Lynnsey Coffey April 9, 2013 Academic Work - Step #3 Perceptions of Success within the Working Class of Society Recently,

there has been a lot of interest in the working class of our society. The working class in America has been exposed to many struggles and faced many obstacles. Being on the lower end of the economic scale has caused the working class to be cut short of opportunities of success. Their outlook on success is much different than someone from a higher class due to these conditions. Several researchers have done studies to find out that starting from a young age, students in the working class are exposed to different ideas and meanings of success and once they get older, they are being put in the same mentality. Household and educational factors both play big roles in this mentality being created in the working class when it comes to the idea of success. Their meaning has never been proven accurately and there is still a clear gap of understanding within our society of this meaning of success to an individual. When examining this topic of interest, I discovered several different perspectives and studies that supported concepts to explain the meaning of success within the working class of society and how it differs from other meanings and why. Working class communities have been connected to educational underachievement for years (Perry). A working class community is most likely located in a deprived area, which puts the schools at a disadvantage due to funding and support for educational supplies and sources. The government has stepped in multiple times, but it has all been failed attempts. The extra help causes competition to heat up with the middle class schools so the working class schools are still being left behind (Perry). These students mentalities are being affected enormously. The students are looking at success at a lower scale than others because they simply are not being shown any different level of success within their community. The working class has described

Lynnsey Coffey April 9, 2013 Academic Work - Step #3 success many different ways, but they all fall low compared to individuals from higher classes in society. Success is looked at as only graduating high school and finding a stable job. Success has been described as climbing up the social ladder to the middle class also. These descriptions support the idea that a working class student has a whole different meaning of success than any other student from a different social class. Being in the middle class and learning about working class perspectives has opened my eyes to how much of a difference there is and how much our community and social class does impact our mentalities on our own personal definition of success. While growing up, a child can only see what surrounds them and if that is what the child only knows then thats what they carry on to your own life and their own achievement (Perry). Many sources look at the teachers whenever asked about this issue of such low expectations that the working class student possesses (Dean). Teachers are measuring their students success by using quantitative measures, not by qualitative measures such as: citizenship, interpersonal skills, and innovation. The students have a totally different perspective of success then the teachers so they are the ones suffering. The teachers want to help their students reach this goal of student success, but if they define success differently, then they are pursuing two entirely different goals. From the support of questionnaires, faculty members and students were asked what success depended on to them. Teachers looked more at academic elements. Students looked more at personal indicators, such as happiness. The different perspective was understandable to the study, but it got interesting when asked what each party thought the barriers to success were. Faculty members responded with saying the responsibly of success falls entirely on the students themselves. Students responded with saying that this idea of success is out of their control (Dean). They claim that different aspects of school keep

Lynnsey Coffey April 9, 2013 Academic Work - Step #3 them from their real potential, such as classroom environment. There is a clear gap between the perspectives of teachers and students, but how much does this gap affect a students mentality and actual success? Institutional measures from the teachers and personal measures from the students dont match up when it comes to this perspective of success (Dean). Researchers have come up with two theories to explain the different perspectives of success between students and teachers in the working class. The first theory is behaviorism in terms of actions that produce pleasing consequences in ones environment (Dean). This theory supports the idea of a student achieves success through actions with positive results. The second theory, the cognitive theory, isnt related to environmental standards, but to experiences that match internal perceptions. It describes an individuals experiences being exactly what the person envisioned before it happened. A student can set a goal and then reach it and this causes them to interpret it into the meaning of success. This theory supports the idea of a students experiences matching personal ideals. A combination of these two theories, known as social learning, provides an image of achieving success that is determined through a combination of personal and social factors within a working class community (Dean). People are very much influenced by the values in their society (Wilkinson). Values differ from class to class but when the working class emphasizes experience and skill over academic elements or wealth, it influences their expectations tremendously. A working class student cant escape their social expectations. Their social class isnt the only reason for their expectations either; you have to take into consideration an individuals age, race, and gender also. All these factors influence this idea of success and where the student thinks they are going end up in the future. Being on the lower end of the economic scale, it causes lower expectations for them as the student grows up. Even when an individuals goals and ambitions conflict with what their

Lynnsey Coffey April 9, 2013 Academic Work - Step #3 society or family sees as success, they can only truly indicate success through contentment and happiness with themselves. Happiness is the only common indicator of success throughout the world. Children from working class backgrounds tend to be more likely to be exposed to economic hardship and alienation than any other class. This deprivation has been linked to underachievement of working class students for years and how they posses such low expectations for themselves. This idea comes from the working class families being put at a disadvantage. When it comes to economic troubles of the families, the students are suffering due to the lack of at-home involvement because of work schedules and more pressure is being put on the child as they get through school. The amount of interest and involvement of a students parents has been proven to be the most important factor in a students achievement at school (Bryant). The attitudes of parents influence the attitudes of the teachers, which cause for there to be a difference in treatment between students. All these low aspirations of the working class students are logical responses to the messages provided to them throughout their life (Perry). They are only exposed to the factors in their households and community and if they arent introduced to any other kind of success or higher achievement then their expectations for their own personal success in their life are lowered greatly. Researchers suggest that higher educational involvement within the working class is lacking due to a complex combination of personal, social, economic, and cultural factors which lead working class students to believe that universities arent for their kind. Of course these factors are also intersected with gender and racial expectations put on an individual that causes for working class participation to be low. An example of this is found in a study from 2001 that supported this idea of manhood for working class men dealing with only skillful

Lynnsey Coffey April 9, 2013 Academic Work - Step #3 work and immediate rewards, and academic work was looked upon as being soft and feminine (Perry). Low expectations are the most significant barrier to working class educational achievement and an individuals mentality of achieving success. A working class individual is cut short of many opportunities in their life and it leads to this low expectation of success and this unhappiness with themselves. The factors start from a young age to influence their mentalities on this idea and how they interpret this idea of success. There is not and there will never be a universally accepted definition of success but the working class individuals arent enabling their potential to get them where they could be, to their own personal meaning of success. True contentment of an individuals own life and the true feeling of happiness can only be the two common indicators of success within all social classes. From the very beginning with this inquiry project, I wasnt sure what I wanted to do. In class, we learned about various issues and concepts within the educational system and while we were reading Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, I started to think more complex about the different social classes and wondered how much it really does affect an individual student. I choose to do the working class because of the such low chances of higher education and different factors such as that. I wanted to know more about their mind set and their environment. After researching for this paper, I learned so much regarding the working class and how exactly educational and household factors work together in a students mind. It opened my eyes and I wanted to learn more. This project is a perfect example of the different perspectives that our society holds and how hard social expectations come down on a individual, especially on the working class individuals.

Lynnsey Coffey April 9, 2013 Academic Work - Step #3

Works Cited Page Dean, Anne. "Defining ad Achieving Student Success: Faculty and Student Perspectives." Scholar. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar 2013. Wilkinson, Michelle. "The True Meaning of Success."Helium. N.p., 28 Mar 2009. Web. 26 Mar 2013. <http://www.helium.com/items/1393426-the-true-meaning-of-success> Perry, Emma. "The Social Class Gap for Educational Achievement." . RSA Projects, n.d. Web. 26 Mar Justice2013. <http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/367003/RSA-Socialpaper.pdf>.

Linkon, Sherry. Teaching Working Class. The University of of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Print. Bryant, Lee. "Social Class and Achievement." History Learning Site. N.p.. Web. 1 Apr 2013. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/social_class_achievement.htm>.