Event

Jessica Calarco is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. Her research examines how social interactions give rise to social inequalities. She is particularly interested in inequalities that result from interactions between individuals and institutions. Methodologically, her research is primarily ethnographic in nature. Substantively, she focuses on issues related to education, family, culture, children and youth.

"Class in the Classroom: Interactions and Inequalities in Elementary School"

Relevant Readings: 

• Calarco. 2011. "'I Need Help!' Social Class and Children's Help-Seeking in Elementary School," American Sociological Review 76, no. 6: 862-882. 
• Calarco. 2014. "Coached for the Classroom: Parents' Cultural Transmission and Children's Reproduction of Inequalities," American Sociological Review 79, no. 5: 1015-1037. 
• Calarco. 2014. "The Inconsistent Curriculum: Cultural Tool-Kits and Student Interpretations of Ambiguous Expectations," Social Psychology Quarterly 76, no. 2: 186-209.  

Description: 

In this talk, Professor Jessica Calarco will show how social class shapes student-teacher interactions and how those interactions contribute to inequalities in school. Drawing on more than two years of observations of middle-class and working-class students in one public elementary school, and on interviews with students, parents, and teachers, Calarco finds that in elementary classrooms, the squeaky wheels get the grease, but those squeaky wheels are rarely the ones that need it most. Rather, the squeakiest wheels are the middle-class children who have been coached by their parents to “be their own advocates” in the classroom. 

Middle-class parents—afraid to be labeled “helicopters,” but equally afraid of leaving their children’s success to chance—teach their children to proactively and persistently seek assistance, accommodations, and attention from their teachers on their own behalf. They urge their children to squeak and squeak loudly, and that coaching prompts middle-class children to try to speak up and stand out in school. Those strategies, in turn, have real rewards in the classroom, generating more support and encouragement from teachers and giving middle-class students a leg-up on their assignments. 

Working-class children, on the other hand, have been coached by their parents to “be respectful of others” in the classroom. Working-class parents—trusting that a “good school” will ensure academic success and afraid that pushy and demanding children will be seen as “troublemakers”—teach their children not to ask for assistance or accommodations or attention from their teachers.  They urge their children to hide the squeak or fix it themselves, and that coaching leads working-class children to try to keep quiet and stand aside in the face of challenges at school. 

Furthermore, when working-class students do try to seek support from their teachers, they do so in ways that are less insistent but also easier for teachers to overlook. As a result, working-class students rarely reap the rewards enjoyed by their middle-class peers. Now, the teachers want very much to meet each student’s needs. Yet, the hectic nature of classroom life, coupled with limited resources and accountability pressures, leads teachers to inadvertently give preference to the squeaky wheels—those students who are most proactive and persistent in their demands.