Date of Award:

5-1965

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Educational Administration

Committee Chair(s)

Arthur Jackson

Committee

Arthur Jackson

Committee

Jean Pugmire

Committee

Ivan Pedersen

Abstract

There are some inadequacies in our American way of life. One of these is the inadequate help and attention given to the problem of children who become shackled with their lower class environment with little or no desire or incentive to rise above this. The major challenge to any teacher is the ability to stimulate and inspire children to achieve or succeed. There are different degrees of achievement. For one child, great achievement is not the same as for another. The realization of this prompted the decision to see what differences in achievement exist among the three main socio-economic classes.

In Ogden there are several stratified socio-economic areas. The three schools on the West side of Washington Boulevard are made up predominantly of low socio-economic class children.

Each year for several years, in a school of predominantly lower socio-economic class children, the achievement test scores have always been lower than the district average. The teachers at the school were all certified and had comparable qualifications of experience, training, etc., as the rest of the Ogden City teachers. So the possibility of less qualified teachers was ruled out. Since there were differences in student achievement, it was since decided to determine the differences in achievement among lower socio-economic groups of children and the upper and middle socio-economic groups of children in the Ogden City Schools. If the lower achievement scores existed with other lower socio-economic groups in the other schools then we could conclude that the children of lower socio-economic class achieve less well than those of the middle and upper classes. The problem was set to determine how well children of lower socio-economic class achieved at some of the schools made up predominantly of middle and some upper class children. This should be of interest, for if the comparison showed that children of the same socio-economic status achieved, by and large, better at the predominantly middle class schools of the city, then educators would want to take a good look at the schools West of Washington Boulevard to determine the reasons for this lower achievement.

The home plays an important role in the lives of children. Its influence determines, to a large extent, the development of habits, ideals, initiative and attitudes toward life and school. The home entrenched attitudes and behavior a child has largely determine how well he will do in school, given average mental ability.

Socio-economic status itself is a general factor that is very important in differentiating children with respect to a wide variety of abilities. Socio-economic status in some respects is associated with the level of intelligence, the ability to use language, as well as the quality of general information and knowledge. This is not to say that all children from low socio-economic families have less intelligence and do not achieve as well in school as those of higher socio-economic status.

If children from lower socio-economic class schools are not achieving as well as like groups in some of the other schools, then the personnel of the district will want to determine why this might be so. The outcomes of this study may encourage teachers to evaluate what they are teaching these low socio-economic class students. It may be that the subject content for some of these students may have to be modified, or the values and goals changed to some extent.

Dealing with a factor such as socio-economic status presents certain limitations in research. Socio-economic status is a rather subjective thing; it is hard to measure. Social class is something that exists in the minds of people, true, but that very certainly exists in reality also. It then becomes a problem to rate people socio-economically.

A limiting factor in some of the findings is that in some instances there were not enough cases for an adequate sampling to make the findings valid. This was caused chiefly by the failure of some groups to return questionnaires. When these findings appear in the study, notation is made as to an insignificant sampling.

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