Education

Question 1

How is education the great equalizer?

Answer 1

Beyond all other devices of human origin, education is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance wheel of the social machinery.

The idea that education helps people improve their status

Question 2

What is education?

Answer 2

Education is the process through which academic, social, and cultural ideas and tools are developed

Question 3

What are the functions of schooling?

Answer 3

Educating students: teaching general skills (reading, writing, arithmetic) and teaching vocational skills

Socialization- schools transmit values, beliefs, and attitudes that are important in society

Question 4

What is a meritocracy?

Answer 4

A society where status and mobility are based on individual attributes, ability, and achievement

Question 5

What is the meritocracy myth?

Answer 5

Based on the meritocracy, effort plus natural skills equal social position

Question 6

What inequalities exist between schools?

Answer 6

The children of wealthy families tend to receive the most expensive education.
The children of poor families tend to receive the least expensive education.
Non-white school districts get 23 billion dollars less than white districts, despite serving the same number of students

Question 7

What inequalities exist within schools?

Answer 7

Tracking- the practice of placing students in different classrooms according to their perceived ability- is a racialized process

White and Asian-American students are twice as likely to be placed in the most rigorous tracks as immigrants and other students of color.

Teachers might overestimate white and asian-american students and underestimate Hispanic and black students

Racial disparities in school discipline
Students of color are punished more harshly for the same reason that white students are

Question 8

What are achievement gaps?

Answer 8

Inequalities between and within schools contribute to racial and class disparities in academic achievement

Question 9

Who are the privileged poor?

Answer 9

They are poor, but they have the privilege of an early introduction to the world they will enter in college

Question 10

Who are the doubly disadvantaged?

Answer 10

When they first set foot on an elite college campus, it looks, feels, and functions like nothing they have experienced before

Question 11

What do the doubly disadvantaged students tend to do?

Answer 11

Feel uncomfortable, alienated, and isolated on campus

Draw moral boundaries between themselves and rich students

Withdraw from dominant settings of campus social life and avoid contact with students from elite backgrounds

Be less likely to take advantage of college resources, experience more stress, underperform academically and give up more easily, get less social support from peers, and experience less success post-graduation

Question 12

What do the privileged poor students tend to do?

Answer 12

Feel more at ease navigating an elite university setting and more comfortable interacting with wealthy peers

Feel less bothered by the rich student’s displays of wealth

Be more comfortable engaging in impression management to strategically hide their socioeconomic status from wealthier peers

Be more inclined to integrate themselves into the college community, and as a result, they had access to a vast range of social and institutional resources

Question 13

What are the consequences of stigma for the stigmatized?

Answer 13

Social rejection/self-isolation
Loss of social status
Shame
Prejudice
Decreased access to resources
Reduced self-esteem
Tension and anxiety related to information management