Classed Beginnings: Status Socialization in Two Preschool Classrooms

Abstract

Research on class inequality in education shows how the hidden curriculum—the tacit yet systematic lessons taught alongside the official curriculum—tends to favor the cultural capital that class-advantaged students bring from home over that of their less advantaged peers. This ethnography instead explores variation in what schools implicitly teach and how organizations potentially class their members. Comparing one Head Start with one tuition-charging preschool, the authors document how Head Start implicitly treats preschoolers, who are from predominantly disadvantaged backgrounds, as students who lack decision-making power and occupy the lowest position in a rigid status hierarchy. In contrast, the advantaged preschoolers were implicitly encouraged to take ownership of their actions, make the curriculum work for them, and activate support from teachers and administrators. Insofar as this “internal control” mindset of the tuition-charging preschool is favored in later academic and professional arenas, the authors argue that organizations can be agents of class socialization.