Middle-Class Children Learn to Be Squeaky Wheels

If it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, middle-class children are more likely than their lower-income peers to grow up learning how to make the gears of the education system turn smoothly.

Working-class parents, meanwhile, tend to raise their children to avoid conflict and be self-sufficient in problem-solving, an Indiana University researcher says.

The findings, the latest from a longitudinal study of Pennsylvania students, suggest parents of different classes may teach their children very different approaches to navigating the school system and championing their own education, priming them for later...