Within psychology, the underachievement of students from working-class backgrounds has often been explained as a product of individual characteristics such as a lack of intelligence or motivation. Here, we propose an integrated model illustrating how educational contexts contribute to social class disparities in education over and beyond individual characteristics. According to this new Social Class-Academic Contexts Mismatch model, social class disparities in education are due to several mismatches between the experiences that students from working-class backgrounds bring with them to the classroom and those valued in academic contexts-specifically, mismatches between (a) academic contexts' culture of independence and the working-class orientation to interdependence, (b) academic contexts' culture of competition and the working-class orientation toward cooperation, (c) the knowledge valued in academic contexts and the knowledge developed through working-class socialization, and (d) the social identities valued in academic contexts and the negatively stereotyped social identities of students from working-class backgrounds. Because of these mismatches, students from working-class backgrounds are likely to experience discomfort and difficulty in the classroom. We further propose that, when attempting to make sense of these first-order effects, students and teachers rely on inherent characteristics (e.g., ability, motivation) more often than warranted; conversely, they overlook extrinsic, contextual factors. In turn, this explanatory bias toward inherent features leads (a) students from working-class backgrounds to experience self-threat and (b) their teachers to treat them unfairly. These second-order effects magnify social class disparities in education. This integrated model has the potential to reshape research and discourse on social class and education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

In introducing the special issue, Society in the Classroom: Multilevel Perspectives on Socioeconomic Inequalities in Education, we begin by challenging the assumption that educational institutions are neutral sites merely reflecting socioeconomic inequalities that originate beyond them. Instead, we consider how socioeconomic disparities and biases pervade educational settings and may be perpetuated by the very function of privileging particular standards and practices, a function that is central to institutions serving the dominant societal classes. Compiled 20 years after the last time the Journal of Social Issues focused on the psychology of social class in the context of education, this issue takes stock of research on this topic with a focus on approaches that go beyond the individual level of analysis. Although research reported in the issue is predominantly conducted with majority ethnic samples in the United States and Western Europe, it engages with intersectional concerns by attending to power and interlocking processes of oppression.

When performing a joint action task, we automatically represent the action and/or task constraints of the co-actor with whom we are interacting. Current models suggest that, not only physical similarity, but also abstract, conceptual features shared between self and the interacting partner play a key role in the emergence of joint action effects. Across two experiments, we investigated the influence of the perceived humanness of a robotic agent on the extent to which we integrate the action of that agent into our own action/task representation, as indexed by the Joint Simon Effect (JSE). The presence (vs. absence) of a prior verbal interaction was used to manipulate robot's perceived humanness. In Experiment 1, using a within-participant design, we had participants perform the joint Go/No-go Simon task with two different robots. Before performing the joint task, one robot engaged in a verbal interaction with the participant and the other robot did not. In Experiment 2, we employed a between-participants design to contrast these two robot conditions as well as a human partner condition. In both experiments, a significant Simon effect emerged during joint action and its amplitude was not modulated by the humanness of the interacting partner. Experiment 2 further showed that the JSE obtained in robot conditions did not differ from that measured in the human partner condition. These findings contradict current theories of joint action mechanisms according to which perceived self-other similarity is a crucial determinant of self-other integration in shared task settings.

This article presents an ethnographic study conducted in French pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms, investigating how education establishes and reinforces relations of sociocultural dominance. Building on Bourdieu and Passeron's concept of symbolic violence, we seek to uncover the mechanisms through which school socialization encourages the acceptance of the hierarchies it generates. The data suggest that this persuasion relies on set of interrelated processes: Schools organize the unequal profitability of family cultural practices and knowledge, obscure the realities of learning, and foster a meritocratic myth that naturalizes these inequalities. Moreover, children actively participate in their own subordination without realizing it. By documenting these processes, the study provides critical insights into how everyday schooling practices not only perpetuate social inequalities but also shape early on the idea that students form of themselves as both students and individuals and intensify concerns about self-worth.

Why do socioeconomic disparities in achievement emerge so early in life? Previous answers to this question have generally focused on the perceived deficits of parents from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g., insufficient childrearing knowledge). Here, we instead focus on the structure of early childhood education and argue that early schooling contexts provide unequal opportunities for engagement to children of higher versus lower socioeconomic status (SES). As engagement is a longitudinal predictor of achievement, early SES disparities in engagement could serve to maintain or even exacerbate SES disparities in achievement. In Study 1 (1,236 observations; N = 98 children), we investigated preschool students' behavioral engagement during whole-class discussions-a core aspect of early childhood education. Low-SES children showed significantly lower engagement than their peers. Consistent with the claim of unequal opportunities for engagement, these differences were not accounted for by SES differences in language proficiency. As students' engagement in school is influenced by their peers' attitudes toward them, we also examined peer perceptions (Study 2, N = 94, and a meta-analysis, k = 2 studies). We found that preschoolers who show more engagement relative to others during whole-class discussions are perceived as possessing more positive qualities (e.g., intelligence). Given that higher-SES students are afforded more opportunities for engagement (see Study 1), they may be the ones benefiting from these positive peer perceptions as well, which might further boost their engagement. Our results suggest that aspects of early childhood education should be redesigned to foster engagement among all students, regardless of their SES.

Exposure to social norms is a popular way to foster healthy food behavior. Testing the robustness of this effect, we report a field study assessing the impact of a vegetable-related descriptive norm message on vegetables purchase. The first contribution was to rely on a cluster randomized crossover design: Two canteens were randomly selected to display either a vegetable-related or a neutral-behavior norm message. After a first period of data collection, the displays were reversed for a second period: The number of vegetable portions on the main plate were recorded before, during and after the message display (N = 12.994). The second contribution was to test the impact of a message describing vegetables as the normative choice beyond the mere selection of vegetables, on the quantity of vegetables purchased in lunches containing some. Results indicated that the vegetable-related norm message led to a sustained probability of choosing vegetables, contrary to a decrease observed in the control condition. Moreover, students who ordered vegetables ordered a higher quantity when exposed to a vegetable-related message than before whereas quantity declined in the control condition. By treating both canteens as experimental and control and by analyzing both the presence and the amount of vegetables, these results extend and strengthen those previously observed, bringing support for the effectiveness of a descriptive norm message in eliciting healthier food behavior.

The relationships between subjective status and perceived legitimacy are important for understanding the extent to which people with low status are complicit in their oppression. We use novel data from 66 samples and 30 countries (N = 12,788) and find that people with higher status see the social system as more legitimate than those with lower status, but there is variation across people and countries. The association between subjective status and perceived legitimacy was never negative at any levels of eight moderator variables, although the positive association was sometimes reduced. Although not always consistent with hypotheses, group identification, self-esteem, and beliefs in social mobility were all associated with perceived legitimacy among people who have low subjective status. These findings enrich our understanding of the relationship between social status and legitimacy.

Obtaining a higher education is critical to financial security, high-status career opportunities, and an increased quality of life. As such, understanding the barriers to educational attainment that certain disadvantaged groups must scale is paramount to creating a more equitable, productive, and diverse workforce. This special issue presents seven papers that focus on how the extant educational culture and structure contribute to or reinforce group-based inequalities in educational outcomes and experiences.