“Hidden” Resources to Support Education
A working class child does not do their homework (or bring a note back signed or their folks do not go to the parent-teacher conference), and people sometimes decide that the parents do not “care” about their child’s educational achievement. It is not that they care less, but that they may not have the social and linguistic resources to help. Many researchers use Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “cultural capital” in trying to explain the broad net of resources that middle class kids bring to the classroom to support their school work. Annette Lareau (2000) is one of these researchers. In her book Home advantage: Social class and parental intervention in elementary education, she compares working class families to middle and upper class families of first and second graders.
Here is a list of “cultural” resources, which I have compiled from the book. I can provide page numbers if you need them! Imagine if this was expanded beyond first and second graders! In addition, this list does not include all of the potential computer and media literacy opportunities some kids have. Obviously, middle class parents have a range of this “capital,” and they use it at differing levels, and working class kids have these resources at differing levels. I do not think, however, that middle class teachers and policy makers realize what some kids bring to the classroom.
Resources of Middle Class Families
· Educational aspirations
· Understanding that educational responsibility is shared between school and home
· Comfortable with their own educational competence
· Sharing with children the connection between school success and career
· Understanding of bureaucracies from work and how to apply it to school system
· Feels comfortable walking in and out of classrooms
· Feels relaxed around school and teachers but assertive
· Feels comfortable asking a lot of questions to teachers
· Feels comfortable responding with lengthy responses
· Having educational rituals at home which support school
· Coordinating home activities to reinforce school learning
· Time to volunteer, thus gleaning information—monitoring teacher and studies
· Sharing the idea with children that learning and school is fun
· Verbal ability and confidence to critique the teacher
· Verbal ability and confidence to complain to the principal effectively
· Grammatical confidence of Standard “school” English and linguistic structures
· Promote verbal abilities with the children
· Comfortable with amount of eye contact necessary in communicating with teachers
· Understanding the meanings of stars and stickers as self esteem boosters but not academic
· Attention to whether child receives homework
· Expectations of and attentive to all notes coming home, attending to directions for signature
· Understand, support, and promote the conforming to school rules
· Understanding authority patterns
· Information about the span of the educational process K-16
· Information about standards and policies new in education
· Understand the role of test scores
· Attentive and knowledgeable about cognitive development
· Time and attention to attend parent-teacher conferences
· Time and attention and ability to hire tutors and other educational professionals
· Supplementing or reinforcing lessons in class, figuring out ways
· Reading to the child, child reading to parent
· Having reading materials at home, including encyclopedias
· Helping with spelling words
· Helping with penmanship
· Attention to keeping children home from friends or play if they don’t complete work
· Time and attention to supervise homework completion
· Stressing to children how important working hard is in school
· Encouraging words (and sometimes stress) about achievement
· Helping children to read billboards, labels
· Practicing math skills in cooking together, shopping together
· Confident with math and science material and resources to find out
· Knowing how to request extra materials to be done at home
· Time and attention to take children to the library
· Enrolling children in summer school programs
· Learning opportunities— art lessons, music lessons, language lessons, scouts, sports activities
· Learning opportunities at museums, parks
· Learning opportunities on educational vacations
· Knowing and playing education games with children
· Understanding that attending school events is a symbolic act (especially for fathers)
· Confident in communicating about canceling appointments with teacher
· Understanding how to request a particular teacher
· Understanding how to request a gifted/talented program or special service
· Understanding how to request a special conference
· Knowing how to discern a child’s strengths and weaknesses and the value of knowing
· Knowing how to discern a child’s reading group and what it means
· Knowing the aide’s names, and other support services names
· Comfortable talking to staff at the school in an informal way, gleaning information
· Knowing how to create a network of information from other parents
· Time, attention and resources to provides materials for class projects
· Time and attention to make sure children get to school every day and on time
· Time and attention to make sure children are prepared for the day—washed, clean, well-rested
Compiled by Lucia Elden, Mid Michigan Community College
Lareau, Annette. (2000). Home advantage: Social class and parental intervention in elementary education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
I'd like to know what you think of this!
