Skip to content
University of Maryland LibrariesDigital Repository at the University of Maryland
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Class Advantage: Social Class and Knowledge Production In Classrooms Under The New Accountability

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    umi-umd-2345.pdf (2.918Mb)
    No. of downloads: 8006

    Date
    2005-04-20
    Author
    Aaron, Philbert
    Advisor
    Selden, Steven
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: CLASS ADVANTAGE: SOCIAL CLASS AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS UNDER THE NEW ACCOUNTABILITY Philbert Aaron, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by: Professor Steven Selden Department of Education Policy and Leadership This study interrogates the relationship between social class and academic achievement. It examines the ways in which social class and the new accountability policy influence teachers' and students' co-production of knowledge in the elementary school classroom. The study analyzes student and teacher talk in two elementary school reading classrooms in a mid-Atlantic state. The first school is categorized as middle-class, having less than 5% of its student body receiving Free and Reduced-price Meals (FARMs). The second is classified as working-class, having more than 60% of its students receiving FARMs. The study draws upon the work of the British sociolinguist, Basil Bernstein. Bernstein's theory of symbolic control provides both theoretical base and method for the inquiry. Using Bernstein's frameworks for classification and framing, language data on teacher-student pedagogical interaction was collected by note-taking during classroom observation in the Spring of 2004. These data were analyzed using a priori codes, including 'visible' (explicit or traditional) and 'invisible' (implicit or constructivist) practice. The study finds that pedagogical practice in the middle class school incorporated both visible (traditional) and invisible (constructivist) practices, while pedagogy in the working class school is of the purely visible type. In addition, the middle class school also achieves a faster pace of learning than does the working class school. Faster pace is indicated by syntactical (elaborated) text whereas in the working class school a lexical (brief utterances) text is produced. The study concludes that social class has unanticipated consequences for academic achievement under the new accountability. By providing identical policy tools to local schools, irrespective of student class location, the new accountability promotes a visible (traditional) pedagogy. Differences in family cultural, social, and economic capital mean that the working class school does not meet the social assumptions of a visible pedagogy and these differences manifest themselves in differentials in achievement.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1903/2473
    Collections
    • Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DRUMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister
    Pages
    About DRUMAbout Download Statistics

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility