Class important in N.Z.—study

Press, 12 June 1984, Page 5

Class important in N.Z.—study

Social class background plays a big part in the class destination of schoolleavers, according to a research study on education, class and inequality in New Zealand. The study shows that the children of upper-class parents are more likely to enter the upper-class than their middle or workingclass peers, in spite of the scholastic ability of the children. The study is the first part of a five-year project on school-leavers, which has been done by three staff members of the education faculty at the University of Canterbury. They were Dr Hugh Lauder, Mr David Hughes and Mr Stephen Taberner. It is the first big research exercise of its type in New Zealand. The first part took nine months to complete and surveyed the 2500 pupils who left Christchurch State and private high schools in 1982.

The results showed that little genuine equality of opportunity exists in the present education system. The social class standards used by the researchers defined upper-class as those in managerial or professional occupations, middle-class as those in technical and clerical occupations, and work-ing-class as those in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations. While 75 per cent of school-leavers with high scholastic ability, from upper-class backgrounds, enter their parents’ class, only 34 per cent of leavers from working-class backgrounds, with the same ability, enter the upper class, the study says. “In other words those from the upper class have more than twice the advantage of those from the working class, even though they are within the same ability range.” goes on to show

that upper-class leavers have three times the advantage of those from the middle-class and eight times the advantage of those from the workingclass, whatever ranges of ability were chosen. Students with workingclass backgrounds are more likely to drop out before sitting, or fail, University Entrance than their upperclass counterparts. "While more than 70 per cent of the upper-class leavers go to university or directly into the upper-, class, only 40 per cent of the working-class leavers do so.” The study said that it was a mistake to view the problem of failure solely in terms of race, even though half the Maori candidates fail their School Certificate subjects while only a quarter of non-Maoris failed. “So long as failure is seen as merely related to race and to different cul-

tures, policy makers do not have to examine inequality within the economic system. This means that the privilege of those who have profited from the economic system remains untouched,” said the study. A “social time bomb” would be likely through the impact of new technology on the class structure, combined with the significant number of long-term unemployed that would be drawn from working-class students who leave school without qualifications. “If, as we believe, a large number of school failures’ are destined for long-term unemployment, the combination of present policies may well lead to big social problems in the near future.” The issues involved had not been given sufficient attention by policy makers and future generations of New Zealanders would pay unless these issues were

confronted now. The present situation of school-leavers was “unacceptable to anyone who believes in each person getting a ‘fair go,’ ” it said. "Moreover, if the scenario we have described concerning the impact of new technology is correct, our society is on course for a future dominated by tension and conflict.” The study suggested that the challenge to policy makers was to construct an educational system which did not reflect the existing inequalities, but tried to change them. Dr Lauder, leader of the research team, said the next move in the study would be to get a better description of attitudes and perceptions of people from various backgrounds. A copy of the preliminary findings of the study had been sent to the research at the Education Dejpartment. j