Research on college admissions shows that all students tend to benefit from overmatching, but high-status students are most likely to be overmatched, and low-status students are most likely to be undermatched. This study examines whether mismatching takes place when students are sorted into classrooms in middle school. Given prior research on effectively maintained inequality, we theorize that classroom sorting acts as an opportunity for privileged parents to obtain a qualitative advantage for their children. Our research uses administrative data from Indiana and hierarchical linear models to analyze classroom mismatch in sixth through eighth grades. We find that privileged students are more likely to be overmatched in both math and English language arts (ELA) classrooms but that overmatching is beneficial in math but detrimental in ELA. This suggests that inequality can be effectively maintained only if parents have an accurate understanding of what constitutes an advantage.

对大学招生的研究表明，所有学生都倾向于从过度匹配中受益，但是高地位的学生最有可能被过度匹配，而低地位的学生最有可能被过度匹配。这项研究调查了将学生分类到中学教室时是否发生错配。鉴于先前对有效维持不平等现象的研究，我们认为课堂排序是特权父母为子女获得质上优势的机会。我们的研究使用印第安纳州的行政数据和分层线性模型来分析六年级至八年级的课堂不匹配情况。我们发现，特权学生在数学和英语艺术（ELA）课堂上更容易被过度竞争，但是过度竞争在数学上是有益的，但在ELA中却是有害的。