A Response to a Recent Study of Social Class and Readiness to Seek Teacher Assistance

By Arthur Rubin 

MSW, Partner at AUTHORS & EDITORS Language Learning

December 21, 2011

I recently read with interest the post “Study: Middle-Class Students Are Better at Asking for Academic Help" by Sarah D. Sparks, an education reporter for the blog Inside Research (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/12/study_middle-class_students_ar.html). The writer renders a service by drawing attention to an important problem, but, I believe, presents a painfully inadequate approach to possible solutions.

Sparks writes of a just released paper “'I Need Help!” Social Class and Children’s Help-Seeking in Elementary School” (http://asr.sagepub.com/content/76/6/862.abstract), by University of Pennsylvania sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco, published in the American Sociological Review, discussing a study involving a group of elementary school students from middle-class and lower-income homes. The findings suggest that middle-class students are much more likely than their working-class counterparts to ask teachers for help when they are having problems with school work.  Sparks writes: “Across the board, Calarco found teachers did not give clear directions for what students should do if they ran into trouble or how they should seek help.”

Based on my 40+ year career as a social worker, with ample exposure to lower-income youth of all ages, I am skeptical as to whether the problem is that simple. I believe that much of the reluctance of such children to speak up in class can be explained by what they experience at home and in their communities. Working in Child Protective Services, I frequently encountered children with parents so overwhelmed by the stresses of dealing with financial challenges and/or illness that they failed to spend enough time in verbal communication with their children, who in turn often spent a disproportionate amount of time with eyes glued to the TV screen. Children in such situations may not develop the initiative to approach their teachers regarding difficulties with schoolwork, not to mention the nuanced verbal skills required to describe them adequately. In addition, these kids often face such daunting traumas originating outside the classroom –child abuse, drugs, gang violence, sometimes even hunger– that they may be too preoccupied with simple survival to ask the teacher for help with learning.

Obviously, the unwillingness of lower-income students to ask their teachers for help can have serious implications for them. It should be equally apparent, however, that the explanation for such behavior is much more complex, and addressing it much more complicated,  than Calarco and Sparks appear to be aware of.