Educational achievements of female students in middle class and working-class families

Abstract

There is a close relationship between social class and educational achievement, regardless of how the education system is organized. Students from affluent backgrounds are significantly more likely to enter higher education than those from poor backgrounds. Moreover, being working class girls seems to be an added disadvantage. Even though Sri Lanka paints a picture where girls outperform boys, it is only clearly visible in the middle class. Thus, the main objective of this study was to find out whether there was a disparity in educational achievements of female students in the middle class and lower class, by identifying educational achievement and comparing family background factors contributing to educational achievements of female students, through assessing the variations in achievement and the background factors contributing for such variations. A mixed design was used for a random sample of 200 female students and their parents of 1AB, 1C and Type 2 schools from the Galle Educational Zone. These students were from Grade 8 classes as Grade 8 was the completion grade of Junior Secondary Level. Data was collected through questionnaires and interviews. Correlations were used to analyze quantitative data together with thematic analysis for qualitative data. Findings suggested that social class influenced educational achievement, mostly the education and profession of parents as contributing factors for social class than income. The argument of the research had been that even though there seemed to be girls outperforming boys in Sri Lanka, there were disparities in achievement among girls in relation to their social classes. This study projected the point that girls of low social classes should be taken into consideration when making policy decisions as well. Otherwise, the country would be more biased towards middle class children, furthering their opportunities for high success rates. The Kannagara policies that guaranteed better lives for poor children may once again become just a façade in this inequality.