What Is The Importance Of Inequality In Education?

With the current state of affairs in America, many wonder whether the American dream has become just that: a dream. Gone are the days of mass immigration, when millions left their home countries in search of a better life in the United States. Today, many Americans struggle just to stay afloat while those at the top continue to prosper. This is particularly true for women, who despite having more freedom than ever before, are still subject to discrimination and inequality. Racial minorities are also at a disadvantage, with systematic discrimination making it more difficult for them to obtain jobs and climb the economic ladder. In addition to this, the wealth gap prevents many, regardless of gender or race, from achieving a middle-class life, or anything more than that. Americans cannot still achieve the American Dream because of gender and race inequality, as well as economic inequality.

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today" (Richardson 382). One of the most amazing things people have dreamt to obtain is the “American Dream”. It is so profound in all the things it can symbolize. It is freedom, justice, but most of all, it is a hope for a better way of life. The immigrants who made the long and dangerous voyage to America wanted their children to have experiences that they never got to experience, one of those things being to have an education. Education has been so important and cherished for many years now. Without it, usually meant a mediocre job was imminent. Without it, people will not be using their full potential. Without it, the American Dream is not

With this world suffering from racism, race is a major obstacle in achieving the American dream. Throughout history, it is apparent that whites have an edge in obtaining the dream. This is because the major settlers of America were white. Also a majority of the American population consists of white people. African Americans and Hispanics still have a hard time in their survival let alone prosperity due to racism that causes them to need to work harder for seemingly less pay. This type of racism occurs when the people in power seek to

For most of my childhood, our family had a low socioeconomic status which relates to poverty, lower education and poor health. I was a white male, living as a minority in town with a high crime rate, but the rest of the county was wealthy. More people are arrested in my town in comparison to every other town in the county. My sister was sick all the time and we didn’t have the money to afford all the doctor bills, which only got my father angry and more abusive. We certainly lived below the poverty line and lacked the resources. The elementary and middle school in my area was run down and lacked the funding and resources too. The low socioeconomic status was only delaying my transition into adulthood. Ciabatarri (2017) explains that the middle class is shrinking and the unemployment rate is high for workers in the twenties, which only causes concern and affects the future of these young adults. This

Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life seeks to educate and enlighten its readers of the constant and ever presence of poverty and how it drastically affects different individuals of society specifically, the children. Using observations from 2 elementary schools and interviews with parents of twelve target children, Lareau is able to present astonishing data on how social class plays a vital role in the day-to-day life of a person. Lareau further observes the target children in regards to the organization of daily life, language use within the family and environment, and families and institutions. Within these subcategories are specific target families and through the observation of research assistants, the data was presented in the text.

Education is the fundamental base of any functional democratic society. There is overwhelming evidence proving that social conditions across the board are improved when the residents of any given community are better educated. For example, reports suggest that better education leads to higher voter turnout rates, lower levels of poverty and homelessness, and overall, higher standards of health and wellness due to a general awareness as well as access to well-rounded health care. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that with greater education, crime rates of all kinds are reduced, consequentially decreasing incarceration and marginalization rates.

A good education is considered a part of the American dream. Education is believed to be a privilege in life that opens doors for your future. American education now has become very competitive and expensive dream that will hopefully accommodate a higher paying wage. Education pulls many families out of poverty like conditions into a better socioeconomic status. The value of education will always be the cornerstone of the American dream.

All students deserve to attend schools where they are respected for their unique identities and these identities augment their educational experience, rather than subtracting from it. Yet, research points to a disparity between the academic and social achievement of students from marginalized groups and students from groups with sociocultural power – this disparity is commonly referred to as the achievement gap (Baskin, 2013). As our classrooms, communities, and nation grow more diverse, schools will be challenged to grow alongside this diversity, eliminate the achievement gap, and become more equitable places for all (Howard, 2007). For the purposes of this review, it is important to highlight the difference between equity and equality. Where equality primarily requires that all students are treated the same, equity calls us to intentionally offer more support to students who are of the highest need (Larson & Barton, 2013).

In 1962, the Students for a Democratic Society wrote “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.,” (Students for a Democratic Society, p. 1). While it has been over 50 years since this statement was written, it is still applicable to today’s society, housing many of the same issues that were prominent back then, including the issues of race, war, education, inequality, and immigration. In this essay, I am going to focus mainly on the issues surrounding inequality and the education system because I believe they are prominent in the lives of almost every member of our society, since at some point everyone will go through the education system or have connections to someone who went or will go through it, and inequality incorporates every member of society because one is equal and unequal to others, whether on the grounds of education, race, and socioeconomic status, to state a few, yet not an extensive list. Both the education system and inequality in our country have many problems, many of which stem from the systemic inequity, which is the lack of fairness and justice rooted in and normalized in society, but now the main question is how we respond to these issues. As citizens of a democratic society, according to Ketcham and Tussman, it is our responsibility, when making decisions and practicing our rights, to have the public good partially in mind, but have a balance between

Equity means removing barriers and giving everyone an equal starting place. It is different from equality as it involves much more than just treating everyone the same. The General Commission on Religion and Race, or GCORR of the United Methodist Church states that the social structures of society have been built in such a way that discrimination “lives” within the structures themselves. The example that is given is voting. Equality is when everyone has the right to vote while equity is everyone having the same ability to vote. Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus set a precedent: He included women in a time when they were considered lesser. Unfortunately, this precedent is not followed in many parts of the world. Women’s equity is important to everyone. The best way to achieve this is through education. Educating women is easier said and done as they are still considered the lesser gender in many countries. A UNESCO report from the United Nations states that twice as many girls as boys are unlikely to ever enter school. An article from Brighter Children outlines the five major barriers to children’s educations in developing countries while an article from Share America covers the benefits of educating women worldwide. I need a transitional sentence here. :/

In the world today, now more than ever there is an abundant amount of diversity and disconnect between political parties, races, genders, leaders, communities and educators. It comes in some large and small waves through alerts on our cellphone, television, newspaper, social media pages, or through our interactions with people. But, focusing in this essay on the alerts and headlines that are geared toward education policies for students with lower socioeconomic status, race differences, and undocumented immigrants. And asking the questions of where can students with lower socioeconomic status and illegal immigrants going to school, are they succeeding, going into college? Looking through some topics through a lens of conflict theory, which states that in society there are economic power struggles that are an inevitable cause of a capitalist society. Conflict theory also includes that power struggles lead to social change through competition and upheaval. For my hypothesis, I expect to find supporting evidence stating that education is lacking for the students who are of a different race, lower socioeconomic status, and undocumented immigrants are not receiving the level of education for some reason or another.

as Mr. Bill Gates stated at a college commencement speech at Harvard University in 2007 while he getting his bachelor degree, inequality is a serious social issue existing everywhere around us.

At the lower end of the spectrum, the struggling, also viewed socially as the lower class, are the people feeling strapped in the present and anxious about the future. Parents in the lower division do not have the wealth to establish their kids a division in society. Being in this status starts to become a challenge for the parents to be able to secure the knowledge about finance that their child will need to know. For example, the lower-class parents live pay check to pay check, but cannot teach their child about saving or how to secure yourself in a social status. This is where your stronger integrity and family values show vividly in a child because the parents would teach the

The schools that cater to lower class students don’t rise to the standards that other schools are held to. Many of the schools in poorer neighborhoods have fewer resources, less standards and the parents have less education and are not able to help their children or even afford for their children to go to school. This is a big problem for children of lower socioeconomic statues, especially those that are African American.The School-centered explanation helps show that there is inequality between schools in different socioeconomic statuses. It talks about how the teachers and things that happen in school play a big part in the education of children and also the expectations of the students. The schooling suffers because of the lack of money and motivation which can cause the students to have a worse schooling than kids in higher socioeconomic statuses. The expectations of teachers is related to Labeling Theory. When the students are told that they are bad kids or that they are not smart, it causes them to act like the labels that are given to them. If a child believes these labels, it hinders their performance in school and the attitude they have towards learning. Lastly, there is also student-centered explanations. These have to do with the people and things that surround the students outside of school, like their parents, friends, and the places they live. All of these cause different school experiences for children of different classes and is a big part of how well the

The less advantaged group can consist of high school dropouts, unemployed or imprisoned people, substance abusers, and typically those below the poverty line. Men and women cannot always rely on each other to have stable relationships, leaving them without a constructed family and becoming more invested in their individual lives. More children are born out of wedlock in this class, and more single parents are present. Marriage is almost rarely heard of in this group. Inequality rises in society here because of the differences in this social group compared to the higher class. Marriage and family is less likely in the lower class than in the more advantaged.