Social factors affecting education 
The school curriculum may be thought of as a map or chart of organized knowledge and experience, through whose systematic study the student is expected to learn and to apply that learning in life situation. There are some accusations about the lack of connection between the school environment and the real live experience. Formal education confronts children with many demands that are not a regular or frequent characteristic of their everyday experience outside the classroom. The practice of education confronts children with meaningful and necessary discontinuities in their intellectual, social and linguistic experiences. But according to Bernstein children from ´the middle class´ social background find it easier to accommodate to the school system than ´the working class´ one, because of the language and social norm of the school serve better their comprehension. At different time and in different part of the world teachers have had the role of being guardians of culture and vicars of morality. In more recent times, schools have been allocated the task of achieving social equality, overcoming material disadvantage and eradicating prejudice. Teachers and education instructional designer need to be capable of diagnosing the needs of the individual learner and know how to meet these when discovered. The technological developments in recent years have equipped teacher and instructional designers with more variety of tools to meet this new era, but the underlying theories of instructions must be an addition to the use of the tools.  
In practice the curriculum is subjected to pressure and forces which both produces imbalances and sharpens up or place in focus particular themes, issues, or aspects of contemporary life. In all countries, social expectations of schooling, of further and higher education, and hence of the curriculum, are high and generally rising. Students are expected to acquire the foundations of general knowledge and ways of applying that knowledge. Various researches reveals that the education system perpetuates and legitimizes social inequality, due to the economic, political, ideological and pedagogical practices that permeate schools. The area of Aboriginal education is a good example of this. 
Connell (1994, p.129) states that children from working class, poor, and minority ethnics families continue to do worse than children from rich and middle -class families on tests and examinations, are more likely to be held back in grade, to drop out of school earlier, and are much less likely to enter college or university. The dilemma for working parents, according to Connell is that the school system - and its link to broader system of educations - has become the main bearer of working -class hopes for a better future.    
Students who are seen to be at risk of educational disadvantage and subsequent poor school retention and achievement include students:
           - In poverty - studies shows the age that young people leave schools  increases with family income, that is, youth from low income families tend to leave school earlier than those from high income families.
           - Who live in low socioeconomic status single-parent families
           - Who lack supportive social, emotional and technical structures that emphasizes the importance of education

Reference:

* Abbott-Chapman, J., Easthope, G. & O’Connor, P. (1997) ‘The influence of student gender and parental socio-economic status on post-school career paths’ Australian Journal of Social Research 4 (1), pp2-26.* Changing contexts in education 2E, for La Trobe University (2012). Compiled by Ian Bentley