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Socioeconomic Status And Quality Of Education

Decent Essays

In an ideal world, socioeconomic status would not affect the quality of education one would receive. Everyone would have the same opportunities to do well in life and rise up the social ladder. Durkheim (1893) asserted that with universally great public education, economic opportunities would be relatively equal. Even with equal education levels, there would still exist some inequality in the form of “legitimate” inequality (Durkheim 1893), but the excellent public education would level the playing field, so to speak. However, our world is not an ideal world. We live in a society where money talks and how rich a person is determines the caliber of their educational background. Research has shown that a child from a high income family will have a better life chance and that a child from a low-income family has less of a chance to move up the ranks. In my paper, I will argue that there is a correlation between socioeconomic status and quality of education in that the higher socioeconomic status a person has, the better education opportunities they will be able to obtain.
Statistically data from Piedmont, CA and East Oakland, CA demonstrates the idea that educational quality and opportunities is closely related to socioeconomic status. Piedmont, CA is a wealthy city surrounded by Oakland, a not so well off area. To clarify, the median household income of Piedmont is $207,222 while East Oakland’s median household income is $56,944 (US Census 2013). There is an extremely steep

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