The Inconsistent Curriculum

Symbolic Interaction and the Situated Self

These interpretive and situational processes are a central focus of research in social psychology. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, actors respond to situations on the basis of the meaning they assign to them (Blumer 1986; Schwalbe et al. 2000). Goffman (1982:3), for example, emphasizes concern not with “men and their moments” but rather with “moments and their men.” He argues that situational cues—“glances, gestures, positioning, and verbal statements” (Goffman 1982:1)—are the primary resource that actors use in choosing how to behave.

While interpretive processes are often viewed as universal (Ridgeway 2006; Stryker 2008), some scholars recognize that interpretations can vary across groups. Mehan (1992:1), for example, argues that culture is a “system of meaning that mediates social structure and human action.” These systems of meaning are internal “mental structures” that are shaped by external structures, like class and gender, and that guide actors in interpreting and acting on particular situational cues (DiMaggio and Markus 2010:347; see also DiMaggio 1997; Shepherd and Stephens 2010).

Confirming such arguments, experimental social psychologists show how social class shapes systems of meaning through its relationship to “sociocultural models of self” (Stephens, Markus, et al. 2012; see also Markus and Kitayama 1991). Middle-class individuals, for example, adopt an independent model of self, under which it is appropriate for actors to “influence the context, be separate and distinct from other people, and act freely based on personal motives, goals, and preferences” (Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012:1180). Working-class individuals instead adopt an interdependent model of self, which compels actors to “adjust to the conditions of the context, be connected to others, and respond to the needs, preferences, and interests of others” (Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012:1180). These models of self “guide people’s behavior by systematically shaping how people construe situations” (Stephens, Markus, et al. 2012:723).

These models of self also contribute to inequalities. Like tool kit theories of cultural convergence (Bourdieu 1977; Lareau 2000, 2011; Lareau and Weininger 2003), “cultural mismatch” theories in social psychology see models of self as most beneficial in settings with similar orientations (Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012:1178). Stephens and colleagues find, for example, that universities have independent orientations that match middle-class students’ orientations. They also suggest that such a match may help middle-class students to outperform their working-class peers by heightening their sense of well-being in school settings.

These inequalities, in turn, may be particularly apparent in interpretive moments. Organizational research shows that even in bureaucratic settings, standards for appropriate behavior are rarely fixed (McPherson and Sauder 2013). In schools, for example, teachers’ expectations often fluctuate across situations (Mullooly and Varenne 2006; Pace 2003; Rosenblum 2006; Swidler 1979) and also tend to be conveyed vaguely rather than explicitly (Bernstein 1958; Delpit 2006; Heath 1983).

These ambiguities and inconsistencies likely prompt more active interpretive processes. When the demands of a situation are clear, actors tend to follow predictable scripts (McPherson and Sauder 2013). More complex situations, on the other hand, prompt actors to employ institutional logics in more creative and agentic ways. While we do not know why ambiguity increases agency, it seems possible that such situations promote a more conscious interpretive process. As Pescosolido (1992:1107) suggests, “when cultural routines do not produce effective solutions to problems, individuals often become consciously aware of the need to think through situations.”

These conscious calculations might reflect not only different sociocultural models of self but also different “logics of action” (DiMaggio 1997). While scholars apply this term in various ways, I use it to mean internal mental structures (e.g., knowledge, beliefs, and expectations) that shape actors’ interpretations of situations. An actor may possess various strategies of action, but it is the actor’s interpretation of a given situation that prompts the activation of a particular strategy of action. While strategies of action are the behaviors that actors activate to achieve particular goals, logics of action are the mental structures that guide actors in activating a particular behavior.

While scholars of social class and culture rarely use the term logics of action, their research does show that internal orientations vary by social class. Kohn (1969) finds that occupations are linked to values, with middle-class workers valuing self-direction and working-class workers valuing conformity to external authority. Similarly, Lareau (2011) shows that while middle-class children voice their needs in interactions with doctors, working-class children instead defer to authority. While Lareau does not examine how children view these behaviors, why they activate them, or what consequences they have, she sees such behaviors as the result of children’s emerging sense of “entitlement” and “constraint” (Lareau 2011:3). Such findings indicate that logics of action—like “sociocultural models of self” (Stephens, Markus, et al. 2012)—may guide behavior.

The Inconsistent Curriculum

Building on these findings, I argue that cultural tool kits may include both strategies of action and logics of action for interpreting situations and choosing how to respond. This expanded tool kit model may also bolster understanding of inequalities. In educational settings, for example, these insights might show how middle- and working-class students activate different cultural logics to interpret and respond to ambiguous expectations at school and how those efforts produce stratified profits.

While teachers emphasize rules and routines (Boostrom 1991; Jackson 1990), their behavior standards often shift across situations. Teachers must balance the need to educate with the need for order and the desire to maintain positive relationships with students (Buzzelli and Johnston 2002; Diehl and McFarland 2012; Metz 1978; Pace 2003; Pace and Hemmings 2006) and thus tend to abandon fixed rules for flexible norms (Mullooly and Varenne 2006; Pace 2003; Rosenblum 2006; Swidler 1979). Variable expectations allow teachers to be responsive to situational constraints and pushback from students (Diehl and McFarland 2001), but they also make classroom conduct standards more ambiguous (Pace 2003; Thornberg 2007). This ambiguity, in turn, is compounded by teachers’ adoption of a middle-class style of indirect communication, which prompts them to convey vague expectations (Bernstein 1958; Delpit 2006; Heath 1983).

These ambiguities have important implications for students. When expectations are vague or inconsistently enforced, students can push back and assert their own meanings (Halstead and Xiao 2010; McFarland 2001; Oyler 1996; Pace and Hemmings 2006; Willis 1977). Yet, ambiguities can also create challenges for students (Mehan 1980; Thornberg 2007). Although classroom interaction is co-constructed by students and teachers (Diehl and McFarland 2012; McFarland 2001), teachers maintain control over student discipline and evaluation. Thus, to avoid reprimand and remain in good standing, students must work to decode teachers’ shifting expectations (Arnot and Reay 2007; Ballenger 1992; Bernstein 1990) and also adjust their behavior to varying demands (Davidson 1996; Halstead and Xiao 2010; Hemmings 2003; Levinson 2001).

Help-Seeking and the Hidden Curriculum

This study investigates these possibilities using three research questions:

I answer these questions by examining how social class shapes student responses to ambiguous expectations around help-seeking. Studies suggest that teachers usually want students to ask for assistance when they are struggling (Patrick et al. 2001) but do not always communicate those expectations explicitly (Calarco 2011). While students can seek help from various sources (Ryan, Patrick, and Shim 2005), I focus on requests to teachers, as such help-seeking is an “adaptive strategy” that bolsters achievement by keeping students on task, maintaining confidence, and increasing mastery of concepts (Karabenick 1998; Newman 2000). Such help-seeking, however, also tends to vary along social class lines (Ryan et al. 2009; Streib 2011). Even in the same classrooms, middle-class students ask for help more often and with greater ease (Calarco 2011).

Existing research offers possible explanations for help-seeking variations. Educational psychologists focus on differences in student goal orientations (Dweck 1986), suggesting that mastery-focused students are more comfortable seeking help, while performance-focused students avoid doing so (Karabenick 1998; Newman 2000) for fear of being perceived as “stupid” (Butler 1998; Newman and Goldin 1990). Simultaneously, however, research shows that middle-class—and not working-class—families tend to be most focused on grades and academic performance (Brantlinger 2003; Nelson 2010). Thus, differences in student motivation seem incapable of fully explaining social class differences in students’ help-seeking.

Resistance theories offer another explanation. In this view, working-class students disengage because they see little benefit to school (Giroux 1983; MacLeod 1995; McGrew 2011; Willis, 1977; except see McFarland 2001). ³ As with motivation-based explanations, however, these resistance theories may also be insufficient to explain social class differences in help-seeking. Identity scholars argue, for example, that student identities are “multifaceted and fluid” (Pace and Hemmings 2007:19) and that, as a result, students behave differently in different situations (Davidson 1996; Levinson 2001). Research also shows that working-class families value education (Lareau 2000, 2011) and that less privileged students appreciate support from their teachers but are still uncomfortable seeking assistance (Calarco 2011; Stanton-Salazar 1997). Thus, resistance models also seem insufficient to explain working-class students’ reluctance to seek help.

Incorporating social psychological insights into tool kit models of culture may better account for social class differences in help-seeking and other school behaviors. If teacher expectations for help-seeking are vague or inconsistent, students might draw on different cultural logics and interpret the same situations in different ways. Middle-class students may see help-seeking as a way to meet individual needs, while working-class students might see requests as an unnecessary imposition. These varied interpretations, in turn, might prompt students to activate different strategies of action, with middle-class students pursuing assistance and working-class students trying to appease teachers.

Research Site and Sample

Maplewood is a suburban, public elementary school on the East Coast. ⁴ The school has 500 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, with four classrooms in each grade and about 25 students in each class. While the majority of Maplewood’s students are middle class, approximately one quarter are working class (13 percent of students receive free/reduced lunch). Most Maplewood students (82 percent) are white, though the school also has working-class Latino (9 percent) and middle-class Asian American students (6 percent).

Maplewood is in many ways an excellent school. The single-story, brick building is clean and bright, with inspirational posters and displays of student artwork adorning the wide hallways. Teachers arrive early and stay late. Students score above state averages on standardized tests, and parents speak very highly of the teachers and the school.

This analysis includes 56 middle-class and working-class, white students who completed fifth grade at Maplewood in 2010. ⁵ While minority students participated in the project, I focus on white students to avoid conflating race and class. This includes 42 middle-class white students and 14 working-class white students. ⁶ Some of these students also participated in in-depth interviews, which I will describe below. All students who participated in interviews also participated in in-school observations. ⁷ See Table 1 for more details.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Research Participants

	Students		Teachers
	Middle Class	Working Class	4th Grade	5th Grade
In-school observations	42	14	4	4
In-depth interviews	12	9	4	4

I determined students’ social class backgrounds using parent surveys. While scholars debate the best ways to define social classes (Lareau and Conley 2008), I followed other tool kit scholars in focusing on parents’ educational and occupational status (Lareau 2011). Middle-class children were those having at least one parent with both a four-year college degree and a professional or managerial occupation. Working-class children were those who did not meet these criteria. At Maplewood, working-class parents typically had high school diplomas and worked in blue-collar or service jobs.

The project also included Maplewood teachers. While the teachers varied in their demeanors and instructional styles, the students generally behaved in similar ways across all of the classrooms I observed. These teachers also exhibited similar situational variations in their expectations for student behavior.

The Researcher’s Role

While teachers and students were initially somewhat wary of me, I gradually became an accepted member of the community. Students would invite me to sit with them at lunch, tell me about things that were happening at home, or proudly show me their latest projects. Teachers would often pull me aside to tell me stories or complain about students or parents. This transition from relative outsider to relative insider was eased in part by my familiarity with the school (a relative is a district employee) and by my status as a young, white woman (like many of the teachers at Maplewood).

Ethnographic research is an interpretive and interactive process, and thus requires a high level of reflexivity about possible bias (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995). While my presence may have altered classroom behavior, over time, teachers and students seemed to acclimate to my presence (even “behaving badly” in front of me). I also worked carefully to avoid undue influence, for example, by not providing assistance to students who asked me for help. I also regularly reviewed my findings and reflected on them in research memos, noting how my background and training might have increased my sensitivity to certain patterns or interpretations. That said, I am confident in my conclusions both because of the rigorousness of my data collection process (described below) and because the project’s focus on social class differences in students’ classroom behaviors emerged out of my initial observations. ⁸

Data Collection and Analysis

This paper draws on data from participant observations at Maplewood and interviews with teachers and students I observed. During the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 school years, I visited Maplewood at least twice weekly, for about three hours per visit. I divided observations between the four classrooms in each grade, rotating the times and days spent in each room. I generally sat in empty seats or circled around, listening and watching. I also kept jottings in a notebook, tracking the nature of interactions—who was involved and how long they lasted—and noting important dialog. After each observation session, I then spent at least ten hours expanding the jottings into detailed field notes.

I also conducted in-depth interviews with the teachers and the students. ⁹ I asked teachers about their students, their goals and expectations, and their teaching philosophies and experiences. Interviews took place in teachers’ classrooms and lasted 50 to 90 minutes. Teachers’ busy schedules made it difficult to conduct longer interviews. Thus, I interviewed some teachers twice and supplemented formal interviews with shorter, informal conversations, which I documented in field notes. In interviews with students, I asked about their home lives and activities, their experiences at school, and their teachers and classmates. Interviews took place in children’s homes and lasted 60 to 75 minutes. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.

Throughout the project, I wrote analytic memos describing emerging themes and patterns, such as “asking for help,” “voicing expectations,” and “teacher frustration.” I then used ATLAS.ti to code excerpts from field notes and interviews that aligned with these themes. During this coding process, I identified additional themes and patterns, which I then incorporated into the overall analysis. As I coded field notes and interview transcripts, I also developed a series of data matrices (Miles and Huberman 1994) to clarify the patterns I had observed and to look for disconfirming evidence.

Creating Interpretive Moments

At Maplewood, “appropriate” behavior varied across situations. As I will explain, expectations around help-seeking provided one example of these shifting standards. While teachers generally expected students to acknowledge when they were struggling, there were also situations in which teachers did not want questions or requests.

In some situations, teachers encouraged help-seeking and responded warmly to requests. During math, Mr. Cherlin passed out a worksheet with “math vocabulary” for the state assessment tests. After giving his fourth graders a minute to review the worksheet, Mr. Cherlin urged them to ask questions about confusing or unfamiliar terms.

Lifting his eyebrows, Mr. Cherlin asks encouragingly: “Are there any questions about this? Or anything that we’re doing for the state assessments?” Mr. Cherlin continues, adding: “It’s important to ask, because if you don’t understand something now, you’ll probably see it again on the state assessments.” At this point, a number of students begin to raise their hands with questions about concepts like “multiples,” “diameters” and “obtuse angles.” Mr. Cherlin patiently answers the questions, illustrating key concepts with diagrams.

Like Mr. Cherlin, teachers recognized that help-seeking could have real academic benefits (e.g., clarifying confusing concepts that will appear on a test). In light of that recognition, teachers generally welcomed and encouraged help-seeking. Such explicit statements made it clear to students that requests were appropriate.

In other situations, however, teachers discouraged help-seeking or responded more negatively to questions. One afternoon in Mr. Cherlin’s class, the students were working on a science quiz. When they finished, they were supposed to complete a science worksheet, figuring out a set of science riddles. The riddles were very tricky, though, and prompted a number of students to call out for help.

About half of the students are still working on the quiz. A few of the students who are finished start calling out to Mr. Cherlin with questions about the riddle worksheet, saying “What’s this one mean?” and “I don’t get this.” Mr. Cherlin hears this and stands up behind his desk. Folding his arms, he says sternly: “Guys! Some people are still working and you’re not being respectful if you’re asking questions. You guys can figure these [riddles] out on your own.”

Teachers’ expectations were not fixed but, rather, varied across situations. Like Mr. Cherlin, teachers sometimes explicitly denied or discouraged requests. Students, in turn, tended to respond to such overt discouragement by not seeking help.

At Maplewood, however, teachers rarely made shifting expectations explicit. Instead, they provided only subtle cues. As I will show, teachers used such indirect messages both when they were open to help-seeking and when they were not.

Teachers’ willingness to answer questions was often apparent only obliquely or after the fact. In many cases, this willingness could be seen only through teachers’ positive responses to students’ requests. During language arts, for example, Ms. Hudson instructed her fifth graders to take out their copies of the novel they were discussing as a class and “read chapter 7 silently to yourselves.”

Hunter, a middle-class student, sits at his desk, reading silently to himself. After a few minutes, he stops, leans in, and peers down at the pages of his book with a puzzled expression on his face. Hunter then snaps the book shut, using his finger to save the page. He pushes back his chair and scampers up to Ms. Hudson’s desk. As he approaches, Hunter calls out to Ms. Hudson, his voice quiet but expectant.

Ms. Hudson looked up from her computer, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

Hunter holds out his book with one hand, points at it with the other, and asks expectantly: “What’s this mean?” Ms. Hudson slides her chair closer to Hunter, craning her neck to see. She pauses a moment, and then explains: “Disheveled . . . It’s like . . . a mess.” Hunter grins and says “Thanks!” Ms. Hudson nods and gives Hunter a warm smile.

Ms. Hudson did not encourage students to ask questions, so her willingness to grant requests was not automatically clear. When Hunter sought help, Ms. Hudson could have told him to use a dictionary. Instead, however, she happily provided support.

Teachers also tended to be indirect in communicating their unwillingness to answer questions. At times, they playfully teased students for asking “lots of questions” or became increasingly gruff in their replies. Mr. Fischer’s fifth graders, for example, were taking a social studies test. One question asked them to “write a diary entry about an event during the Revolutionary War from the perspective of a patriot.” Many students were confused by this question and got up to ask Mr. Fischer for help. Mr. Fischer, however, seemed to believe that students could make sense of this question on their own.

Nate, a middle-class student, gets up and moves quickly to Mr. Fischer’s desk, gripping his test paper in both hands. As he approaches, Nate calls out hopefully: “Mr. Fischer?” Mr. Fischer hears this and looks up from his computer, asking lightly: “What’s up?” Nate launches into a long question about the diary essay, asking whether they are supposed to write about a specific person and what they did during the Revolution. As Nate continues his meandering question, Mr. Fischer interrupts. He responds gruffly, in a loud, insistent whisper: “No! Diary entry! You. You’re that person.” Nate looks up at Mr. Fischer with a puzzled stare and Mr. Fischer shakes his head in frustration.

By this point, Lindsey, Colin, and Kal, all middle-class students, were lined up behind Nate to ask the same question, and they all started calling out clarifying questions.

Kal asks if he should pick a specific person and use quotes that they said and Lindsey and Colin chime in, talking over each other as they ask questions about the question. Mr. Fischer hears this and holds up his hands, palms out, as if to say “Stop!” Looking overwhelmed and dismayed, Mr. Fischer interjects sharply: “Guys!” Nate, Kal, Lindsey and Colin all stop and look up at Mr. Fischer expectantly. Mr. Fischer lets out a long sigh and then continues, explaining in a low growl: “Diary entry. You become the patriot. You were there.” Nate, Kal, Lindsey and Colin stare back blankly at Mr. Fischer. Nate, still looking puzzled, jumps in, asking: “But do you mean . . .” Mr. Fischer lets out a frustrated sigh, folds his arms, and launches into a longer explanation.

Eventually, Nate, Kal, Lindsey, and Colin seemed to understand. After they went back to their seats, however, Joanna, Melanie, Anna, Ashley, and Kelly (all middle-class students) got up to ask Mr. Fischer the same question.

Mr. Fischer responds in a gravelly voice. He instructs the girls to “problem solve”—thinking about what a “diary entry” is, and about what a patriot would write in a diary about the Revolutionary War. When Anna tries to ask a follow-up question, Mr. Fischer interrupts, telling the girls to “go back and read it [the question] again” if they are still not clear.

Like Mr. Fischer, teachers often wanted students to “problem solve” on their own. In these situations, teachers often became frustrated with persistent requests. Despite these frustrations, however, teachers were rarely explicit in instructing students not to ask for help. Instead, teachers tended to convey these expectations only obliquely, through body language and through their tone in responding to students’ requests.

Now, teachers did not want to confuse students with their subtle cues. In the classroom, for example, teachers often spent a great deal of time explaining directions and reviewing tricky concepts. They also went out of their way to provide unsolicited assistance to students who appeared to be struggling. One morning, Mr. Potter carefully reviewed the instructions for a fifth-grade geometry test. After passing out the tests, he went through each of the “tricky” problems, one by one, saying things like “If you find yourself writing more than six angles, you’re doing it wrong.” During the test, Mr. Potter circled around the room, answering questions and checking on students who appeared to be struggling. When the students got up to hand in their tests, Mr. Potter first looked over their answers, pointing out their mistakes and encouraging them to go back to their seats and revise their work. Like Mr. Potter, the teachers at Maplewood worked hard to support their students and ensure their success. Thus, teachers’ vaguely stated expectations did not seem to reflect a lack of concern with students’ understanding.

Those ambiguities and inconsistencies did, however, put the burden on students to determine which behaviors were appropriate in a given situation. In doing so, they created what I call interpretive moments in the classroom. In those moments, teachers’ expectations were not clear or explicit. As a result, students had to look for and decode more subtle cues about which behaviors would lead to reprimand or reward. In doing so, and as I discuss below, middle-class and working-class students adopted different logics of action for making sense of situations with vague or inconsistent demands.

Adopting Logics of Action

The middle-class and working-class students at Maplewood came to school with different cultural tool kits. These tool kits included not only particular strategies of action but also particular logics of action. These logics of action (e.g., knowledge, beliefs, and expectations) shaped students’ interpretations of situations and varied with social class.

Middle-class students adopted a logic of entitlement. They believed that teachers should be responsive to students’ individual needs. They demonstrated these beliefs, in part, by asking teachers to check their work for them before turning it in. During math, for example, Ms. Dunham’s fifth graders were working on a set of practice geometry problems. Kelly, an average-achieving and somewhat shy middle-class student, was struggling with the protractor, trying to draw the correct angles.

As the other students work, Kelly gets up from her seat. Her face set in a tight frown, Kelly strides quickly toward Ms. Dunham, her math journal clutched tightly in her hands. Approaching Ms. Dunham, Kelly holds out the journal. She explains dejectedly: “I think I messed this up. Is this right?” Ms. Dunham purses her lips tightly, leaning in to check Kelly’s work. After a pause, Ms. Dunham gives Kelly a reassuring smile. She explains, pointing at the journal: “You’re on the right track. Just erase this part here, and you’ll be okay.” Kelly nods, giving Ms. Dunham a grateful smile and saying: “Thanks!”

Middle-class students expected teachers to answer questions and check work for them. In interviews, even lower-achieving middle-class students said things like “I have to get good grades so I can go to college.” They recognized that such requests could help them earn the best grade possible on each assignment or exam. Those efforts, in turn, reflected middle-class children’s logic of entitlement, which privileged personal accomplishment and recognized the benefits of compelling others to adjust to individual needs.

Working-class students instead adopted a logic of appeasement. They were deeply concerned about being respectful of authorities and felt they should adjust their behavior to others’ needs. In an interview, I asked working-class student Amelia how students should behave in the classroom. She explained,

They should just try to be polite and respectful and things like that. Like, if they need something, they should just patiently be sitting there with their hand raised. Cuz they don’t wanna upset the teacher.

Even outgoing working-class students tried to respect teachers. Jared, for example, was a “class clown” who enjoyed making his peers and even his teachers laugh with funny remarks. Yet, Jared was also very careful about how his jokes might be perceived. In an interview, Jared compared himself to Christian, a middle-class student in his fifth-grade class. Jared explained that while Christian would often get in trouble for making jokes, he would try to judge the teacher’s mood in order to avoid such reprimands:

Christian’s the funniest kid in the grade, but he’s funny because he gets in trouble and does funny stuff. And he’s not afraid to get in trouble. But I don’t do actions that are really disrespectful or something. I usually just make jokes. Like, I poke, I don’t like, stab. So I really don’t do anything to make fun of someone, or to make them feel bad. And I wouldn’t do it if Ms. Hudson was in a bad mood, or if Christian just got in trouble.

Working-class students were carefully attuned to the moods and temperaments of those around them, and especially to those of authorities. This sensitivity, in turn, seemed to reflect working-class students’ logic of appeasement, which established the imperative of adjusting individual behavior to the needs of authorities.

These patterns were not perfect. Some middle-class students were shy and more deferential. Some working-class students were less cautious, and occasionally got in trouble for behaving inappropriately (e.g., talking out of turn or being off-task). Overall, though, students’ logics of classroom action tended to divide along social class lines. As I will show, drawing on these varying logics also led middle-class and working-class students to interpret teachers’ shifting expectations in different ways.

Interpreting Ambiguous Expectations

Students’ logics of action shaped their perception of interpretive moments in the classroom. Because these logics varied across social classes, they led middle-class and working-class students to have different views of similar classroom situations.

Adopting a logic of entitlement, middle-class children tended to view shifting expectations as opportunities for reward. With help-seeking, middle-class students felt that in the absence of explicit instruction, they could assert their needs and preferences as they saw fit. Ethan is a high-achieving but somewhat shy middle-class student. In an interview, Ethan explained what students should do if they are confused or struggling, noting,

If I don’t know what to do, I just go ask Mr. Fischer. And he normally tells me, like, “You’re not reading the problem correctly.” So I read it again. Then I get up and ask him again, and after a couple of times of saying, “Read it again,” he’ll eventually say, “Well, it’s like this.”

By repeatedly saying, “Read it again,” Mr. Fischer was likely trying to persuade Ethan to work through the problem on his own. Despite this subtle discouragement, however, Ethan persisted and eventually convinced Mr. Fischer to provide detailed explanations. In the interview, I asked Ethan why he persisted in such situations, and he explained, “I don’t want to guess and risk getting it wrong, because then I won’t get as high a grade as I should have gotten.” Like other middle-class students, Ethan was not dissuaded by his teachers’ vague or inconsistent expectations. Instead, Ethan saw these ambiguities as opportunities to get the rewards (more information and subsequently better grades) that he desired.

Adopting a logic of appeasement, working-class children tended to view teachers’ shifting expectations as opportunities for reprimand. When help-seeking expectations were not explicit, these students worried that teachers would chastise students for making requests. Jared—described above as a class clown—is a high-achieving and outgoing working-class student. Despite his confidence, Jared was uncertain about seeking help, particularly in situations where teachers’ expectations were unclear. In an interview, he recalled,

Most of the time, [teachers] explain too much, and you can’t follow it all. So, I get lost, and I would just ask the person next to me. But, half the time, the teachers don’t want us talking. So it’s hard. Like, I don’t know if I should go up and talk [to the teacher], or if I should ask the person next to me. So, sometimes I go to the teacher and say, “I don’t get this.” But she might say, “Ask your partner,” or “Ask your neighbor.” So, I don’t know if she’ll get mad, or if she wants me to do that.

While working-class students like Jared recognized that teachers’ assistance could be beneficial, teachers’ ambiguous expectations made it hard for them to seek support. These students were keenly aware of teachers’ frustrations and tended to interpret teachers’ dismissals (e.g., “Ask your partner”) as anger even when teachers did not seem to mean them as such. As a result, working-class students worried that teachers might reprimand them for making requests at the wrong time or in the wrong way.

These interpretations, in turn, reflected working-class students’ greater sensitivity to teachers’ moods and temperaments (even when teachers’ frustrations were directed at others students, as with Jared and Christian above). This was not, however, because working-class students more often “got in trouble” for seeking help. Rather, as I have previously shown using data from this same project (see Calarco 2011), working-class students were almost never reprimanded for help-seeking; it was generally middle-class students who frustrated teachers with their excessive requests. While teachers did occasionally punish working-class students, these were typically sanctions for coming to school unprepared (e.g., without their homework, projects, books, or binders), or for being off-task when they were supposed to be listening or working (e.g., talking with friends or playing with toys in their desks). Regardless of whether they or their classmates were the targets, however, working-class students tended to be more sensitive to reprimands. This greater sensitivity, in turn, appeared to reflect working-class students’ logic of appeasement, which encouraged them to be wary of the possible consequences of making demands on authorities, and to calibrate their actions to others’ needs.

Activating Strategies of Action

The interpretations stemming from students’ logics of action also shaped their responses to teachers’ ambiguous expectations. Because interpretations varied with social class, middle- and working-class students reacted differently to interpretive moments at school.

Middle-class students, for example, responded to ambiguities by activating a strategy of negotiation. With help-seeking, they typically pushed back and persisted even when teachers seemed reluctant to grant requests. One morning during math class, Ms. Dunham passed back tests her fifth graders had taken the day before. Ms. Dunham had not graded the tests, but she had marked each correct answer with a large, blue C.

Ms. Dunham explains to the class that they will have fifteen minutes to work on the test and correct their mistakes. With a wry smile, she adds: “Now, I don’t want you to come up to me and say: ‘I don’t know what the answer is!’ I’m gonna send you away if you do that.”

Despite this discouragement, Greg, a middle-class student, asked for help anyway:

As the other kids work silently, Greg looks up from his seat. He calls out to Ms. Dunham in a pained voice saying: “I can’t figure out if this one wrong or not. There’s a mark next to the number, but it looks more like a dot than a “C.” Ms. Dunham hears this and frowns. She heads over to Greg, squats down beside him and peers over his shoulder at his test. After a moment, Ms. Dunham reaches out and taps the paper, whispering: “Check that one. You reduced wrong.” Greg furrows his eyebrows for a moment and then looks up, saying: “Oh! Okay. I get it now.”

Ms. Dunham tried to discourage students from asking for help in correcting their mistakes on the test. And yet, even when teachers did not want requests for help, middle-class students like Greg often tried to push back and negotiate for the help they desired. They did so by exploiting ambiguities in teachers’ expectations. In this situation, for example, Greg seemed to recognize that Ms. Dunham said nothing about clarifying questions and thus adjusted his approach accordingly.

Working-class students, on the other hand, approached interpretive moments by activating a strategy of avoidance. With help-seeking, for example, they tended to manage uncertainty around teachers’ expectations by choosing not to ask for assistance. In an interview, working-class student Shawn recalled the following incident:

Like, one time Ms. Dunham said to me, “This test is pretty easy. You probably shouldn’t have any trouble on it.” But then I did kind of have a lot of trouble on it. And it [what she said] made it a lot harder on me, cuz I didn’t want her to be mad that I didn’t get it. So I just tried to do my best.

In telling Shawn the test would be “easy,” Ms. Dunham was likely trying to boost his confidence. Shawn, however, interpreted this as a subtle effort to discourage help-seeking. He worried that Ms. Dunham would be “mad” if he acknowledged his struggles and thus opted to just try his best rather than ask for help.

Now, working-class students did sometimes set aside their logics and strategies of action in order to seek help, but they did so only when teachers’ willingness to answer questions was very explicit. This included when teachers directly encouraged help-seeking, when other students had successfully made similar requests, and especially when teachers approached them to offer support. During art class in fifth grade, the students were creating collages. As the students worked, Ms. Cantore circled around answering questions and offering advice. During this time, Haley, a working-class student, was struggling but did not ask for help.

As the other students work, Haley digs frantically through the project bin at the back of the room. She repeatedly checks each folder, looking for her collage. When Ms. Cantore circles past, she notices the worried frown on Haley’s face and asks gently: “You okay?” Haley does not look Ms. Cantore in the eye. Instead, she shrugs and admits quietly: “I can’t find my collage. It’s not here.” Ms. Cantore gives Haley a reassuring smile and explains: “I put the ones without names on the table up front. Lindsey [a middle-class student] just found hers up there. Let’s see if we can find yours, too.” Haley nods gratefully and follows Ms. Cantore to the front of the room, where they search together through the nameless collages and eventually find Haley’s.

When Lindsey could not find her collage, she immediately asked for help. Haley instead searched on her own until Ms. Cantore offered assistance. Offers of assistance made the outcome of a help-seeking exchange far less ambiguous. With this uncertainty reduced, logics of action were no longer necessary for making sense of situations, and working-class students like Haley could ask for help, confident they would not be reprimanded.

Situating Stratified Profits

Students’ class-based strategies of action were important in that they tended to produce stratified profits. As I have shown elsewhere using data from the same project (see Calarco 2011), middle-class help-seeking efforts were often successful in securing support from teachers. This assistance allowed middle-class students to complete assignments quickly and correctly and to avoid problems at school. Working-class students, in turn, were more reluctant to seek help. As a result, they tended to spend more time struggling and were sometimes perceived by teachers as less motivated to learn. That said, when working-class students did ask for help, teachers (like Ms. Cantore in the example above) were generally very warm and welcoming of such questions.

Simultaneously, however, and in contrast to the fixed-profit assumption of both tool kit and cultural mismatch theories of inequality, I found that the consequences of children’s behaviors were not automatic. Rather, as I will explain, the profits associated with particular logics and strategies of action varied across situations. Such variations reflected teachers’ interpretations of student behaviors in light of the situation at hand.

At Maplewood, the same strategy of action often had different payoffs at different times. Middle-class students’ negotiations for assistance, for example, sometimes led to praise and reward; in other situations, they provoked reprimand. ¹⁰ In Mr. Potter’s class, middle-class students were often able to negotiate for the assistance that they desired. One day during math class, however, Mr. Potter became frustrated after spending 20 minutes answering questions about a set of word problems.

All around the room, middle-class students are calling out for Mr. Potter, waving their hands in the air and shouting: “I don’t get this one!” and “Is this right?” Mr. Potter seems frazzled. When Julie, a middle-class student, asks for help with Question 8, Mr. Potter responds gruffly: “All you have to do is read the instructions.”

Despite Mr. Potter’s apparent frustration, the requests continued. Eventually, Mr. Potter hit his breaking point:

Mr. Potter suddenly stops, growling: “Fifth grade!” As the students look up, startled, Mr. Potter gestures wildly and laments: “Every time we do word problems, you guys say you can’t do it! You guys who are so used to getting it immediately, you say ‘I don’t get it’ and you give up!”

This reprimand finally made Mr. Potter’s expectations explicit, prompting students to cease their requests, at least temporarily. As such examples suggest, however, the payoff of students’ strategies of action was not fixed or automatic. In some situations, middle-class students’ help-seeking got them the rewards they desired. In others, middle-class students did not get the answers they wanted, or even got in trouble for making too many requests or for doing so at the wrong time or in the wrong way.

These variations reflected situational influences on teachers’ responses to student behaviors. In some cases, structural constraints and competing classroom goals led teachers to respond more negatively to a given strategy of action. With help-seeking, teachers often became frustrated with requests when they felt pressed for time or overwhelmed by too many demands. ¹¹ Early one morning in Ms. Dunham’s fifth-grade class, for example, the students were working on a set of grammar exercises.

As the students work, Ms. Dunham bustles around, collecting homework and setting up the Smart Board for a language arts lesson. Meanwhile, Diana, a middle-class girl, repeatedly gets up from her seat and goes over to Ms. Dunham, peppering her with questions about the grammar exercises and the schedule for the day. At first, Ms. Dunham is patient with Diana. She pauses, turning to face Diana and answering her questions with full sentences (e.g., “The science test is this afternoon” and “If you don’t finish the test during science, you can work on it during flex time.”).

As Diana’s requests continued, Ms. Dunham’s replies became shorter and gruffer.

Ms. Dunham continues working while Diana asks her questions, and does not look up as she responds with a simple “Yes” or “No.” Eventually, Ms. Dunham turns and looks at Diana with a tired frown, asking in a pained voice: “Can this wait? We have a lot to get through this morning, and I need to get set up.” Diana initially starts to protest, but then nods and heads back to her seat.

Diana gave up her negotiations only when Ms. Dunham snapped, “Can this wait?” This more overtly negative response eliminated the ambiguity of the situation, allowing Diana to fully recognize that Ms. Dunham did not want any more requests. Teachers did want to support students, but the need to complete each lesson on schedule left teachers feeling rushed and made it hard for them to spend ample time giving detailed responses to student questions. In light of these competing priorities, teachers often adopted vague or flexible standards around help-seeking that allowed them to respond to situational constraints. ¹² They used gruffness, for example, to end ambiguity and curtail unwanted requests.

In other cases, teachers’ responses to students’ strategies of action reflected their interpretations of student motivation. With help-seeking, for example, teachers tended to reject requests when they felt students were not working hard, not paying attention, not using critical thinking skills, or not reading and following directions. One afternoon, Mr. Fischer’s fifth graders were taking a social studies test. The test included eight fill-in-the-blank questions accompanied by a nine-word “word bank.” As the students worked silently on their tests, Mr. Fischer sat at his desk, typing on his computer. Meanwhile, Melanie, a middle-class student who struggles in school, got up from her seat.

As Melanie approaches, carrying her test paper, she asks anxiously: “Should we have extra words in the word bank? Or do we have to use them all?” Mr. Fischer lets out a loud breath and responds in a gruff whisper: “You should be able to figure out the answer to that question yourself.” Melanie hears this and blinks, puzzled. Sputtering, she asks: “But how are we supposed to know?” Mr. Fischer sighs again and continues wanly: “There are eight fill-in-the blank questions. So what do you need to do with the words in the word bank?” Melanie thinks for a long moment, and then responds tentatively: “Count them?” Mr. Fischer nods dramatically, giving Melanie a forced smile. Melanie begins to count the words aloud to herself as she turns to head back to her seat.

Melanie could have continued to push back but did not do so because Mr. Fischer’s gruff response made it clear that he expected her to think critically before seeking help. During the same test, however, Mr. Fischer more patiently answered questions from other students about a confusingly worded essay question. As with other teachers, Mr. Fischer’s negative responses to student help-seeking varied in part with their assumptions about students’ motivations for seeking help at a given point in time.

The profits of not seeking help also varied across classroom contexts. In some situations, avoiding requests had benefits. When teachers were frustrated or time-strapped, for example, working-class students avoided frustrating teachers by not seeking help. Teachers also tended to perceive working-class students as more polite than middle-class students, saying things like, “Jared is one of the most likeable kids in the class. He’s got great character, and he’s very respectful.” Yet, when teachers were not time-pressed or frustrated, a reluctance to seek help prevented students from getting support they could have received. In Mr. Fischer’s class, for example, working-class student Zach opted not to tell Mr. Fischer that he was confused about directions for a project and received a lower grade because he completed the project incorrectly. Such reluctance, in turn, also caused teachers to perceive working-class students as lacking in motivation. Describing working-class student Shawn, for instance, his teacher recalled,

He’s fairly intelligent, but he misses a ton of school, and he’s not good at following up with work that he missed. He doesn’t ask for help. Just kind of shows up and floats through the day.

As with help-seeking, the consequences of not asking varied across situations and reflected both contextual constraints and teacher interpretations of student motivation.

Simultaneously, however, it seemed that the negative consequences of help-seeking were much less severe than those for not making requests. At Maplewood, for example, I never witnessed a teacher punish students (e.g., keeping them in for recess or denying them privileges) for seeking help. Teachers would occasionally lash out at excessive help-seekers with verbal diatribes. In general, however, they demonstrated their frustrations by denying students’ requests or by being gruff and dismissive in their replies. The teachers, in turn, would often regret their moments of frustration. In the situation described above, for example, Mr. Fischer heard Melanie counting the words aloud to herself and called out to her, saying encouragingly, “You should probably have one extra, right?” Mr. Fischer seemed to feel bad about being gruff with Melanie and subsequently provided her with the help she desired. Overall, then, while help avoidance ensured that working-class students had fewer opportunities for support, negotiation allowed middle-class students to maximize the assistance they received.

Implications

These findings offer a number of important insights. First and foremost, they suggest that cultural tool kits include not only different strategies of action but also different logics of action. These logics of action, like “sociocultural models of self . . . guide people’s behavior by systematically shaping how people construe situations” (Stephens, Markus, et al. 2012:723; see also Markus and Kitayama, 1991). In the classroom, for example, students’ logics of action shaped their interpretations of teachers’ shifting expectations around help-seeking and thus prompted them to activate different strategies of action for managing teachers’ demands.

Such findings imply that tool kit models of culture should be expanded to incorporate actors’ internal mental structures (DiMaggio 1997; DiMaggio and Markus, 2010; Shepherd and Stephens 2010). By expanding tool kit models and applying them to ambiguities, we can see that the activation of tool kit resources is a more interpretive and more situationally contingent process than scholars typically acknowledge. Prior research has called for greater recognition of the fact that tool kit resources must be activated to yield profits (Lareau 2000). Yet, this study takes such arguments a step further in showing that such activation is not an automatic process but, rather, one that hinges on an interaction between individual orientations and situational constraints.

These findings also show that inequalities are not simply the product of internal mental constructs or their mismatch with institutional orientations, as social psychologists sometimes imply (e.g., Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012). Rather, inequalities also hinge on the activation of particular strategies of action and the interactive processes by which those strategies of action are interpreted and rewarded in institutional settings. As tool kit scholars suggest, institutions evaluate individuals on the basis of their behavior (Bourdieu 1977; Lareau and Weininger 2003). In the classroom, for example, students’ logics of action tended to be revealed only through their activation of particular strategies of action. As a result, it was students’ behaviors—and not their orientations—that shaped teachers’ decisions about how to allocate assistance.

Uniting cultural and social psychological approaches clarifies students’ efforts to make sense of interpretive moments at school. Scholars who adopt tool kit models (e.g., Lareau 2011) fail to specify the interpretive processes by which logics of action guide the activation of strategies of action. Social psychologists (e.g., Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012) highlight class differences in models of self but ignore how orientations shape behavior in interaction. Thus, I argue that it is only by combining social psychological and cultural approaches that scholars can truly understand how social interactions give rise to inequalities. Taken together, these perspectives encourage tracing internal mental structures to their behavioral consequences and to the stratified profits that result from them.

This study also suggests that interpretive moments are a fruitful arena in which to explore the intersection of these perspectives. While explicit expectations tend to produce institutionally patterned behavior (McPherson and Sauder 2013), ambiguities may activate more conscious processes of interpretation (Pescosolido 1992). This heightened awareness is also likely to make it easier for research participants to recall and articulate both the strategies of action they activated in a given situation and the logics of action that guided that activation. At Maplewood, for example, students were keenly aware of inconsistencies in teachers’ expectations around help-seeking and were able to describe in rich detail their responses to these interpretive moments at school.

Interpretive moments may also have important consequences for inequalities. In keeping with tool kit and cultural mismatch theories, I found that students’ strategies of action and logics of action varied with social class and that mismatches of school expectations and individual behavior created stratified profits. Those mismatches, however, were also situationally contingent. Teachers’ expectations shifted from moment to moment and, in doing so, altered the consequences of student behaviors. Such findings suggest that the profits of particular strategies of action (or “soft skills”; Jennings and DiPrete 2010; Tach and Farkas 2006) were not as fixed or automatic as hidden curriculum scholars (e.g., Apple 1980; Bowles, Gintis, and Groves 2005) or cultural mismatch scholars (e.g., Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012; Stephens, Markus, et al. 2012) imply. Rather, such profits were interpretive and situationally determined. Help-seeking, for example, may be beneficial for learning (Karabenick 1998; Newman 2000) but had positive effects only when teachers granted students’ requests. In highlighting such patterns, this study supports a more situational approach to studying stratified profits.

The situational nature of these profits did not, however, negate their importance for inequalities. Middle-class children, for example, seemed undaunted by ambiguous expectations. Their logic of entitlement (coupled with their familiarity with middle-class styles of indirect communication; Bernstein 1958; Delpit 2006) prompted them to feel comfortable negotiating for assistance, even when teachers seemed ambivalent about granting requests. This blindness to the possibility of reprimand sometimes had negative consequences—middle-class children occasionally had requests denied or were chastised for lacking problem-solving skills. Yet, those negative consequences were rarely as severe as the consequences for not seeking help. By adopting a logic appeasement and choosing not to ask, working-class students sometimes protected themselves from reprimands but also eliminated opportunities for support. Middle-class students, on the other hand, persisted in their requests and thus maximized the support they received.

Culture as a Source of Stratification

Traditional studies in the culture and stratification literature show that middle- and working-class individuals tend to adopt contrasting orientations (Kohn 1969; Lareau 2011; Rubin 1976; Stephens, Fryberg, et al. 2012). These orientations, in turn, were largely—but not entirely—consistent with the logics and strategies of action I observed at Maplewood. Entitlement and negotiation were closely aligned with “independent” and “self-directed” orientations. Middle-class students assumed that individual needs were of central importance and that others should meet those needs. They also perceived limited status difference from teachers and were confident making demands. These students, however, were not wholly “independent” or “self-directed,” as they regularly depended on teachers for assistance and reassurance. Thus, I describe middle-class students’ logics of action as entitlement. Appeasement and help avoidance, in turn, were largely consistent with “interdependent” and “conformist” orientations. Working-class students worried about rules and social sanctions. They also saw themselves as having lower status than the teacher and emphasized deference to authority. Intuitively, working-class students’ reluctance to seek help might seem antithetical to an interdependent orientation, but cross-cultural research shows that interdependence tends to be linked with less rather than more help-seeking (Mojaverian and Kim 2013). In these cultures, not seeking help reflects a concern for others’ needs and a reluctance to burden others with requests. Working-class students, however, were not entirely “conformist,” as they tended not to ask for help even when teachers wanted (but did not explicitly call for) such requests. Thus, I use the term appeasement to describe the logics guiding working-class students at school.

Existing research also helps to explain why teachers’ expectations varied across situations but were not more explicit. Because competing classroom goals cannot always be achieved simultaneously, teachers often vary their expectations to match the situation at hand (Mullooly and Varenne 2006; Pace 2003; Rosenblum 2006; Swidler 1979; Thornberg 2007). Teachers, however, rarely announce such shifts. This is because teachers, having both college degrees and professional occupations, tend to adopt a middle-class style of indirect communication (Bernstein 1958; Delpit 1988, 2006; Heath 1983). In doing so, the teachers at Maplewood seemed to inadvertently assume that students were capable of both decoding the rules of a given situation and adjusting their behaviors accordingly. When teachers were ambivalent about what behaviors were appropriate, they also tended to err on the side of middle-class orientations, allowing themselves to be swayed into granting middle-class students’ requests.

Such findings are consistent with both tool kit and cultural mismatch theories of inequality. While there were moments in the classroom where working-class deference was desired, and while middle-class students sometimes faced reprimand for pushing too far, the institutionalization of middle-class assumptions seemed, on the whole, to advantage middle-class students over their working-class peers.