Structural Inequality in Education - Report Example

STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN EDUCATION STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN EDUCATION Introduction and definition Even though there is a general admission of the fact that we all came into this world as individual beings and so we are not all the same, there are social institutions that are put in place to ensure that all people will be treated equally. Most of these social institutions are manifested in different ways, including the provision of fundamental human rights that seek to spell the same level of rights and freedoms to all people (Epstein, 2006). Regard of such social interventions, the issues of discrimination, disparity and unequal treatment of people continue to exist by the day. Reviewing Coates’ essay, one gets a realization that any practice promotes biases in the context of the structure of an organisation, institution, government, or even social networks constitutes structural inequality (Liao, 2009). Even though the right to education is clearly enshrined in the constitutions of many countries, there a number of ways that structural equality put people away from receiving education. In this paper however, there is a direct focus on the educational institution, where people who have been put through formal education are discriminated against, and thereby creating structural inequality within the educational set up. Structural inequality in education shall be viewed from three major themes, which are student tracking, access to technology, and disability. Student tracking Student tracking has been used for several years in a good number of schools. For schools that use the student tracking system, the practice is to separate students according to their academic ability, using subjects, classes and curriculum within the school (Gamoran, 2012). For most schools that engage in student tracking, the rationale for doing it has been explained as the need to be able to categorize students so that students can best focus on their areas of strengths. Other explanations have also been for the reason of identifying student weaknesses so that there can be tutorial concentration on these areas of student weakness (Karen and Sadker, 2006). Meanwhile, the concept of student tracking has been criticized as an avenue for promoting structural inequality within the educational context. This is because most of these tracking programs end with some students receiving better forms of tuition than others because of perceived understanding of some people’s area of curriculum being better and more important than others (Edyburn and Gardner, 2009). A very clear case that can be cited with this is the treated given to most science students, which are different from other students in other subject areas. Such structural inequality actually goes on so much so that the number of years that students of some student areas are made to study to complete their course is different from others. Access to Technology Technology is perhaps the most popular concept of the 20th and 21st centuries. The importance of technology is seen in almost all walks of life, including in the educational set up. Using technology in education help to make the learning and teaching processes much effective and efficient. Particularly, technology has been noted to be a tool that enhances and facilitates the idea of personal learning. It is therefore expected that the digital divide between schools and students will be adequately closed to such a level that technology becomes easily accessible to all students and schools (Glickman and Ross-Gordon, 2007). In fact, even though most parents are making efforts to purchase computers and other technology tools for their wards at home, it remains an open secret that the gap between schools, faculties and students remain very wide. This is because in the educational system, the distribution and access to technology is done in a more biased way than in a fare way. For example, it is common to find students who are in private schools having better access to technology than those in public schools. Within the public schools also, schools in semi-urban and rural areas have lost it in terms of access to technology when compared to students in urban areas (LaRocco, 2007). Such gaps in the access to technology creates structural inequality when it comes to education and affect student overall output of work. Disabilities One other important issue in education, as far as structural inequality is concerned is the issue of disability. In the laws of most countries, there is a clear definition of legislations against discrimination on the grounds of disability of students. But when one goes to the ground, there is a different story all together. This is because students who have disabilities continue to loss it against their colleagues who are unimpaired. There are a number of areas where such structural inequality about disabilities takes place. The first has to do with the issue of technology, just as has been described above. Most certainly, there is no way that a visually impaired student can benefit from the internet in the same way as someone who is not visually impaired. It is very worrying that most technological platforms do not take into consideration the needs of disabled students. Where there are technological provisions for the teaching of learning of disabled students also, it is common to find clear instances of lack of the needed technology for the students with disability. Very lately also, the issue of unavailability of professional tutors who are well trained in the area of special needs education also affects education to the disabled negatively. Conclusion In conclusion, it will be reiterated that the issue of structural inequality continues to exist in the educational set up, despite efforts that have been put in place to stop these. The structural equality affects students and schools in the rural communities and the disabled in its worse forms. Students whose subjects and courses are not science related are also affected negatively. The exposition that the paper has done therefore calls for the need for a proactive program that seeks to bridge the existing gaps between the privileged and under privileged. The reason for this recommendation is that when structural equality is cleared from the educational setting, everyone becomes a benefactor, including students, schools, government and the general public. This is because there will be quality training that ensures that the very basic social needs of societies are addressed with the school as its major stakeholder. References Edyburn, D. and Gardner F. (2009). "Instructional design advances in special education technology". Exceptionality 17 (2): 63–65. Epstein, K. (2006). A different view of urban schools: Civil rights, critical race theory, and unexplained realities. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing. Gamoran, A (2012). "Is Ability Grouping Equitable?". Educational Leadership 50 (2): 8-49 Glickman, G. and Ross-Gordon G. (2007). Supervision and instructional leadership. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Education. Karen Z and Sadker, D. M. (2006). Teachers, Schools and Society: A Brief Introduction to Education with Bind-in Online Learning Center Card with free Student Reader CD-ROM. McGraw-Hill Humanities LaRocco, S. (2007). A grounded theory study of socializing men into nursing. Journal of Mens Studies 15 (2): 120–129. Liao, T. (2009). Conceptualizing and measuring structural inequality. Working paper. Yale: University Press. Read More