ABSTRACT
In terms of their cultural and economic status, individuals can be classified roughly into three categories: privileged (high), average (middle), and low (disadvantaged). Urban and rural disadvantaged children tend to be alike in educational, cultural, and experiential impoverishment. Studies have found that even in infancy there is alienation behavior, a sort of growing non-involvement where one would normally expect the individual to want more—not less—interaction. With advancing age, disadvantaged adolescents reveal a growing dilemma with respect to their attitudes toward school and education. Social class poses a problem in American education because the attitudes and values that children of various backgrounds bring to school may or may not fit into the dominant middle-class culture of school. Parental expectations of a child's school performance are also largely a product of social class. Teaching socially disadvantaged learners must be based upon the premise that they can learn and expectation that among the disadvantaged there is a wide range of aptitudes and abilities.
