The existence of social class in the U.S. is no secret and social class is largely determined by the socioeconomic status of families and their children. With membership in a social class comes inherited beliefs and ideologies. Despite schooling, these frameworks of meaning tend to get passed on from one generation to another, as do other legacies involving values, behaviors, and even anti-social lifestyles.

Sociological studies have found that those born “on the wrong side of the tracks” tend to stay there, as do their children.

This replication of social class is supposed to be balanced by schools that are supposedly class free in their premises and thus should tend to iron out differences between the higher and lower classes. Problematically, schools themselves reflect socioeconomic class differences in tax monies available. Schooling nonetheless is thus supposed to be a great leveler but, in fact, families with parents whose education extends to university degrees tend to be among the respected social classes regardless of financial status (e.g., professors, social workers) and families of the lower classes tend to have minimal educations.

Schools are institutionally attuned to the middle class. In most respects, they tend to prepare students for middle-class values that will enable grads to enter the workforce successfully. These grads are supposedly trained in the 3 Rs (reading, writing, ‘rithmetic) specifically with a future life in the working class in view. Upon graduation, they immediately look for employment and generally feel satisfied to find jobs they are competent and interested in doing–or pursue careers in the military. This future job orientation of many working-class children tends to influence their values for what is taught to them in schools. They can have little interest in subjects that do not directly lead to a job. Vocational programs, of course, are specially tuned to this outcome, but students in regular schooling tend to pre-judge their studies as relevant or not according to what they see as their post-school employment. Why they believe this in the absence of experience is unknown.

Some, of course, work as teens (or on the farm) to help support their families, or at least to keep up with the outward signs of membership in a peer group–often a matter of clothing, music, and school activities such as sports. Some of these may work to save money for college if their family cannot financially support one or more child in higher education. They may also study more diligently in hopes of scholarships, sometimes forsaking time-consuming school activities to excel in their studies.

The picture so far is quite familiar and basic. Things change greatly, however, for families and their children who, for whatever reasons, are chained to the economic uncertainty of the marginal lower classes where jobs do not earn much beyond basics and aspirations for education are not modeled or pushed by parents whom themselves have high school degrees or less. Parent-teacher conferences get parent responses like, “Well, I wasn’t no good at math either.” This is where the replication becomes problematic. Children in such circumstances do not do well in schools and have little interest in learning for its own sake, orienting themselves mainly to a peer group or cohorts with similar leanings. And lax parental attitudes toward a more advantageous socioeconomic future for their children not only don’t help but directly influence a child’s values, attitudes, and behavior in schools.

This student group particularly tends to run afoul of “the hidden curriculum” in schools that deals with deportment, respect for authority, and facilitates a smooth-running school. That’s not to say that some ‘spoiled brats’ from among the higher classes aren’t a problem, too. But children from families that lack both financial advantages and educational aspirations are often a problem, to themselves and to the school. Failure with the hidden curriculum (e.g., ‘discipline problems’, troublesome, disruptive behavior) is synonymous with failure in academic studies. Many such students quit at the legal minimum age and end up unemployed, bouncing from job to job, or wondering what their next job will be. Not incidentally, they may often fail to have the discipline and deportment to hold a steady job.

Consider, then, the problems of lower-class minority students. They have the same set of challenging socioeconomic circumstances working against them, yet some distinguish themselves by doing better educationally than their parents and aspire to higher education. They may work, or excel in school activities (sports, music) but do not have the usual benefits of social equality working for them–they may have to work as teens to keep up with their peers. They succeed as much as they can, and sometimes better than their peers, but scholarships are out of reach, especially for late bloomers. Just getting into a university or state college can be a challenge.

Yet now, for those already suffering from socioeconomic inequality, the race-blind Supreme Court has denied them a compensatory advantage that might help them rise above the socioeconomic limitations of their parents and to aspire to a future among the middle and upper classes. They have been handcuffed to replicate the class from which they emerged and in which they will remain without a hand-up from society.

Qualified white and oriental students will continue to enjoy access to numerous quality institutions, but minority students face just one more impediment to defeating socioeconomic class replication and achieving the same potential life values as their competitors will enjoy. The implications go beyond this or that minority student but to the entire issue of socioeconomic equality and eradicating the otherwise everlasting lower class.

Tom Regelski is a former Brocton resident. He can be reached at tom.regelski@helsinki.fi