negative impact that low social class has on a students education. It described how growing up in a low class meant these students would stay there because of the education you received this also included students of a higher class. So for this paper I wanted to focus on how a students social class contributes to their education and how they can use education for social mobility. My research took me in a lot of different directions, but this is what I thought answered my question, how can education help low SES students with social mobility?, the best. To begin I had to let the audience know the definition of social mobility and how its actually related to education. Zefang the author of the article, Social Mobility and Educational Selection defines social mobility as, a phenomenon in which enables, in the structure of social stratification an individual or groups social status to move up or down their occupations to be transformed. (Zefang 610) Social mobility can be divided up into categories horizontal, vertical, intergenerational, and intra-generational, but for this question I only focused on intergenerational, because it means one person or within the same generation. So now we have to discover how social mobility related to education. The article Social Mobility and Educational Selection says that social class impacts the choices people make including, education selection

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and what career people choose as well. The authors of the article define educational selection as school system examinations, assessment, evaluation and classification. But students that have a low socioeconomic status dont have the same resources than those students that belong to a higher class, so they tend to fall behind because of their lack of resources, such as technology in the classroom and sometimes even books. Education is a bridge to social mobility and can give underprivileged people the way to a more privileged life (Zefang 611) and could be the only option for some students. Three specific factors can contribute to the social mobility and education selections these students make according to the article. The first factor is your family's income; students are born into their social class and the income of their familys impact them tremendously. So if other generations in your family have low incomes they most likely received a low education and this will ultimately be your fate as well. Another factor that contributes is your parents IQ; there is a direct relationship between your parents IQ and yours. The higher an IQ a student has the further they will go with their education. The last factor that contributes to social mobility and education you choose is what the author, Paul Attewell, calls high-mastery. The book describes highmastery as a sense that controls ones own fate, so if someones mother has high-mastery it will be passed on to their children and could lead them to a get out of their underprivileged life (Attewell). These three things combine to predict how a students educational career will possibly turn out compared to the relationship of these three factors. According to this research being in a low class will not keep you from going to college or higher education opportunities. These factors work together and weigh each other out, so its not one strike and youre out. (Attewell)

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Not everyone thinks that being raised in a lower class actually hinders students educationally the authors of the book Mobility and Inequality, they believe that underprivileged students have more drive to finish high school and to pursue higher education. And because they can choose what education they receive and where, as we learned from Social Mobility and Educational Selection, these students are choosing careers and schools theyre interested in not the ones chosen for them. Saying that Wealth differences across families are interpreted more broadly, either as indicators of differential behavioral orientations correlated with savings behavior and lifetime success or reasons families to pursue alternative strategies for human capital investment in their offspring.(Stanford University Press) And in the article, Social Class in Family Therapy Education: Experiences of Low SES Students they actually say that students from lower social classes are also targeted for things like graduate school and higher degree programs. And because they can choose what education they receive and where, as we learned from Social Mobility and Educational Selection, these students are choosing careers and schools theyre interested in not the ones chosen for them. So, what can happen to give lower class students better resources and a better understanding of their curriculum? In the book A Notion at Risk, the authors give a few suggestions on how we as a country could make the education provided in our public schools better for these students. The first thing they think would help is summer school or an extended year for these students. As you can imagine all students lose most of what they learn during the school year when they have summer break, so if summer school or an extended year was enforced this wouldnt happen as much and these students can advance. They say summer programs should provide poor children with the types of enriching experiences that middle-class children receive during the summer, as opposed to the traditional approach of reviewing

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curriculum taught during the year(Century Foundation), so not teaching the same subjects twice, but going more in depth with these subjects. The other thing they believe will give lower class students more of a chance for social mobility is increased funding in their schools. The authors of this book say that funding should go to the people that are in dire need of it, individual classrooms could receive it. This funding could buy the resources and materials needed by school systems and teachers to raise the standard of learning in these underprivileged neighborhoods. These funds wouldnt be to just increase the resources students have at school, but to also help their families at home, so they have a better environment there as well. Money for things like food and housing would be given because they are conducive to a good learning environment and because the student would only have to worry about their studies. These are some success stories that drive home that education is in fact a good way to increase social mobility. There is hope for everyone in the world that thinks their life cant get any better. The story of Oprah Winfrey is a good place to start. When she was a young girl she lived in a very poor area of Mississippi with her grandmother while her mother looked for work in the North. When her mother did find a job she went from living in a poor area of Mississippi, to living in a poor area of Milwaukee. From the ages of 9-13 she was molested and sexually abused by male relatives when her mother was working. Oprah was emotionally distraught by all this pain that she had suffered from the early years of her life, so she ran away from that situation and went to live with her father. She then began to focus more on her studies, not because she wanted to, but her father was very strict and wanted the best for her. Vernon Winfrey wanted the best for his daughter, so he made her read a book and write a book report every week. Oprah began excel in school, she was an honor student and won oratory awards. Doing well in school ultimately led to Oprah receiving a full scholarship to Tennessee State University and a job at a

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local new station being a correspondent. Since going to college Oprah has done so much, things like having her own show showing in 140 different countries, being in movies, and owning a couple of different businesses. She reached her goals by getting the education she needed and turning her bad situation into a place she didnt want to go back to. She is now one of the richest people in the United States, and she is a black woman which makes what she has done and even greater feat. Another very inspiring story about a black woman that used education to get ahead in life is someone you probably never heard of. Ursula Burns, now the CEO and Chairman of Xerox, was raised in the projects of the lower east side of Manhattan. Many people told me I had three strikes against me. I was black. I was a girl. And I was poor.(Burns) Her mother reassured her that that was not the case and encouraged her that the only way to get out of this situation was to get and education. She would tell Ursula, Where she was didnt define who she was (Burns). Even though her mother didnt make that much money she still thought it was necessary to send Ursula to good catholic schools. She finally found her love of Mechanical engineering when she was offered a spot in the freshman class of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. After this opportunity popped up more started to emerge, things like: taking an internship with Xerox in upstate New York, going to an Ivy League school for a graduate degree, and signing on with Xerox. Making her way to the top wasnt an easy job, but Ursula Burns did it with a good education, a strong work ethic and the courage to lean in.(Burns) These stories are very inspiring for anyone in the same situation these women were or even someone trying to get a perception of what their life was like. And after doing all this research and what Ive witnessed Ive acquired an opinion on education and social mobility. For me I would say that I didnt grow up as bad as the students that Im writing about or even Oprah

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and Ursulas life, but I know some people that did and have made, something out of their life with education. Having more resources than others can help, but it shouldnt hold anyone back. People that work hard to overcome their shortcomings I believe deserve what they strive for and as a country if we can help give students more of a chance to overcome these short comings we should.

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Works Cited A Century Foundation Book. A Notion at Risk. New York: Richard D. Kahlenberg, 2000, Print. Anyon, Jean. Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work Journal of Education. Vol. 162, no. 1(1980): 1-11. Print. Attewell, Paul and David E. Lavin. Passing the Torch. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. Print. Dong Zefang, Wang Yanbin, Chen Wenijiao. Social Mobility and Educational Selection. Educational Research and Experiment vol. 1 (2009): 13-18. Electronic. Oprah Winfrey. Academy of Achievement. American Academy of Achievement, 1996-2013. Web. 28 Nov 2011. Stanford University Press. Mobility and Inequality. Stanford, California: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford, 2006. Print. Teresa McDowell, Andrae L. Brown, Nicole Cullen, and April Duyn. Social Class in Family Therapy Education: Experiences of Low SES Students Journal of Marital and Family Therapy Vol. 39 (2013): 72-__. Electronic. Ursula M. Burns. Lean In. Leanin.Org. 2013 Web.

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