Teachers are committed to challenging all students to succeed, whatever their abilities, interests, social and cultural background, gender, prior attainment or aspirations. As future teachers, we need to know the aspects of society, so that we can ensure that each one of our students is successful and achieves his or her potential through the education provided. In this paper, I will be using the articles from the Social Class/Race and School Finance section of the class to evaluate the effects of social stratification, cultural capital, and social reproduction, school financing, and school environment.
Social stratification lies at the core of society and of the discipline of sociology. Social inequality is a fundamental aspect of virtually all social processes, and a person’s position in the stratification system is the most consistent predictor of his or her behavior, attitudes, and life chances. Social stratification links almost all aspects of society together, and therefore understanding what is happening to social stratification helps us understand a wide range of other changes in society.
In the article “Social Class Differences In Family-School Relationships: The Importance of Cultural Capital” by Annette Laureau, summarizes a study of family-school relations and cultural capital. The results(of the study) suggest that social class position and class culture becomes a form of cultural capital in the school setting(Laureau, 1987). The families of working class lacked money, time, individual educational attainment, value of education, and high expectation on their children where as the middle-class families had all the advantages to support their children’s achievement at school. Lareau shows the effortful evidence that parents with resources will be able help their children attain much
This research uses the concepts of social and cultural capital to student behavior. Social capital may take the form of information-sharing channels and networks, as well as social norms, values, and expected behaviors. High status cultural signals include the attitudes, preferences, knowledge, behaviors, possessions, and credentials that function as informal academic standards, and that are generally defined by the dominant class.
Individuals who lack the required cultural capital may lower their educational aspirations or self-select out of particular situations (e. , not enroll in higher education) because they do not know the particular cultural norms, overperform to compensate for their less- valued cultural resources, or receive fewer rewards for their educational investment. Teachers in both school interpreted parental involvement as a refection of the value parents places on their children’s The social reproduction theory can be widely seen in the American educational system. Social reproduction is the theory that children tend to lead lives like those of where they where raised socially and economically.
Social reproduction works in that children born/raised into a poor society where education is less valued and where a strong back and arm will get you a few dollars a week tends to lead those children towards a poor life. In the popular mind, school is the great equalizer: By providing a level playing field where the low and the mighty compete on an equal basis, schooling reminders social inequality superfluous (MacLeod, 1995, pg. 11). Reproduction theories, in contrast, show that schools actually reinforce social inequality while pretending to the opposite.
The book “Ain’t No Makin It” by Jay MacLeod represent strong evidence of the influence of cultural capital and the theory of social reproduction. “Ain’t No Makin It” is a ethnography about two “gangs” in the projects of Clarendon Heights and their struggles of social reproduction. The two groups of teens, the Hallway Hangers and in the Brothers, show the struggle of being in a poverished society. The Hallway Hangers where slackers, drug users, and alcoholics, but not so much by choice, but by the environment that they where raised in.
The Hallway Hangers had little asperations, predicting that they would be either dead or criminals in 20 years. The Hallway Hanger lacked in parental involvement, good role models, and came from broken homes. The majority of the group believed that their parents didn’t really care that they weren’t doing well in school, as long as they had a job, which hardly any paid over minimum wage. The Hallway Hanger parents lacked ambitions for their sons, giving little hope for them to succeed. The Brothers, where a group of African American, who had aspiration to do well in school and in society.
The Brothers worked hard to get good grades, didn’t drink or do drugs, and looked to the future. The Brothers where typical low-class families, like those of the Hallway Hangers. The families had low educational achievement and obtained unskilled jobs, but where different in some ways. The families of the Brothers showed discipline and movement in the social stratification which did provide the Brothers an advantage. Because some of the brother had movement in the social stratification, they could possibly see light of a better future.
In the end, neither the Brothers or Hallway Hangers made dvancement in the social stratification, showing that because of their lack of cultural capital and because of social reproduction, they where destine not to achieve. Parental involvement and behaviors can be a determinate factor of a child’s future educational achievement. Children of parents with inferior education achievements will tend to have children that have a depressed education and visa versa of children of parents which have high education. Parents of the working-class deprive there children because they may not have the resources to help their children ith their education.
The parents may not have the education to help a child with homework because they lack the knowledge. The parents also may lack the time to help their children and lose track of the child’s involvement in school.. The lack of money can deprive the child of further educational opportunities because the parents may not be able to provide educational resources. In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol documents the devastating inequalities in American schools, focusing on public education’s “savage inequalities” between affluent districts and poor districts.
Kozal tells about the horrifying and shocking conditions of poor schools. Almost anyone who visits in the schools of East St. Louis, even for a short time, comes away profoundly shaken. These are innocent children, after all. They have done nothing wrong. They have committed no crime. They are too young to have offended us in any way at all. One searches for some way to understand why a society as rich and, frequently, as generous as ours would leave these children in their penury and squalor for so long-and with so little public indignation.
Is this just a strange mistake of history? Is it unusual? Is it an American anomaly(Kozal, 1991, Life on the Mississippi)? “Martin Luther King Junior High School,” notes the Post-Dispatch in a story published in the early spring of 1989, “was evacuated Friday afternoon after sewage flowed into the kitchen…. The kitchen was closed and students were sent home. ” On Monday, the paper continues, “East St. Louis Senior High School was awash in sewage for the second time this year. ” The school had to be shut because of “fumes and backed-up toilets. ”
Sewage flowed into the basement, through the floor, then up into the kitchen and the students’ bathrooms. The backup, we read, “occurred in the food preparation areas(Kozal, 1991, Life on the Mississippi). Education in the inner cities is deemed to be one of the worst problems in our public schools. Education in the inner cities need money, support, dedication of administrators and faculty, and family involvement. Reading levels are the lowest in the poorest schools(Kozal, 1991, Other People’s Children). A key consideration in rebuilding schools is to link the schools to the community. Considering the impact on our society, it would make more sense to spend money on preparing our hildren for the future instead of spending a great deal more money in the future on public assistance and prisons to support them.
The nicest buildings in the city are the Federal Court and the City Hall– which also holds the jail… (Kozol, Life on the Mississippi). ” Educational funding is not the only issue, it is however certainly central to the problem. Additional funds could be the beginning of change in the inner city schools. Repairing existing buildings or constructing of new schools, updating lab equipment, technology, and texts, and hiring qualified staff embers would help to improve the education these students receive.
Improving the learning environment is the first step to rebuilding our inner city schools. More importantly, programs for the students and families will improve their future. The educational systems in America have many faults, but if more people become aware, things can only improve. It is hard to make any pinpoint decisions to improve the educational system because it is such a epic problem. I believe as a future teacher, I may be able change things, and with time maybe equal education for everyone won’t be just a far away dream.
