School is a very well defined formal system with its atypical rules and regulations. Many studies have focused on the existence of continuity between the socialization strategies of the middle socio economic strata home and the school. Also the fact that there are certain discontinuities between the socialization patterns in the working class home and socialization strategies and the learning processes at the school of this child is documented.

Attempts have been made to show how the disciplinary techniques, boundaries maintenance, time scheduling, reasoning and self reliance are different across the middle and lower socio-economic strata in particular in the city of Delhi and in general in the Northern part of India. A further attempt is made to highlight how the school is very much a middle class construct and how these variations in the constructs of the above stated variables lead to a discontinuity across the school and the family and further is the cause of barriers to learning for the child coming from the lower socioeconomic strata.

The type of learning appreciated in the school system and further supported in the adult job market and the world of work is often not what the child is able to reproduce. It is the very school system of the working class child which causes barriers in the further advancement of the child with respect to disciplinary techniques, boundaries maintenance, time scheduling, reasoning and self reliance and of course many other constructs and causes barriers for better grade in school learning and towards a higher profile job in adult life and hence ultimately leading to a higher position in society.

The study highlights how the child from the working class is considered big enough to take up responsibilities like a ‘miniature adult’ and help in household and school chores. The girl child gets parentified at the cost of her childhood and school work. Even for the boy-child, although to a lesser extent household chores at times take precedence over school related work. This often subtly and often subconsciously causes barriers to school learning.

Using an ethnographic approach and a narrative style of presentation this study highlights how disciplinary techniques for the child from the middle strata, both at school and at home are with almost no use of aggression and are based on demonstration of love and a lot of reasoning and how this it leads to school learning which becomes the foundation steps for moving up the ladder of work area achievements. On the other hand the child from the working class faces physical as well as psychological aggression and abuse often of a high degree with often no explanations or very limited explanations and how this behaviour of the adults creates barrier to school learning.

Learning of self-reliance is monitored for long term gains by the adults in the case of the child from the middle strata of society whereas in the case of the child from the working class self reliance is based on short term often just based on the basics of survival.
Boundary maintenance is an essential part of the world of work. Whereas a child from the working class live in homes and spaces where the private and the public spaces are very enmeshed. Often this child when moves into the world of work may not have internalized the boundary maintenance of the workplace because his/her learning was different from the one required in most work places.