SCHOOLS AND THE CLASS DIVIDE: AN EXAMINATION OF CHILDREN’S SELF-CONCEPT AND ASPIRATIONS IN SINGAPORE RESEARCH MONOGRAPH NO. 11 AUGUST 2016 SCHOOLS AND THE CLASS DIVIDE: AN EXAMINATION OF CHILDREN’S SELF-CONCEPT AND ASPIRATIONS IN SINGAPORE ONG XIANG LING CHEUNG HOI SHAN We welcome your comments, feedback and suggestions. Contact : Principal Research Officer Address : Singapore Children’s Society 9 Bishan Place #05-02 Singapore 579837 Telephone: (65) 6358 0911 Facsimile: (65) 6358 0936 Email:
[email protected] Copyright 2016 by Singapore Children’s Society ISBN [978-981-11-0283-7] All rights reserved. No part of this monograph may be reproduced and circulated, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilised in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Singapore Children’s Society. Permission to reproduce the questionnaire published in this Monograph for purposes of education and research will normally be granted free of charge subject to an undertaking to acknowledge the source of the material. CONTENTS FOREWORD iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v LIST OF RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS vi LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF TABLES ix EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 3 1.1 Defining social class 3 1.2 Class and school stratification 4 1.3 Self-concept 6 1.4 Aspirations 7 1.5 Parents’ aspirations 8 1.6 The social divide 9 1.7 The present study 9 CHAPTER 2 – METHOD 12 2.1 Focus group discussions 12 2.2 Pilot study 12 2.3 Participants 13 2.4 Measures 17 2.5