Educational Inequality in America - Essay Example

Educational inequality was a problem tackled by American sociologist James Coleman in a 1966 report. The Coleman report highlighted the effects of racial segregation. It also raised a sociological insight: family background, not schools, was responsible for differences in educational attainment. The study culled information from 600,000 students in 4,000 schools. The data reinforced the importance of family background in schooling which disregarded the role that school-based dynamics play in the educational aspect. His study set reframe the educational policy debate. Educational inequality has been a major priority of researchers in the US. Researchers have centered on the impact of poverty, or of social class, or of gender, or of ethnicity or race on young people's personal experience of education. In a related study on educational inequality, the theoretical concept for their study pinpointed the concept of social division as a lens in understanding the link between class and gender relations in shaping the educational achievements of students from ruling-class and working-class families. Thus, the social dynamics of class relations and gender relations is riddled with numerous tensions and contradiction. These can be seen as structuring processes rather than 'systems' in which social relations is organised and disorganised through time. The interaction of gender and class for a working class signifies a relationship between processes. (Connell et al., 1982:179-81). In addition, Connell et al.'s call for reform is one which does away with the stringent academic curriculum for one which works in the interests of the majority of the population rather than the 'ruling class' minority. The study's conclusion is that certain private schools are organic to the ruling class. It a;sp sjoes-and their distressing evidence which shows the extent to which state schools are a disruptive, disempowering force in the lives of the working class-the group call for a form of schooling organic to the working class. (Connell et al., 1982:179-81). Furthermore, Connell et al. emphasize the 'doing of history' perspective at the individual, group, institutional and structural levels. The basic concepts to their approach are practice consisting of the activities of people as they live their daily lives. The situation pertains to the home, school, and to the social and cultural characteristics of the social interaction. Each level of academic experience is viewed from different aspects of the same dynamic reality and each exists in a reciprocal relationship with the others. . (Connell et al., 1982:179-81). Children from simple family backgrounds The report by James Coleman was a response to Section 402 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which called for a survey to discuss the apparent lack of equal educational opportunities for persons by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin. Coleman's findings on the extent of the achievement gap between black and white students between and within regions, and between and within schools, highlighted the importance of families over schools for setting educational performance. (Coleman 4) Coleman sets this conclusion: "The sources of inequality of educational opportunity lie first in the home itself and the cultural influences surrounding the home. Second, they lie in the schools' ineffectiveness to free achievement from the impact of the home, and third, in the schools' cultural make-up which reinforces the social influences of the home and its immediate settings. (Coleman 10) Children from poor families deal with fewer resources in their schools Five areas are examined when building a causal argument for racial differences in academic achievement: student qualitiess and attitudes, family and home settings, peers, schools and faculty members, and neighborhood locations. Variables pertaining to students cover factors such as age and sex, attitudinal levels of the student's commitment to school, aspirations and goals, and specific behavioral indicators such as amount of time spent on homework, instances of juvenile delinquency, or intensity of extracurricular activities. (Conley and Albright 1). Family characteristics span observations of family structure, income, or number of siblings, contextual aspects including the presence of learning materials in the home, depth, extent and quality of parent and child interaction and parental expectations. The preponderant interest in peers is noted because the youth are basically and continually influenced by the kind of company they keep, and hence, measures of school composition, and peer attitudes, characteristics, possibilities, and performance are also included. (Conley and Albright 3) Educational inequality studies cover correlates of test scores that are within the school itself, represented by variables such as per pupil expenditures, and teacher qualifications and expectations. All of these arenas are embedded in a larger social setting context, salient aspects of which may include the predominance or absence of different kinds of families and people or levels of violence and disorder. (Chiswick 1). The main consensus with respect to earnings in the United States is that family background accounts for about 40 percent of the total variation in earnings among men. (Plotnick 1). This showed the ability of individuals to rise above the economic level of their parents. Moreover, it had also proved that a substantial portion of individual achievement is attributable to the kind of family in which they were reared. Dalton Conley findings presented the black/white wealth gap which can be explained by differences in parental wealth. His conclusion proved that parents matter. (Conley 5) In another related study focusing on educational inequality, both parental education and occupational status are heavily associated with children's educational and occupational aspirations. Several of these status attainment studies have focused on the inter-relationship between parental occupation and child occupation. A multiple variable regression model, in which the son's occupation is predicted by the father's education and occupation through the factors of son's education and first job, is one of the first regression-based treatments of the relationship between parental and child occupation in this field of study. (Knight 1) Many studies had interconnected substantial intergenerational correlations in parent and child educational and occupational attainment. However, it has not addressed the micro-level, within-family mechanisms behind this transmission. Once can also add the examination of the role of social interactions between grandparents and their grandchildren. (Park 3) In the work of Melvin Kohn and his co-researchers, they have added a substantial framework for the discussion of various intra-familial social interactions which has an impact on intergenerational mobility processes. It is one of the research attempts to explain that children's access to information and opportunities on career choices comes from their parents and through interactions and observations that occur within the home. (Kakwani 7) These researchers had hypothesized that the parents' job features pose an impact that are appreciated, valued and imitated among their children, thus providing the link to children's developmental experiences. The parents are expected to express and transmit positive behaviors and attitudes that are usefule in their own employment setting and consequently express these sets of behaviors and values in their corresponding day-to-day parenting and rearing practices. (Kakwani 7) When the parents' type of jobs demand a greater self-motivation and a greater degree of self-direction, the parents prefer to use reason when disciplining their children and hope to expect their children to follow and imbibe specific adult norms. These child-rearing practices are expected to foster children's own values for the importance of self-motivation and self-direction, and develop to shape their occupational aspirations. The kind of education American students receive differs according to their parent's corresponding socio-economic status. Children from low-income families attend schools which face more problems with fewer resources, and they score lower on standardized tests. They face a high probability of dropping out of high school and have less possibilities of finishing a four-year course. These educational disparities merely mirror the emerging trend of rising income inequality in the U.S. References Angus, Lawrence. Education, Inequality and Social Identity. Washington D. C.: Falmer Press, 1993. Caniglia, A.S., "Inequality in Education Attainment and the Distribution of Income," Review of Business, 10, no. 2 (1988), pp. 5-10. Chiswick, Barry. Income Inequality. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1974. Coleman, James. "Coleman report on equality of educational opportunity". U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Office of Education 1966. Connell, R., D.J. Ashenden, S. Kessler, G.W. Dowsett. Making the Difference: Schools, Families and Social Division. Sydney: George Allen and Unwin, 1982 Fields, G.S., "Education and Income Distribution in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature," in T. Kin g (ed.), Education and Income (Washington D.C.: World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 402, 1980). Kakwani, Nanak C., Income Inequality and Poverty: Methods of Estimation and Policy Applications Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1980. Knight, J.B., and R.H. Sabot, "Educational Expansion and the Kuznets Effect," American Economic Review. 73, no.5(1983), pp. 1132-36. Park, K. H., "Expansion and Educational Equality on Income Distribution," Economics of Education Review, 15, no. 1 (1996), pp. 51-58. Plotnick, RD., "Trends in Male Earnings Inequality," Southern Economic Journal, 48, no. 3 (1982), pp. 724-732. (13.) Psacharopoulus, George. and F. Steier, "Education and the Labor Market in Venezuela, 1975-1984," Economics of Education Review, 7, no.3 (1988), pp. 321-332. (14.) Ram, Rati, "Population Increase, Economic Growth, Educational Inequality, and Income Distribution: Some Recent Evidence," Journal of Development Economics, 14(1984), pp. 419-428. (15.) Ram, Rati, "Can Educational Expansion Reduce Income Inequality in Less-Developed Countries" Economics of Education Review, 8, No. 2(1989). pp. 185-195. Policy, Pedagogy, and Social Inequality: Community College Student Realities in Post-Industrial America. Contributors: Penelope E. Herideen - author. Publisher: Bergin & Garvey. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1998. After the Bell: Family Background, Public Policy, and Educational Success. Contributors: Dalton Conley - editor, Karen Albright - editor. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2004 Read More