More handpicked essays just for you.
Social class & the hidden curriculum of work
Links between social class and education
Social class & the hidden curriculum of work
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Social class & the hidden curriculum of work
One of the most strived for things in life is academic excellence however the path to it is never easy. Author Thompson Ford’s article “How To Understand Acting White” outlines Stuart Bucks arguments about the irony of desegregation in education. A separate essay written by, Alfred Lubrano, “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts” has similar ironies about the average college student. If Ford was to read Lubrano’s essay, Ford would come to a more complex conclusion by incorporating arguments and concepts from Lubrano’s essay. Ford may utilize Lubrano’s essay to expand on certain concepts such as the proximity effect, socioeconomics, and the level of education in top tier schools to further explain the “acting white” phenomenon from his own article.
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.
Later in life, these students are trained to take the blue collar jobs while those from well-off families go for white collar jobs. There are also schools that are distinct where the public schools are meant for the poor students while the rich are meant for the private schools (pg.287). On the same issue, the students from the poor families are disadvantaged by their behaviors, the way they talk, and how they dress it is not easy for them to fit in the society. They are also deemed not to fit in the education system as well.
1. From Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work by Jean Anyon 2. In the article, “From Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work by jean Anyon states that being in different social classes results in different educational experiences. People in higher classes are taught to be more doctors and more elite positions, while working classes are taught to have more particular curriculum to basically keep them in their class.
"In a sixth grade classroom, brownish clumps of plaster dot the ceiling where there once were sound-absorbing tiles" (p. 137). “We don’t have encyclopedias in classrooms. That is for the suburbs” (p. 85). These words are not my own - I am quoting from Jonathan Kozol, a Harvard-educated activist who observed several school districts spanning the range of the socioeconomic spectrum, from industrial Camden, New Jersey, to tony Great Neck, New York. In his time at each of these schools, he uncovers many truths that governments and the wealthy tend to glaze over in discussions of educational fund allocation.
Anyon article discussed students of different social class background is exposed to different types of educational knowledge. Anyon used four distinctive schools; working class, middle class, affluent and executive, located in New Jersey. The education the students received reflected the social class level. In the working class school, the principle had did not know the history of the school building. The teachers did not motive or believe in their student’s success.
Generally the social structure in a community is split into a hierarchy, so all of the richer and “more successful” people are socially connected. Anyone coming from a financially stable family is more likely going to afford attending a very prestigious university or school as they are also on the higher side of the spectrum for tuition costs. Gladwell points out that having an insanely high IQ, amazing athletic skills, or savvy communication skills alone are not enough to make people successful because “no one – not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses – ever makes it alone” (Gladwell 115). Friends and family play a big role in each other’s life.
The Three Component theory or widely known as the three class system based on Marx Weber who developed a multidimensional approach towards a political party, status and class that reflects the interplay between wealth, power and prestige. This examination will analyze the effects of education opportunities when students are categorized based on race and class. Discussing higher education without class and race is similarly to watching a bird fly without looking at the
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the United States? When I think about the United States, the one fundamental idea that jumps out at me is equality. Equality guarantees that everyone has the same chance at making the most of their lives and abilities, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, sex, economic standing, etc. We like to think that the nation we live in is doing a good job at ensuring and maintaining equality, but when we look at public schools across different communities, this is certainly not the case. As Jean Anyon says in “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” schools are different in the way they teach their students and what they choose to teach them.
The structure of injustice that is most present in the pieces titled, Imagine a Country by Holly Sklar, and “I am Alena”:Life as a Trans Woman Where Survival Means Living as Christopher by Ed Pilkington was that of institutional classism. Institutional classism can be defined as the intentional or unintentional set of practices and beliefs that assign differential value or discriminate against people based on their socio-economic status. In the excerpts above, institutional classism was displayed through the school system and the healthcare system of the United States. In the piece titled, Imagine a Country by Holly Sklar, Sklar asks the reader to imagine a country with different scenarios that people often associate with being from another country and not the United States.
Both Fraser and Bourdieu agree and identify that Class inequality is produced by the unequal distribution of various types of capital across the social space, differences in language styles, and education levels(FIND QUOTE).The education system has been shown to play a large role in reproducing this inequality instead of reducing it.(FIND QUOTE) This theory implies that higher class cultures are better when compared to the working class. Because of this perceived superiority, upperclassmen believe that the lower class are to blame themselves for the failure of their children’s future(FIND QUOTE). However both sociologists also believe that people should not assume that the higher class are superior because of their economic wealth but really the working-class failure is the fault of the education class, not the working culture, as there is an overlap in economic and social injustice(FIND QUOTE). According to Bourdieu, the education system functions to legitimize class inequalities, as success in the education system is facilitated by the possession of culture capital, bias to the lower class pupils who do not own a general possession of cultural
As Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Education provides essential information for surviving, without learning there would be no progress in the world. Being a privileged child growing up, I always attended well attained schools with limitless opportunities, but after reading essays such as, “Idiot Nation” by Oscar winning film writer and author, Michael Moore, and an American critical thinker, Jean Anyon with her essay “From the Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” and seeing through the eyes of Mike Rose, a professor at UCLA who grew up in a struggling background, in the essay “I Just Wanna Be Average”. I quickly began to realize
Social classes are a form of social stratification that refers to the existence of structured inequalities between individuals and groups in society. A social class is a group of people of comparable status, power and wealth which are usually classified as upper class, middle class, and lower class. For each class, there are some specific opportunities available that influence their social life. We can understand about the particularity of the chances through unequal distribution of these opportunities between individuals in social classes. In here belonging to a social class seems to be an obstacle for some individuals to obtain equal opportunity, unlike upper class people.
The purpose of this essay is to explore the domain of diversity that is social class, and the role that it plays in our education system today. I decided to examine this domain because as a student who has been thorough the Irish education system it seems obvious to me that this is an issue not only prevalent in Irish schools, but also in society in Ireland today. The concept of social class and the consequences it brings about can be seen in almost all aspects of life in Ireland today, with social class bias widespread and embedded in the minds of many. I wish to examine this domain through three lenses; understanding and exploring diversity, reflexively engaging with diversity and educating for diversity, each of which are clearly signposted
In this way inequality becomes justified. However Bowles and Gintis argue that rewards in education and occupation are based not on ability but on social background. The higher a person’s class or origin the more likely they are to attain top qualifications and a top job. See Bourdon (position theory); Bourdiau (cultural capital); and Bernstein (language and class). For Bowles and Ginitis then, school can be seen to legitimize social inequality.
