Reading Response 3

Social class has an affect on many things in our lives. When it comes to schooling many parents and teachers believe the social class of the student's parent has the biggest affect on how they succeed in school and how much help they are receiving at home with their school work. In chapter six of the book, Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education, Second Education, the author Annette Lareau goes into great detail regarding this factor of education.

The two schools, Colton and Prescott, were used for comparison of each factor of social class in this chapter. The author first asks the school's principal and teachers why they think certain parents value their child's education more of less than other parents and how much involvement each parent makes in their child's learning. The principal at Colton revealed that many parents do not value their child's education because they never got any education themselves. He believed that the environment the students are living in has the biggest affect on how well they will succeed in their own education. For example, Colton's principal saw that if a parent did not attend parent-teacher conferences this meant they were not concerned with their child's education or how well they are doing at school, if not working at the time of conferences.

On the other hand, the parents at Prescott were more involved and it showed greatly to the staff. Prescott's principal also believes that it comes from the environment of the student but the environment of students at Prescott is much different than at Colton. Prescott's principal believes that if the student's parent thinks education is important then it will rub off on the student and they will think their education is important as well.

After observing what the faculty at each school had to say about parental involvement, the author went right to the main source and talked to the student's parents. It was shown by the parent's feedback that the amount of time they participated in school events or homework with their child did not reflect at all on how they valued education for their child. Parents whose childrent when to Colton strongly valued their child's education and wanted them to at least complete high school. There was no heavy push for college but definitely some interest in it ifor their child.

Again, on the other hand, Prescott parents had higher goals for their children. They wanted to see them attend colleges after high school and maybe even post graduate schooling. Studies are shown that higher social class children are more directed at college while the working class was pushed away from it towards working. Most of this is a result of whether they can afford to pay for their child's college or not.

Most parent's value of education was different from how the principals and teachers believed it would be. Just because the parents view may be higher on education does not mean their child will progress in this manner. From what I viewed of this article, if the parents show some interest in the child's learning this will give motivation to the student to progress higher in their studies. Children need that motivation and eagerness from their parents and peers in order to feel good about where they are headed in their education.