Remember when you did not want to talk? Perhaps you did not have a clue to the right answer. Or perhaps you were incredibly shy, frightened at speaking in front of peers who could make or break your social world. Maybe you were new to the country and to the language, embar-rassed to show that you did not always understand what was being said, or how best to formulate your sentences. Then you wanted to be silent, hidden, and if at all possible, invisible. So you honed your invisible techniques: you would disappear in your book and avoid eye contact with the teacher.

Most girls-five, six, seven, or eight years old-are much too young to truly understand and challenge their assignment as the lower-caste gen-der. But without challenge over the course of years, this hidden curricu-lum in second-class citizenship sinks in. By upper elementary and middle school, nearly one in five students see second-class status as the biggest disadvantage of being a girl. Boys and girls describe a society that expects females to serve males by cleaning and cooking, and see girls as the weaker sex. Students further report that teachers and coaches listen less and expect less from girls than boys.

When teachers talk with boys about appearance, the exchanges are brief-quick recognition and then on to something else. Or teachers use appearance incidents to move on to a physical skill or academic topic. In the scene just described, the teacher used the bracelet incident to teach about size, shape, and color. In another exchange, a little boy showed the teacher his shiny new belt buckle. Her response: "Cowboys wore buck-les like that. They were rough and tough and they rode horses. Did you know that?"

Three decades ago, Mary Budd Rowe was the first researcher to frame this question and then try to answer it. Today, many continue her work and uncover an astonishingly hurried classroom. On average, teachers wait only nine-tenths of a second for a student to answer a ques-tion. If a student can't answer within that time, teachers call on another student or answer the question themselves.

This chapter explores the ways in which school structure serves to repro<luce inequality. It begLns with Beth C. Rubin, Jean Yonemura Wing, and Pedro A. Noguera examining tracking "Berkeley High style," probing the means through which racial and class-based inequalities are perpetuated through course placement.

Chanrelle's experience illustrates why students who lack eco-nomic, social, and cultural capital ace more vulnerable to the i_inpersonal and ineffective structures at the school. Without an adult to encourage her to cake algebra, the gateway to college preparatory math and science courses, or to advise her on where she might seek academic support, Chantelle made a decision that is likely to affect her preparation for college and therefore will have bearing in the long term on her opportunities after high school. By taking prealgebra in the ninth grade, Chantelle is all hut ensured that she will be unable to meet the admissions requirements to the UC or California State University (CSU) systems. Given that so much is at stake, it must be recognized that a system of course assignment that allows students to choose which classes to take will invariably work better for some than others.

Social scientists have identified significant resources, or forms of capital, th::tr play a role in influencing student academic out-comes. Research has shown that economic capital, that is, the w~alch and income of parents, is one of the primary factors influ-ep.cing student achieveme11t (Coleman and others, 1966; Roth-stein, 2004; Farkas, 2004 ). Student achievement is also influenced _l,y more subtle resources sud; as social capital-the benefits derived from c<;mnections to networks and individuals with power and influence (Coleman, 1988; Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001; Noguera, 2003 )-and cultural capital (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992)-the t~sces, styles, habits, language, behaviors, appearance, and customs c.hat serve as indicators of status anJ privilege.