Abstract: How to reduce social class disparities in health and education and improve social equality has drawn widely concerns across the world. Among current approaches in social class psychology, the sociocultural perspective emphasizes on how social class contexts shape the self and corresponding patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. Starting from the class-specific self, sociocultural perspective further provides systematic explanations on how social class culture is produced and maintained (i.e., social class cycles), as well as difference education as a means to improve the adaptations of the lower-class. These theoretical perspectives incorporate and extend previous key tenets of the individual and structural models of behavior. In addition, the sociocultural perspective provides new tools for developing social-psychological interventions which aim at reducing social class disparities in health and education. Future research from the sociocultural perspective could focus on sinicization of the theory and corresponding interventions, integration with other approaches in social class psychology and social justice perspective, and examining the effects of social mobility and cultural change on social class psychology.

Key words: social class, sociocultural perspective, health, education