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Our Kids By Robert Putnam Summary

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Neighborhoods and Schools In Our Kids, Robert Putnam argues that communal and educational environment serves to further separate upper and lower class children into predetermined outcomes. For the rich, schools and the local neighborhood exert positive pressure that tend to lead to academic and economic achievement, while the reverse is true for the lower class. Deteriorating social ties and a destructive school atmosphere place low-income kids at a significant disadvantage, limiting their access to the vehicles of social mobility. On the educational side, “para-school” funding and differences in school culture solidify existing class boundaries. In the economically-segregated neighborhoods, a social capital gap has opened up that has deprived …show more content…

While, on paper, lower class schools can look similar to upper class schools in terms of their state funding, demographics, and other factors, the educational outcomes of their respective students are wildly divergent. At the heart of these trends is the geographic sorting of the classes into separate residential areas. Because of the difference in environment that results, a school’s location can have tremendous effects on performance. In fact, the correlation between high school achievement and community median income is even stronger than the correlation between achievement and parental income (Putnam 165). In high-income schools, the number of AP courses, the variety and number of extracurriculars, and the availability of formal assistance available far outstrip that of lower-income schools, partly due to parental involvement and financial support. In addition, “the disorder and violence” of poorer neighborhoods serves as a further hindrance to lower class social mobility (Putnam 169). Thus, both structurally and environmentally, primary and secondary education advances those who have and restrains those who do not. To be sure, schools are not the only factor widening the opportunity gap between the classes, but rather one facet of the larger socioeconomic reality that strengthens the

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Summary Of Chapter Four Of Our Kids By Robert Putnam

662 Words | 3 Pages

Within the reading of chapter four of Our Kids by Robert Putnam one key point of his argument is that it really matters where kids attend school and who they are attending school with. The overall growing class gap is extremely evident within the American school system. However, schools are not responsible for the creation of the opportunity gap because the gap already exists before schools are put into the picture. While this may be true, the schools that kids from affluent families are attending are significantly different than schools that children from poorer families are attending. This could be a product of the fact that affluent and poor families are usually not living in the same areas.

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Jonathan Kozol Still Separate Still Unequal Summary

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Within his essay, “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, Jonathan Kozol details the methodical resurgence of segregation amongst the inner-city school districts from civilization. Further, extending the definition passed its racial limitations by observing a diverse faction of both students and school officials. Therefore, engulfing him in a world filled with dilapidated facilities and scripted vocabularies that are designed to manage how teachers develop students into profitable citizens. Subsequently, navigating Kozol to conclude that if the nation’s inequalities are still gradually dictating the value of an individual’s education. Then that said person within the new interpretation of segregation has lost something more than education, they have lost their childhood.

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James Loewen The Land Of Opportunity Summary

515 Words | 3 Pages

In James W. Loewen’s “The Land of Opportunity,” he states that social class affects the way children are raised. He discusses the inequality in today’s society and how the textbooks in high school do not give any social class information. The students in today’s time are not taught everything they should be taught. He states that your family’s wealth is what makes up your future. Loewen discusses that people with more money can study for the SATs more productively and get a better score than someone who has less money.

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Wont Back Down And Childrens Schools Similarities

1243 Words | 5 Pages

Children in America’s Schools tells the public that children that live in inner city/ urban areas do not have high goals for themselves. In a scene from the documentary, Jonathan Kozol interviews children from these impoverished communities on their views of their school and education in general. Some of the children responded by saying they do not see themselves as having a future and question the importance of being in school. Children who live in impoverished communities deal with crime on a regular basis, and believe that they will not amount to much. However, Children in America’s Schools also provides the public with positive views on teachers.

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Compare And Contrast High School And East Irondequoit High Schools

1313 Words | 6 Pages

Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denying or limiting financial services, such as loans or insurance, to specific neighborhoods, typically based on race or ethnicity. This practice was prevalent in the mid-20th century in the United States, and its effects can still be seen today in the form of segregated neighborhoods and disparities in wealth and opportunity. Based on academic performance, graduation rates, and student diversity, East Irondequoit High School in Rochester, NY surpasses Monroe High School, indicating that it is a more effective and inclusive institution for secondary education. Therefore, comparing the two schools can provide insights into the impacts of historical redlining on present-day educational inequality.

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Finding Identity In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

1624 Words | 7 Pages

Parents have the full choice of where they would prefer for their children to attend school, and so often children are put at a disadvantage because they are learning in a school that does not have the resources to prepare children for college or adulthood. As stated in the article, “Choose Your Parents Wisely,” educated parents “create an environment at home that helps… intelligence to blossom, and they buy houses near good schools” (6). A better quality of education is more prominent in the lives of children that have well-educated parents, and the children whose parents dropped out of high school are left with mediocre expectations to overcome the obstacle of finishing school and obtaining a well paying job in the future. All we know about Sonny’s education is that he grew up in an impoverished area, leading us to believe that the educational system was not advanced, and that he tends to skip school to go do drugs with his friends. Because Sonny’s parents died so early, they were not able to play the biggest role in his life, but they did decide which school system that he would be apart of, and his school life did affect the man that he grew up to become.

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Brown V. The Board Of Education Essay

511 Words | 3 Pages

Sixty-two years ago, through Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court determined that separate was not equal and since that decision, “the only tried, tested, and cost-effective solution to unequal and inadequate education is integrated education.” (Black 2013) Armed with the knowledge that ethnic, academic, and economic stratification still exists throughout the educational system in the United States the debate can shift away from whether school choice is good or bad to how we can better meet the goals of public education with broader school choice in place. School choice programs generally focus on the individual rather than society as a whole, potentially undermining the public education goals of social mobility and social cohesion. In order to justify the use

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Middle Class Families Research Paper

575 Words | 3 Pages

Social class influences the experience of growing up. Middle-class and working-class parents hold different values and expectations for their children. In working class families children tend to spend their time at home or with extended family. They are more likely to grow up in neighborhoods that are less safe for children. Parents have to worry about them getting involved in gangs, getting into fights, or getting into trouble with the law. ”

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Impact Of School Racial, Social, And Composition On Students

636 Words | 3 Pages

The impact of schools racial, social, and socioeconomic, composition has a direct effect on student’s relationships with their peers, as well as the student’s relationship with their teachers and the school as a whole. Students attending high-poverty, high-minority schools confront distressing educational inequalities and consequences such as lower teacher quality, a higher risk of dropping out of school, and higher disciplinary fractions. (even more racially segregated than before) The results of social composition are directly related to the influence of peers. Students with high achievement and motivation levels can help create a “culture of success” in school, while students with low achievement and motivation levels can create a sense

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Our Kids: The American Dream In Crisis

852 Words | 4 Pages

Putnam introduced the stories of two Latino family in the same state with the parents having somewhat similar backgrounds, but teachers from a school were able to push one family into having a better life. Both families have their children going to similar schools in terms of students attending and school faculty, but both schools provides education to two different social classes with one family being more successful than the other. Isabel Sawhill, an author who critiqued Putnam’s book, agrees with Putnam’s statement on the widening opportunity gap due to the quality of Schooling. Just like Putnam, Sawhill looked into the socioeconomic background the child’s family can provide with differing incomes, and acknowledged a higher income family will have more benefits than a lower income family will have and how it correlates with the success of the family’s future. She also mentioned how schools may not be a factor that contributes to the growing disparities, but used Putnam’s book as in example on how it can be part of the bigger solution to fix the problems such as school reforms for financing poorer schools or moving poorer students to better schools.

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Inequality In Low Income Families

1364 Words | 6 Pages

It was found that long term exposure in low poverty neighborhoods benefited females more than males (Leventhal & Dupere, 2011). Females had less psychological distress, less participation in crime, sexual activity, and substance use. Females were more likely to finish secondary school and have better reading comprehension (Leventhal & Dupere, 2011). For males the only significant improvement was reading comprehension, with inconsistent outcomes for other activities such as crime participation and substance use (Leventhal & Dupere, 2011). The study shows that living in a low poverty neighborhood for females can lead to better educational outcomes.

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Socioeconomic Status Inequality

950 Words | 4 Pages

In today’s emotionally charged political society, the issues of race and gender are hotly contested and well documented, but another issue is less well known. Socioeconomics, the study of social and economic factors, determines how people live their lives every day. The main factor determining where people live, where kids go to school, what clothes people wear, how people are viewed by others, and more, is socioeconomic status. People are separated and organized in all aspects of life based on their income because people of a higher income and status are more flexible and have more choices than those with lower incomes. This fact is a problem that is increasingly causing social classes to emerge in America.

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Children Need To Play Not Compete, By Jessica Statsky

990 Words | 4 Pages

Summary “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” by Jessica Statsky is a thoughtful insight on the competitive sports for children. She is of the view that the competitive sports can ruin the enjoyment that games are supposed to provide. These methods of playing the games like adults can prove to be lethal for physical and psychological health. The author quotes from an authentic source that “Kids under the age of fourteen are not by nature physical.” (Tutko)

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Explain The Five Teaching Competencies That They Believe Provide A Foundation For Effective Personal Development

1368 Words | 6 Pages

occupational prestige, education, economic resources, power, and information) are not uniformly distributed.” (Bornstein & Bradley, 2012, p. 2). It is often the consensus that those individuals who fall within the low socioeconomic sector have limited access to proper healthcare, education and occupation. Whereas, those individuals that fall within the higher socioeconomic sector have unlimited access to proper healthcare, higher education and reputable employment. It is interesting to consider the effect that these class boundaries have on society as whole, specifically the development of the younger generation (Bornstein & Bradley, 2012).

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1248 Words | 5 Pages

It takes a physical and emotional toll always to have to worry about trying to get an education and succeed. With social class, it is more robust for minorities to get a life and get an education because there are many other obstacles they have to overcome such as house rents. In Lopez’s article, he states that “People moving into California are better-educated and have higher incomes than those who are moving out," he said, and that 's having a direct effect on rising rents” (par 13). This quote expresses that education plays a big role to get high incomes. As a result, minorities who struggle to get an education are affected by social class to realize the ‘American Dream”.

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