Project 2

institution analysis--education

Educational inequality

Chunsheng Yan
Prof. Mozzini
Sociology 1
07/24/2016

Start of American education

Between 1750 and 1870, parochial schools showed up as 'ad hoc'.
In 1823, first normal school was founded in Concord Vermont to train more qualified teachers to improve the quality of
education.
In 1876, 39 states passed a constitutional amendment which did not allow support local parochial schools with public taxes,
which is Blaine Amendment.
In 1892, a group of educatorsknown as Committee of Ten urged for 12-year-education , which is the form of modern education
system.
In 20th centry, the US government came out many new policies like National School Lunch Act, to support poor students.

1857 - 1957
St. Rose of Lima's First Parochial School

Public educational institution

Modern education system is called K-12. Most students need to take eight-year elementary school and four-year high school.
In America, public school is support by a combination of local,state, and federal government funding. Most of the funding come
from local property tax.
In most districts, a schools board needs to be elected by local residents and then the school is runned by the school board.
Since public school is mainly financed by local taxes, so the admission to public school is usually based on residency. Because of
this policy, the housing price in a district with good public school is always very high.

Modern educational system

What causes educational

inequality

Family factors : family is the mainly support for one's education. However,
since tehre are inequality for family, different people can get different
support from family, which will influence their educational performance.
Systemic factors: systemic factors refer to how school inflence one's
educational performance. Just like family, different schools can offer
different support to students.

Victious cycle

Family Factor

Ability, encouragement, and aspirations: Students inherit intelligence from parents. IQ can determine how samrt a person is.
there is no doubt that people with higher IQ can achieve success mroe easily than those with low IQ. The Wisconsin Model
states that students need encouragement from significant others-family, teachers and peers.More encouragement from family
can make students more confident and gain better grades.
Cultural Capital: Bourdieu argued that school curricula reflect the codes and values of the dominant culture in the society.
If a student is from a family in which both parents are lack of education and do not value education, this student may be
affected by his parents and does not care about his education, which will make gt terrible grades.
Family size and cohension: Some researches in America show that studetns from a small family have beeter grades than
students from a larger family. The reason is that in a small family, the student can gain all attention and support from parents,
but if he lives in a large family, he need to share the limited family resources with his siblings.
Financial resources: Money is important for education. Rich family can easily help the children get tutoring, better school or
any other things that are good for education. Students from poor family are less likely to develop the cognitive skills
necessary for education success.(Ritzer)

Systemic Factor

Organization of the curriculum and tracking: Different subjects also create inequality. Such as
science classes, students who major in science mostly need to take higher education, but there
are some subject like cooking helps studetns from poor class get ready for working earlier. For
universities, grade A for science class is much more important than grade A in cooking class.

Gender: Because of the labor inequality, famle labor is paid less for some jobs than male labor.
Therefore, some families focus more on sons and give their sons more resources for education.

Forms of Educational Inequality

Teacher Quality: Students who attend schools in low-income and urban

communities are more likely to have teachers who are under-qualified.
Advanced Placement Courses: Students who attend school in urban and
low-income communities are less likely than students in middle- and
upper-class communities to have access to AP courses.
Resources: The resources that are prevalent in schools in higher-income
communities are lacking in many urban schools and schools in low-income
communities.

Youtube video:
https://youtu.be/9lsDJnlJqoY

Teacher Quality

Some teachers are unqualified for the subjects they are teaching because it
is not their major or minor. The do not have enough knowledge for what
they are teaching. Some researches indicate that teacher quality is the
determined factor for students' grades in school.
Some teachers have lower expection for African American , Latino, and
poor students than White and Asian students. Therefore, they do not let
those poor students receive high level class.
Some teachers cause the grade inflation. In their class, they curve a lot so
that every student can get happy grade. But the result is that the students do
not learn so much even though they have good grades.

Advanced Placement Courses

Some poor schools cannot offer AP class for students because they cannot
afford to hire a teacher who teaches AP class.

Ap courses can offer students a chance to take college class. If they get
good grades, they can get higher chance to be admitted by college. Some
smart students can even finish all classes for freshman year in college,
which makes them graduate one-year earlier in college.

The lack of AP class place the poor students on a disadvantage position

when applying college. Then it is harder for the poor students to change
their lives.

Resources

Poor schools cannot afford to buy textbooks, lab materials, eletronics and
so on. Those things are all important supporting materials for education.
For example, if there is not air condition in Public school in LA, nobody
can learn under 100 degrees.
Rich schools can provide field trip for students. For some science classes,
actual experience is much important than words on the textbook. Students
can learn much more through the field trip.
Studentsin rich school can get more resources than students in poor school.
The number of limited resources is also an important factor for educational
success.

Get Rid of Educational

Inequality

Since Public school is run by government, and every citizens have the
same rights by law, every students should get similar education.

Financial Support
The main reason why there is great difference between pulbic schools is
that in rich district, school can get more financial funds. More mony can let
the school hire more better teachers and build mroe programs for education,
therefore, the students will gain better and better grades. Then, mroe rich
people will move into the district to enter the school, the housing price will
increase a lot, which provide mroe money for school. This forms a virtuous
cycle.
To break the cyle in which worse school becomes worse, better school
becomes better. The government has to create a new way to support a school
and distribute the money equally.

Site-Based management
Some educators believe that in America, the education has been tied
with bureaucracy. Once education is affected by politics, there will be
educational inequality. Some politicians who work in educational institution
focus more on how to get promoted rahter than academic achievements.
One way to solve bureaucracy is called site-base management. This
management will break the authority of the politicians and distribute the
power to parents and teachers. In another word, let the people who know what
students need control the local education.

No Judging
There are more and more standard tests, such as the SAT, GRE. The
grade of standard test can shape the reputation of a school. If one school has
better average score than another school, the school with better grade will gain
better reputation and become more attractive. The government may value the
school with better score more. However, score doe not represent everything.
Once everybody judge a school or a student only based on the score, the
school/student may never stand up when he falss down.

Functionalist perspective
of Education
Functionalists view education from how it serves the society.
Functionalist view education from four positive parts. Firstly,
education create social solidarity. When students learn subjects like
history and English, which make all students share the sense of identify.
Then students will feel that they belong to something bigger. And also,
school is like a mini society, students can learn how to get along with
others before they work in real society. Secondly, school teach skills
necessary for work, what we do depends on what we have learned.
Thirdly, school can teach people core values. Talcott parsons believes
that school is important for secondary socialization. Fourthly, school is
important for role allocation and meritocracy. In school students can
learn a number of subjects, which is good to find one's talent. Usually,
student will major in what they are interested and then find a job related
to their majors. Through this, everyone has the opportunity to achieve
success by their own efforts.

Functionalist Perspective on Educational Inequality

In terms of functionalist perspective, inequality must exist to

maintain the society. Different people have different ability. Not all
people can become president. Therefore, in the small community in
school, the inequality must also exist. Not all students can go to MIT.
It is the equality that make students try their best to study. If a student
from a poor family wants to change his life, he has to take more
efforts than students from rich family. The inequality in school will
make students face the social inequality better when they enter the
wider society.
To make the society run better, the govenment has to spend
the limited money on schools with better score. Because better score
means higher graduate rate. The chance to get a talent person is also
higher.

Conflict Theory about Educational

Inequality
Conflict theory view education from how it maintains social
inequality and helps people in upper class keep the power.
Conflict theory also thinks that education helps socialization,
which sorts the labor. However, conflict theory believes that the education
also shapes students from lower class to obedient workers. Students
cannot do little to change their social standing by education.
Educational inequality is mainly caused by social inequality.
Students from rich family can enter better school and gain more resources
than students from family with low income. In other word, educational
inequality is mini form of social inequality. The conflict between students
from lower class and students form upper class is unavoidable.

Marx

Works Cited
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2nd ed. Vol. 5. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. 1948-1952. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web.
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Thompson, Gail. "Inequality of Educational Opportunity, Persistence of." Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education. Ed. James
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July 2016.
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