ABSTRACT
There is no question that children’s life chances are influenced by the social class position of their parents. The higher the social class, the more likely children are to have high scores on achievement tests, enroll in college preparatory classes in high school, attend college, and graduate from college (Sewell and Hauser 1980; Sewell and Shah 1977; Karabel and Halsey 1977; Shavit and Featherman 1988). Even in the early years of elementary school, social class has an important influence on children’s academic abilities, thereby shaping their placement in reading groups and math groups (Eder 1981; Kerckhoff 1976). There are questions, however, about how parents transmit school success to their children. Some social scientists have argued that parents transmit different levels of educational aspirations to children, and it is these varying desires for educational success, enacted by children in school, that influence children’s life chances. Others have suggested that parents value education equally across social classes but that social class provides parents with unequal resources to assist their children in schooling.
