STATE OF OPPORTUNITY. Can Kids in Michigan Get Ahead?
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
This special reporting project wrapped up in May 2017. Read more.

How preschoolers perpetuate class disparities

Screenshot of Jessi Streib's article published last year in the journal Qualitative Sociology.

We know that children are aware of class, but Jessi Streib at the University of Michigan showed in a study published last year just how early this can happen, and how it affects the learning environment. Streib found that preschoolers who came from more affluent backgrounds used verbal skills they learned at home to interrupt class, redirect the teachers' attention and "effectively silence the working-class children."

To read Streib's paper, click here

Dustin Dwyer is a reporter on the State of Opportunity project, based in Grand Rapids. Previously, he worked as an online journalist for Changing Gears, as a freelance reporter and as Michigan Radio's West Michigan Reporter. Before he joined Michigan Radio, Dustin interned at NPR's Talk of the Nation, wrote freelance stories for The Jackson Citizen-Patriot and completed a Reporting & Writing Fellowship at the Poynter Institute.
Related Content