8.3.4: Education

 8.3.4: Education In Figure 8.6, you saw how education increases as one goes up the social class ladder. It is not just the amount of education that changes but also the type of education. Children of the capitalist class bypass public schools. They attend exclusive private schools where they are trained to take a commanding role in society. These schools teach upper-class values and prepare their students for prestigious universities (Stevens 2009; Khan 2011). Hearing from Students Social Class and Education Play Hearing from StudentsSocial Class and Education 245 Keenly aware that private schools can be a key to upward social mobility, some upper-middle-class parents do their best to get their children into the prestigious preschools that feed into these exclusive prep schools. So popular are these schools that even those that charge $37,000 a year have waiting lists (Anderson 2011). Figuring that waiting until birth to enroll a child is too late, some parents-to-be enroll their child as soon as the wife knows she is pregnant (Ensign 2012). Other parents hire tutors to train their 4-year-olds in test-taking skills so they can get into public kindergartens for gifted students. Experts teach these preschoolers to look adults in the eye while they are being interviewed for these limited positions (Banjo 2010). You can see how such parental involvement and resources make it more likely that children from the more privileged classes go to college—and graduate. Gallery Consequences of Social Class Image Viewer Preview Hens14e Ch10 - Gallery: Consequences of Social Class View Gallery The disparities of social class in the United States are extreme. If you take the back roads in rural America, you will see thousands of trailers like this one in Davenport, Florida. In contrast is this luxury home in Sammamish, Washington. Credits: Tim Large - USA/Alamy Stock Photo; Jhorrocks/E+/Getty Images