Each student who enters a school building could be judged by educators based on the student's behavior, communication style, and the class-based mode of thinking from which the child is emerging. Although educators have been known to deviate from the norm, some tend to perceive a child from low socioeconomic status (SES) as negative or deficient (less capable than they are), while students from high SES are perceived much more positively (Hurn, 1992). Deficient perceptions mean that educators may perceive those students as possessing attributes of languages, dialects, behaviors, and knowledge as deficient or culturally deprived or sometimes named culturally disadvantaged while their learning environment (families and communities) have been culturally different from the mainstream. Unconscious or conscious assumptions of deficit on the part of educators have a profound impact on the treatment and perceptions of learners. However, we must remember that in reality, perceptions of school personnel regarding students' perceived class social standing really has little bearing on their actual intellectual capabilities.
Parents also play a role in the perception of their child as a learner. Some bring their child to a school building they do not believe really understands or values the capabilities of their child. They also are aware that many of the schools and the middle-class teachers can be utilizing a curriculum that does not promote good understanding of the social classes. Given a situation like the one just described, we end up with a definite mismatch between the student and the school (Comer, 1988).
Students also carry perceptions of their peers, which reveal how they self group. Traditionally, grouping is done by placing oneself in groups with persons who have similar languages and vernaculars, behave in predictable ways, are perceived to be academically similar, and have similar social class sensibilities (Solomon, 1992; Fordham, 1988). Students need to group because grouping allows them to create a family or community in their home away from home. Such groups tend to play the role of shaping aspirations, establishing expectations, and helping students form their new identities. One of the major tasks of peer groups is to define its members' response to the social and academic learning environment of the school. If the school appears to be a safe, inviting, stimulating environment, peer groups will willingly participate and become very successful. If, on the other hand, the school appears to be unfamiliar, unfair, nonstimulating, or hostile, more than likely a school culture will develop that includes elements of resistance, hostility, noncompliance, and nonparticipation.
Return to "Ensuring Equity and Excellence in Mathematics."
