Income And Socioeconomic Status Based Differences

Income and socioeconomic status-based differences in test scores occur because of the environment in which students were raised and the ability of their parents, and contribute to racial differences because of the racial income gap. DeNavas-Walt and Proctor (2015), of the Census Bureau, reported that black and Hispanic households had incomes lower than average, while the income of Asian and white, non-Hispanic households was above average. This means that discrimination based on income and socioeconomic status is more likely to affect black and Hispanic students. Guryan, Hurst, and Kearney (2008) found that mothers with at least a college education spent an average of 4.5 hours more caring for children per week than those with a high†¦show more content†¦Parents in the highest income quintile spend an average of $9,000 per child per year on supplemental educational materials, while those in the lowest spend $1,300 (Greenstone, Looney, Patashnik, Yu, 2013). Standardized, mer it-based assessment also disadvantages minority and low socioeconomic status students because of its presentation as a measure of ability. The performance of both black and low socioeconomic status students depends upon the context in which the test is administered. If tests are presented as measures of ability, these students tend to perform lower than their more advantaged peers; if tests are presented as general non-diagnostic studies, they perform equally. As one of over 100 examples, when administered questions from the Graduate Record Examination under normal testing circumstances, low socioeconomic status students answered an average of 8.90 correctly, compared with 12.30 for their high socioeconomic status peers. When presented as a general laboratory study, the scores were 11.46 and 10.89, respectively (Croizet, 2008). Such differences arise due to social anxiety and stereotype threat, the fear of confirming the supposed inferiority of a social group (Croizet, 2008). This s core gap represents a form of institutionalized oppression because it prevents the mobility of a social group based solely on identity: High scores are necessary for secondary school performance and college entrance, while college is