Is unequal opportunity created by students themselves?


Disparities in success among students from varying socioeconomic backgrounds and communities have long been attributed to the resources available to them from schools and their families, the Huffington Post reports. But a new report suggests that while home and institution are factors, inequalities in education also reflect differences in the resources that children can identify and secure for themselves in the classroom. According to a study released today from the University of Pennsylvania, children from middle class families ask their teachers for help more often and more assertively than children from working class families. As a result, middle class students tend to receive more support and assistance from their teachers.

“We know that middle-class parents are better able than working-class parents to secure advantages for themselves and their children, but not when and where they learned to do so, or whether they teach their children to do the same,” study author Jessica McCrory Calarco said in a statement Wednesday. Calarco is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology in UPEnn’s School of Arts and Sciences…

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