Social class is one of the most impactful differences influencing educational experiences and outcomes. It refers to the material conditions that shape a learner’s access to resources. It can impact resources such as housing, nutrition, learning materials, technology, and even emotional and academic support systems. Material inequality significantly affects educational achievement and educational institutions often fail to address this.

Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often enter school with less access to early literacy/enrichment opportunities and greater life stressors. While not impossible, it is much harder for a poor person to do better than a rich person academically. As I teach students from lower income communities, I’ve witnessed students from low-income households struggle to complete work because they lack time, internet access, and academic support at home. These same students often face more absences due to taking on some of their parents’ responsibilities while they are at work. This only serves to widen the achievement gap between classes.

Traditional school models often fail to address the consequences of class-based disparities. Standardized testing, rigid curricula, and homework-heavy approaches often assume a level playing field that does not exist. Moreover, deficit thinking—blaming students or families for low performance—further marginalizes students from working-class backgrounds. Schools in general are recognizing that there is a difference in access to these materials but they need to work more on “developing strategies for inclusion in which corporeal differences do not create disadvantage”.

There are many charter schools that attempt to address this issue by having schools that provide free school materials, uniforms, and services. Having these provided is an attempt to alleviate some of the direct responsibilities that parents have to provide for the students they are raising. We need more programs and systems to allow those from lower-income communities to be able to get a better, more accessible education. People as a whole are becoming more multi-layered and these adjustments need to be made.

[Mostly C's: How New Yorkers Rate the Quality of New York City Public Schools | Community Service Society of New York]

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2020). New learning: Elements of a science of education (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-5/from-exclusion-to-assimilation-the-modern-past

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