The quality of education in America is a subject that is steadily gaining notice by citizens across the country. Making sure that young children have equal opportunities to achieve in the academic world is extremely important if we desire to sculpt a successful and lucrative nation. In her essay entitled “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, author Jean Anyon ethnographically studies a handful of American schools and argues that there are vast class-oriented differences between these vessels of academia across the United States. The most prevalent differences however are not so much in resources and financial situations of the individual school systems, but rather the teaching methods and philosophies utilized. Anyon builds on her thesis by splitting public schools into five separate social class designations and explains the most prevalent coinciding philosophies that teachers incorporate in each of these categories. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” is an absolutely mind opening literary work relevant to current society in America. Jean Anyon proves to stimulate her reader’s thoughts on the impact the modern educational system has on socio-economic class differences in the country.
The first category of school that Anyon covers in her essay is the “Working Class School”. In this section, the author explains that most the students attending have parents employed in blue collar positions such as factory assembly line workers, boilermakers, and auto-mechanics. In the essay, the most prevalent teaching philosophy for this social category of school is stated as such: “In the two working class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote b...
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... 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 essays by Jean Anyon and Jonathan Kozol explore the idea of education not being equal for everyone across the United States. For example, Jean Anyon discusses the idea of a "hidden curriculum". The hidden curriculum that her essay describes implies that the information taught and the way it is taught differs among schools of varying socioeconomic backgrounds. She and her team visited five different schools in New Jersey, with the schools being classified into working class, middle class, affluent-professional, and elite (Anyon 165-6). She then observed the classes and the way they are taught. This brought to light the differences between the way children
In the study of The Way Schools Work we learned to question the ideals of meritocracy and the American dream. However, Conflict Theories challenge the system of meritocracy, in which people are sorted and selected on the basis of talent and ability. On the contrary, “Conflict Theories, on the other hand, imply a system of inheritance in which people’s life chances are largely determined by their starting point within an existing structure of inequality” (McNamee and Miller Jr. 2014, 11). According to these theorists mentioned in The Way Schools Work (Boudin 1974; Bowles and Gintis 1976; Carnoy 1972; Carnoy and Levin 1985; Persell 1977), they speak about how schools reproduce status in several ways. First, they use formal language, and hold
In her article she points out how social class has become the main gateway to opportunity in America. The widening academic divide means that kids who grow up poor will most likely stay poor and the kids who grow up rich will most likely stay rich. About fifty years ago the main concern about getting a good education relied on your race but now it's about your social class. Researchers are starting to believe that children who come from higher income families tend to do better in school and get higher test scores.
The American school system is no stranger to criticism, but everybody seems to have a distinct idea of what should be done to improve it. It was not too long ago that we had no public schooling system at all. A man would change that forever, immortalizing himself as the “father” of American education. It was surprising to me that I had never heard of this man, especially considering I had finished my journey through free and compulsory education two years ago. The man who went on to change American education, was Horace Mann, the first Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts. Horace Mann tirelessly campaigned for the public to be educated, heralding it as a “great equalizer.” So why is the gap between social classes rising exponentially? There are fundamental issues holding us back from fulfilling Horace Mann’s dream of an education system which empowers citizens by leveling the playing field for everyone, including pedantic policies, a limited curriculum, and standardized testing.
Education is one of the most widely debated issues of our country in this current day and age. Many people feel as though some schooling is biased and unfair to certain students; meanwhile, others feel as though the schooling systems are not set up serious enough in order to properly educate students to prepare them for their futures. The three texts that will be discussed, are all well written controversial essays that use a great deal of rhetorical appeals which help readers relate to the topics being discussed. In the essay “School,” Mori manages to specify her views on how different modern education is in America as in Japan; meanwhile, in “A Talk to Teachers,” Baldwin presents his argument as to how all children,
As described by Rose, in his vocational track, students were constantly yelled at, for example the P.E teacher, in some cases it relates to the lesson that the syst...
What is learned in school, be it public or private, determines, for the most part, what position an individual will find themselves in - in the future. In “White Privilege and Male Privilege,” Peggy McIntosh, an author known for doing something that is rarely done in the white community--speaking of her race--makes references to education, to her privileged education, to support her argument on white and male privilege. Sometimes I wonder what society would look like without education; would there be any norms, or rules? Education is so deeply instituted into most Americans' lives that those questions will probably never be answered. One thing is certain; some people are able to get a better education than others.
Some 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
Imagine a world without education where human history is totally forgotten by the young generation, and individuals are forced to live in their basic everyday life without having the power to change it. Such in balance or disorders are the growing problems that occur around the world, which were pointed out in many educational essays like “The Educated Student” By Barber, “The student and the University” by Bloom, and “Class in America – 2003” by Mantsios. These essays are among the many of their kind that address the status education in the modern world as being forgotten and lost behind all the technology and commercialization of education. This was the point of attention of scholars like Barber, Bloom, and Mantsios who came up with a common
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.
Anyon, Jean. "From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work." In Rereading America. 8th ed.
Within the walls of our educational system lie many adverse problems. Is there a solution to such problems? If so, what is the solution? As we take a look at two different essays by two different authors’ John Gatto and Alfie Kohn, both highlight what’s wrong within our educational system in today’s society. As John Gatto explores the concept if schools are really as necessary as they’re made out to be; Alfie Kohn analyzes the non-importance of letter grades within our schools. Although both essays are fairly different, they still pose some similarities in relation to the educational system in today’s society.
Politics and business influence have been a long term problem for the establishment of a free and fair education opportunity. America has been called ?the melting pot? of the world, meaning that within the nation live such an abundance of individuals from different aspects of life. Within the world, we find some societies less fortunate than other societies. Economic diversity is present within the United States as well. It is commonly understood that the wealthy are becoming better educated than the poor, and similarly that the wealthy have a better chance to survive in the economic growth of today?s society.
Returning to his old high school after having had graduate ten years ago, Shamus Rahman Khan came in with one goal: to study the inequality of a school that claims to be more “diverse.” St. Paul’s School located in Concord, New Hampshire claims to have become more diverse over the years, accepting people of different racial backgrounds and social classes to their prestigious boarding school. However, as described in his book, Khan found that this claim made by the school is false. He also found out that the elite that used to attend his school is not the same as the elite attending it now. Nonetheless, it was the elite that were succeeding because they were the ones who could afford the school, had family linages that already attended the school, and mastered “ease” which made them privileged in society. Separating his book into five different chapters, each focusing on a different topic that helps support his claim, Khan describes this change in elite and the inequality that still accompanies St. Paul’s. In the introduction to Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, Khan states the three most important points he will refer to during the rest of the book: hierarchies are natural and can be used to one’s advantage, experiences matter more than inherited qualities, and the elite signal their status through ease and openness. These are discussed thoroughly in throughout Privilege.
In an education journal, Anyon (“Social”) provides the reader with the concept that there are four different types of schools, working class schools, middle-class schools, affluent professional schools, and executive elite schools, after observing five schools. The working class schools are made up of parents with blue-collar jobs, with less than a third of the fathers being skilled, and the majority of them being semiskilled or unskilled. “Approximately 15 percent of the fathers were unemployed… approximately 15 percent of the families in each school are at or below the federal ‘poverty’ level…the incomes of the majority of the families…are typical of 38.6 percent of the families in the United States” (Anyon, “Social”). In a more recent study conducted by Anyon (“What”, 69), she states that,