Introduction
Jessica Calarco is an Assistant Professors practicing at the Indiana University. Her researches and studies mostly deliberate on inequality and how it affects education and general family life.
Calarco’s Research and Book
Calarco has spent years studying, observing and interrogating teachers, parents, and students. She authored the book ‘Negotiating Opportunities’, where she reasoned that in schools, the middle class has a negotiated advantage.
Parenting Styles and Negotiated Advantages
Calarco has been in the field of ethnographic for over five years, on which she drew her arguments, which were also built on the homes (family backgrounds) to consequences at school. Calarco maintained that through parenting skills and coaching, students could effectively and independently work-around challenges and problems while following rules and procedures. Jessica illustrates and discusses how social class differences have led to negotiated advantages in schools, basing her arguments on parenting styles, expectations, assistance from teachers, and students’ needs and desires.
Middle-Class and Working-Class Approaches
Calarco explores how parents' coaching utilized class-based approaches to teach and manage challenges at school. For instance, she depicted that parents from middle-class are deeply concerned with their children’s academic performance. Moreover, they teach and guide their kids to employ influence strategies in securing success. Meaning, middle-class students comprehended that whenever they encountered a challenge or a problem at school, they should be assertive in seeking support, avoid consequences while using their teachers as resources. Subsequently, working-class parents primarily tend to be concerned with their children character development. Mirroring their personal experience in school, these parents tend to feel a deep responsibility about students’ seeking special favors or those who complain, associating such with adverse consequences, like punishments. As such, working-class parents teach their children to employ deference strategies; which results in tackling challenges and problems alone, taking responsibility for actions and treating teachers with utmost respect.
Teacher Expectations and Students' Social Class
Concerning teachers’ expectations regarding problem-solving aptitudes of students. Although these expectations vary depending on the activity, situation or circumstance, it mostly implicates inequality. Previously, teacher anticipated student to seek support and acknowledge their problems and struggles proactively. This favored the middle-class influence approach, however, at times, teachers required students to work through their struggles, more so, when they did not want to give extra time or credit. The other scenario is where teachers would require students to raise their hands, waiting patiently for the teacher to approach with requests and favors. This setting mostly favored the working-class students, who employed the deference strategy. Nonetheless, regardless of the variation, teachers’ expectations are never explicit. Meaning, students have to decode teacher expectations, leaving students to depend on class-based lesson and abilities learned from home heavily.
Differences in Seeking Assistance
About seeking assistance from teachers, students' effort varied depending on social class differences. For example, for middle-class students, whenever they face a problem, they readily seek assistance for their teachers. Furthermore, they are also persistent and proactive with their requests. Comparatively, working-class students can be asserted to be less insistent regarding requests made. Their approach entails raising one's hand, instead of directly approaching or calling out a teacher. Moreover, even when they still struggled or confused, they rarely requested follow-up assistance. These evidenced differences result in real consequences where middle-class students get more assistance than their peers belonging from the working-class. An excellent scenario is how middle-class learners can finish their coursework more accurately and quickly.
Conflicts Between Expectations, Procedures, and Student Needs
Intrinsically, expectations, procedure, and rules at school sometimes conflict with students' desires and needs. Accordingly, in such circumstances, students from the middle-class try to negotiate for exemptions and changes. These students generally avoid punishment and adverse consequences, where they justify their actions via excuses after breaking school rules. For working-class pupils, exemption or negotiation change from the norm is unacceptable. Meaning, student have to adjust their behaviors to conform to the school procedures and rules, and when regulations are broken, corresponding consequences must be suffered without complaints. In other words, it can be termed that rules and procedures are flexible for middle-class students, and fixed for the working-class.
Teacher Acceptance and Privileges
Undeniably, parents from both classes care and want their children to succeed. However, the lessons children learned from their parents deferred, especially regarding how they interact with their teachers. The basis of interactions is the primary source of the inequality while securing an advantage in school. Middle-class students understand that it is okay to ask questions and the teacher is there to help them through struggles. Working-class students comprehend that teacher should be treated teachers with respect, and the emphasis is placed on responsibility. Besides, students who persistent ask questions and seek assistance are perceived to worry and frustrate teachers. In other words, working-class students are taught to deal with their challenges and struggles on their own. These differences have enabled students from middle-class to negotiate with their teacher, against school rules and procedures, while those from working-class see these rules as fixed.
Conclusion
From a broader perspective, these advantages cannot be termed as automatic. However, middle-class students enjoyed the advantage primarily because their teachers tolerate and accept their requests. Additionally, all teachers are well-meaning, and they never intended for these inequalities. However, they said YES to middle-class students’ demands, maybe because they feared the resultant consequences of saying NO. Possibly, they are worried about pushbacks from middle-class parents, who are well-positioned to make their lives miserable, perhaps by jeopardizing their jobs; fearing being blacklisted as an unresponsive teacher who undermines authority. Accordingly, this negotiated advantage can be understood to be a product of privileges, where the playing field between the two social classes is uneven. Working-class students endure through fixed rules and procedures, while middle-class students negotiate changes and enjoy exemptions in struggles.
In conclusion, the discussed different arguments and approaches have significantly contributed to inequality in schools. Working-class students should not be penalized for being responsible and respectful, while middle-class students are granted requests and exemptions. Teachers should carefully evaluate and think through student privileges before allowing requests. Calarco urged that teacher should be more sensitive to the social class difference concerning school rules, procedures, and assistance offered to students. Unquestionably, eliminating this inequality is quite difficult, middle-class families are known for hoarding opportunities and will not let go of these privileges without a fight. Policymakers should also avoid deficit-oriented programs which result in unfair treatment and expectations from the two social classes. In other words, students should not demand excess assistance that is required. Instead, teachers should deny requests which are assessed to be beyond and above fair support in school.
Word Count: 1059
Work Cited
Calarco, Jessica. Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle-Class Secures Advantages in School. Oxford University Press, 2018.
