Class and Schools. Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black–White Achievement Gap

"Throughout this book, the term "lower class" is used to describe the families of children whose achievement will, on average, be predictably lower than the achievement of middle-class children. American sociologists once were comfortable with this term, but it has fallen out of fashion. Instead we tend to use euphemisms like "disadvantaged" students, "at-risk" students, "inner-city" students, or students of "low-socioeconomic status." None of these terms, however, capture the central characteristic of lower-class families: a collection of occupational, psychological, personality, health, and economic traits that interact, predicting performance not only in schools but in other institutions as well that, on average, differs from the performance of families from higher social classes.

The critique in this book tries to show that much of the difference between the average performance of black and white children can probably be traced to differences in their social class characteristics. But there are also cultural characteristics that likely contribute a bit to the black-white achievement gap. These cultural characteristics may have identifiable origins in social and economic conditions — for example, black students may value education less than white students because a discriminatory labor market has not historically rewarded black workers for their education — but values can persist independently and outlast the economic circumstances that gave rise to them."