Our world has been created by people, and by interactions between people, making everything from law to how we greet each other socially constructed. We would like to believe that everyone has the same privileges in life, and that the economic class one is born into will not affect ones future. We like to believe that our school system provides equal opportunities for everyone and that our justice system is fair. Through the research of Stephen Richer and Laureen Snider we find our society may privilege or favour some people over others. Our education system allegedly provides an equal opportunity to all members of society to reach their potential. The research by Richer, particularly in elementary school, leads us to believe that this is not essentially the case. Our school system has a “hidden curriculum” that produces an inequality between the middle and lower class as well as men and woman. When a child enters a school environment they are required to adhere to a set of values proposed by the teacher and classroom environment. This school environment is competitive, teachers r...
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Show MoreSome people may believe that education all over the United States is equal. These people also believe that all students no matter their location, socioeconomic status, and race have the same access and quality of education, but ultimately they are wrong. Throughout history, there has been a huge educational disparity between the wealthy and marginalized communities. The academic essay “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon, an American critical thinker and researcher in education, conveys that depending on the different economic backgrounds students have, they will be taught in a specific way. He reveals that the lower economic background a child has then the lower quality their education will be and the higher their economic background is the higher quality their education is. Anyon’s theory of a social ladder is extremely useful because it sheds light on the
The greatest country in the world still has problems evenly distributing education to its youth. The articles I have read for this unit have a common theme regarding our education system. The authors illustrate to the reader about the struggles in America concerning how we obtain and education. Oppression, politics, racism, and socioeconomic status are a few examples of what is wrong with our country and its means of delivering a fair education to all Americans.
Mickelson, R. A. & Smith, S.S. (2004). Can education eliminate race, class, and gender inequality? In M.L Andersen & P.H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: An Anthology (pp. 407-415). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
In America, the idea of equality between people is important, it is in fact, written into the Constitution. However, for years the American educational system has operated in a completely inequitable manner due, in part, to the way that schools are funded, mostly through local or property taxes. The differences between schools in wealthy neighborhoods and those in poor neighborhoods are, many times, reminiscent of the differences between white schools and black schools before the end of segregation. While there is a desperate need to fix this broken system, there has been little progress. The issue is so divisive and the problem so big and entrenched in American laws, many politicians refuse to even attempt to come up with a solution. The answer lies with the federal government. To make American public schools equitable the federal government needs to step up its role in funding and administering the schools.
For decades, the United States educational system has provided opportunity for millions of Americans to attend school. However, the gap between the lower income and middle-class students continue to narrow in terms of who will drop out and who would succeed. The articles I chose speak both of issues regarding education and inequality and the growing gap of educational success between the haves and the have nots. In addition, how race and lower class play a large factor on those who succeed and those who do not.The articles also bring to life possible factors such as funding towards a child’s education, in particular the early years, parent involvement and race.
Furthermore, Chapter 15 begins to explain educational inequality. In the United States, education is available but not to every child in the same way. Different social-classes means different schools, instructions, criteria, rates, and times. In addition to class differences, races and ethnics unfortunately play a role in educational achievement. For example, in general, African Americans, Latino/a’s, and Native Americans usually do worse in school than white or Asian American students
... the wealthier a child’s family is the better school they will attend. This essay does an excellent job of describing the myth of equal opportunity in America. It is obvious from this literary selection that those who are born into wealthier families are set up for success as soon as they begin kindergarten while other children from less fortunate families are simply thrown into working class blue collar positions with little chance for progression to a higher socio-economic class. Education is one of the most important elements within our modern American society. As long as we have this broad spectrum of teaching philosophies and methods, there will always be children with advantages over others. If these differences are evened out, I believe that a reestablishment of a large American middle class is possible, creating a more lucrative and successful nation.
The U.S. Educational system has historically divided into two objective groups. The first objective focuses on increasing opportunity. The second objective focuses on stabilizing an unequal society. The objective of increasing opportunity has mainly emphasized on practition more than discussions of schooling. Thomas Jefferson implemented a plan in 1779, it promised the laboring class more opportunity to attend higher education. The point of the plan was to rake out the brilliant from the poor class, and add them to the prospering upper class. The goal of the plan was to divide the youth
The inequality of education is a disparity among our children experience in their education compared to other children. The relations of educational success focus on grades, test scores, dropout rates, college entrance rates, and college completion percentages. Unfortunately, the inequalities of education are linked to the difference in socioeconomic status, racial, and geographic reasons. According, to Colclough (2005) “it is commonly presumed that formal schooling is one of several important contributors to the skills of an individual and to human capital. There’s not just only one factor parents, individuals and government officials have the abilities to contribute” (p.40). This perception of inequality of education does not only exist in the United States, but also all over the world. When associated with other nations the United States invests the most in education, however manages to obtain lower levels of student performance than many other countries. The children around the nation are not responsible for the injustice of inequality in education but sadly enough they are our victims. Although, the ones to blame would be our government they should be accountable for creating a vicious cycle that eventually trickles down to our public education. Our government highly contributes to our problem on the inequality of education because they are the ones in control of the Board of Education were they have the opportunity to analyze their trouble schools including their state test scores, their academic school standings, and school dropout rates. By knowing and having easy access to valuable information there shouldn’t be any an excuse on the behalf of the government or on the Board of Education for not trying to working together i...
Jean Anyon’s “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” claims that students from different social classes are treated differently in schools. Anyon’s article is about a study she conducted to show how fifth graders from the working, middle, and upper class are taught differently. In Anyon’s article, she provides information to support the claim that children from different social classes are not given the same opportunities in education. It is clear that students with different socio-economic statuses are treated differently in academic settings. The curriculum in most schools is based on the social class that the students belong to. The work is laid out based on academic professionals’ assumptions of students’ knowledge. Teachers and educational professionals assume a student’s knowledge based on their socio-economic status.
After watching the Teach Us All documentary on Netflix, it opened my eyes to many of the issues regarding educational inequality. The study looked at schools in Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles to show us the current state of U.S. education and how far we have come since the school desegregation crisis. The thesis of this documentary is that since the efforts of the Little Rock Nine, our belief is that educational inequality has improved when in reality, it hasn’t improved and the actions of our country have had negative effects. Teach Us All emphasizes the need for unity and collective action to improve our education system for the kids in poor communities that are in the most need. Our country has devoted all the resources to the middle and upper class for education and are taking money away from where it needs to
School funding is systemically unequal, partially because the majority of school funding comes from the school district’s local property taxes, positioning the poorest communities at the bottom rung of the education playing field. A student’s socioeconomic status often defines her success in a classroom for a number of reasons. Students who live below the poverty line have less motivation to succeed, and their parents are less inclined to participate in their child’s education, often because the parents cannot provide support for their children. Although it’s logical that school districts from poorer communities cannot collect as much funding as the richer communities, persons stuck in these low-income communities often pay higher taxes, and still their school dis...
The Quality of a child’s education often either limits or opens up a world of opportunities. Those who study the purpose of public education and the way it is distributed throughout society can often identify clear correlations between social class and the type of education a student receives. It is generally known by society that wealthy families obtain the best opportunities money can buy. Education is a tool of intellectual and economical empowerment and since the quality of education is strongly influenced by social class, a smaller portion of the American population obtains the opportunities acquired from a top notch education. Many people believe that educational inequalities are perpetuated from the interests of specific classes, but some researchers like John Gatto believe that there are even stronger social forces in play. In the essay “Against Schools” the author John Gatto presents three arguments: (1) that are educational system is flawed, (2) that the American educational system is purposely designed to create a massive working class that is easy to manipulate, and (3) alternative teaching methods should be applied to teach children to think for themselves. In this essay I will be summarizing and relating each of these arguments to other educational essays. Also, I will be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s argument.
The means of justifying these inequalities are important for the entire world. Education played and will always play a big role in everyone’s lives. Equality in education will eventually guarantee every person a better position in society. Educational inequality is the difference in learning effectiveness and results as faced by students with varying backgrounds. The effects of educational inequality are not only left within the circles of education, but also remain further to have an impact on other life aspects. All over the world, there have been unending calls to reform education at each level. With various causes that are very much connected to society, history and culture, the educational inequality has apparently been one of the most difficult challenges to address. Regardless of the challenges faced in removing educational inequality, education has continued to be a very important part of society with a big expectation of moving it forward. In the current-day America, very many disadvantaged children have continued to grow up missing key skills. Discrimination has continued to persevere in educational achievement between racial issues. Above all, low performance levels among these disadvantaged children have over the years been responsible for the long-term issues, especially in such an society with higher levels of skills and a failing incomes offered to those people that are less-skilled.
Many people don’t want to believe that we are living in a social injustice environment in this country. They choose to ignore the fact that rich are getting richer while the poor are just getting poorer. The rich public schools are giving their students the necessary opportunities to live a decent life while the poor students are left out and have to struggle for those opportunities. The social injustice is visible to every citizen in this country and it continuing to grown; however, there is a few solutions to minimize and possibly to solve the social injustice problem we have in American. One of them is give equal education in all public schools so everyone can have an equal opportunities in getting the jobs and careers they choose. Second