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Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School

AUTHOR Calarco, Jessica McCrory
PUBLISHER Oxford University Press (03/01/2018)
PRODUCT TYPE Paperback (Paperback)

Description

In Negotiating Opportunities, Jessica McCrory Calarco argues that the middle class has a negotiated advantage in school. Drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Calarco traces that negotiated advantage from its origins at home to its consequences at school. Through their parents' coaching, working-class students learn to follow rules and work through problems independently. Middle-class students learn to challenge rules and request assistance, accommodations, and attention in excess of what is fair or required. Teachers typically grant those requests, creating advantages for middle-class students. Calarco concludes with recommendations, advocating against deficit-oriented programs that teach middle-class behaviors to working-class students. Those programs ignore the value of working-class students' resourcefulness, respect, and responsibility, and they do little to prevent middle-class families from finding new opportunities to negotiate advantages in school.

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Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780190634445
ISBN-10: 0190634448
Binding: Paperback or Softback (Trade Paperback (Us))
Content Language: English
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Page Count: 272
Carton Quantity: 28
Product Dimensions: 6.10 x 0.60 x 9.10 inches
Weight: 0.85 pound(s)
Feature Codes: Bibliography
Country of Origin: US
Subject Information
BISAC Categories
Social Science | Sociology - Marriage & Family
Social Science | Children's Studies
Dewey Decimal: 305.550
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017033338
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In Negotiating Opportunities, Jessica McCrory Calarco argues that the middle class has a negotiated advantage in school. Drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Calarco traces that negotiated advantage from its origins at home to its consequences at school. Through their parents' coaching, working-class students learn to follow rules and work through problems independently. Middle-class students learn to challenge rules and request assistance, accommodations, and attention in excess of what is fair or required. Teachers typically grant those requests, creating advantages for middle-class students. Calarco concludes with recommendations, advocating against deficit-oriented programs that teach middle-class behaviors to working-class students. Those programs ignore the value of working-class students' resourcefulness, respect, and responsibility, and they do little to prevent middle-class families from finding new opportunities to negotiate advantages in school.

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Paperback