Diversity as a Class and Caste Issue

Class as Caste

Social class is typically defined as one's class status as determined by income, education, and occupation. In education, a student's social class typically is measured by family income and parents' level of [Page 689]education and type of occupation. These measures of class positively correlate with academic achievement and educational outcomes. In most countries, this correlation has stayed fairly constant. Thus, class has a caste-like nature in education as those in the lower social class quartiles are the least likely to realize the intended social and economic benefits of formal education.

In 1966, the Coleman Report established clearly that family background, especially socio-economic characteristics, accounts for most of the variation in academic achievement among students. Between-school effects, particularly with respect to school resources, proved to be much smaller in comparison. The class achievement gap is the difference in educational outcomes between students from the highest and lowest socioeconomic quartiles, where the latter is variously indicated by family income, parents' education, parents' occupational status, and other measures of economic status. Most measures of the class achievement gap illustrate stability or an increase in the differences between the social classes in academic performance and progress.

Standardized test scores are the most common measure of academic achievement, particularly in the K–12 sector. The achievement gap by this measure stands at about 1.0 to 1.25 standard deviations in reading and somewhat higher in math. These gaps are substantial; they translate to gains normally achieved through approximately 3 to 7.5 years of additional schooling. Moreover, the achievement gap between those from families in the 90th and 10th income percentiles has been increasing during the last 50 years. In just the last 25 years, the gap has roughly doubled. The permanence of the class achievement gap is all the more striking when compared to the Black–White achievement gap. While a Black–White achievement gap remains (∼ 0.9 standard deviation), the magnitude has decreased by as much as half a standard deviation since the early 1970s.

Progress in schooling is another important indicator of educational success. High school dropout rates have been relatively stable since at least the 1970s. The dropout rates of 15- to 24-year-olds in grades 10 through 12 have decreased modestly from 6% in 1972 to 5% in 2001. Dropout rates among students in the lowest family income quintile have also decreased in the same time period, from 14% to 11%. However, these students are more than six times more likely to drop out than their peers in the highest income quintile, an even higher rate than was evident in 1972. Using an expanded measure of class that includes parents' level of education and the status of their occupations in addition to income (typically referred to as “socioeconomic status” or SES), the patterns of inequity look similar. A follow-up study of high school sophomores in 1980 revealed that only 1.4% of students from the top SES quartile did not complete high school, compared to 9% among those in the bottom quartile. Ten years later this gap was even wider; almost no students from the top quartile failed to complete high school (0.3%), compared to almost one fifth of the students from the lowest quartile.

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