CHAPTER 4 - THE STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the students' social class of origin as determined basically by occupation of father, which is the student's assigned social class, from a survey of Edinburgh University, Durham University, and Newcastle University. The outcome of the survey suggests that prevailing values of higher education are middle-class values and that the working-class child who succeeds academically is usually atypical in family attitudes and psychology. To test the validity of this remark, the characteristics of other members of the students' families is analyzed. The chapter examines the comparative family sizes of the social classes in the three universities to find out whether there is any distinctive class pattern of family size at this level that would in a sense compare with the findings. The findings show an overall preponderance of small families of one or two children among Durham and Newcastle students. However, it just over half in the Edinburgh sample. Among the families of the students of the three universities, there is a similarity of distribution between the members of the same social class. The chapter shows that if the schools have much to do with the transmission of information, culture, and values, the class differentials that emerge in the school composition would be meaningful in the student body in terms of student experience. The chapter discusses the implications of this finding regarding the students' satisfaction with their course and discusses the evidence of the nature of the social class differentials, which emerge within the student body.