The belief that anyone can reach success through schooling and hard-work. Widely held belief throughout America and is tied directly to the American Dream concept. 
This presents a problem because it sets up lower class children to equate poor academic performance to lack of natural talent. Makes the lower class unaware of their disadvantages and readily accepting of their class status. 

Arizona State University

- Achievement Ideology
- Cultural Capital
- Linguistic Capital 
- Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory 

Reproduction of Inequalities in the School System

Achievement Ideology 

- Cultural Capital refers to the advantage individuals can have that promote social mobility.
- Middle and Upper class families have culture capital in that they create an expectation of educational and economic success
- Working class families have less expectations as families do not have much educational background
-Schools reward this cultural capital because they reinforce the idea that higher grades will equate to better financial success
- Working class children are socialized for low-wage jobs 


Rewarding Cultural Capital

- Linguistic Capital refers to language resources people are exposed to depending on how they grew up
- Upper and middle class children are more likely to be exposed to more expressive language that is unique and perspective dependent 
- Lower class children are more likely to be exposed to more restricted language that uses local conventions
- Schools are noted to reward the explicit language culture that upper class children have 

Language Capital in Schools

Theory that there are multiple different levels to a child's development 
- Microsystem 
- Mesosystem 
- Exosystem 
- Macrosystem 
- Chronosystem 

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