College Potentials
Class stratification is defined as a hierarchical arrangement of people by some characteristic considered important to a society or social group.
In our society your social class is first seen through the education system. As young as preschool, based on your social class, if you are in the higher class structure your child has all ready began receiving better education through attending preschool, learning how to count, say the alphabet or spell their name. In elementary school, children are in certain reading groups, children from a higher social class are generally in the more advanced groups because of their parents taking the time to read with them every night, instilling the value of how important education is. While the child from a lower class might be in the under average class because their parents are working two jobs and do not have the time to invest in their child’s reading skills and teaching them that education is not as important as working. In high school, the tracking system determines what type of classes you will be enrolled in, vocational, standard or honor classes. Based on your social class, you were most likely to be in vocational classes if you were from a lower class family, standard classes if you were from middle class, and in honor classes if you were from high class family. Tracking is a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that bring about inequality. While educators may believe that students do better in tracked classes because they are with students of similar ability and may have access to more individual attention from teachers, conflict theorists feel that tracking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations (Education Week 2004).
Students produce what a teacher expects. If a child is in standard classes they are not given the teachers that instill what is needed to succeed in college and the student is not be able to do college level work and will most likely not attend college or be able to afford to go. On the other hand, the student in honor classes have the opportunities to have teachers that are giving them the tools and expectations of what is needed to be accepted and to be successful in college and they will most likely go to college and they can afford to go too.
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