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The impact of social classes on educational achievements
Social class affects educational achievements
Social class and education achievements
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Economic Injustice in America "Class is for European democracies or something else--it isn't for the United States of America. We are not going to be divided by class." -George Bush, the forty-first President of the United States (Kalra 1) The United States of America was founded on the basis of a "classless society of equals," committed to eliminating the past injustices imposed on them by Great Britain. A hundred years later, Alexis de Tocqueville, a prominent sociologist of France, claimed that the nation was the most democratic in the world, a model for the rest of mankind, distinguished by the "equality of condition" ("Tocqueville in..." n. pag.). Today, however, there does exist perceptible classes in this country, and, because …show more content…
They have access to state-of-the-art scientific laboratories, interactive computers and video systems in the classroom, language laboratories, and high-tech school libraries. Their classes are relatively small; their peers are intellectually stimulating. Their parents take them to museums and cultural events, expose them to foreign travel, and give them music lessons. At home are educational books, educational toys, educational videotapes, microscopes, telescopes, and personal computers replete with the latest educational software. (Lasch 35) On the other hand, the poor are stuck with insufficiently-funded public schools. Because neighborhoods are segregated by class and education, schools are financed mostly from local property taxes and state taxes. Children from different school districts will therefore have different qualities of education depending on the class of the community in which they live. For example, in Texas, the ten highest school districts spent $5,423 per student compared to $1,848 per student for the 10 lowest school districts (Kalra 274). The difference in expenditures affects class sizes, teacher's salaries and the facilities. The poor must deal with overcrowded conditions and inadequate and uncaring teachers (Wilson 28). While teaching in inner-city and public schools, Jonathan Kozol found schools with five classes being conducted simultaneously in an assembly hall without wall dividers; classes with seventy pupils crowded in one room, with desks crammed halfway into the coat closet; classes that lacked books and school supplies classes with no regular teachers that saw nineteen different substitutes in twenty days, some with no teachers at all, the students being watched over them (Parenti 108). All of this shows the great differences between the the quality of education of the rich and the
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
Tocqueville seems to like democracy in its ideal form. However, nothing can be perfect and thus America is not a perfect democracy. Tocqueville found numerous problems with democracy and the influence it had on the populace. These problems range from their distrust of dogmatic beliefs to the imperfect equality that is in place in America. He also found the effects of these problems to be quite problematic as well. For instance, individualism, an effect of equality, is very problematic to democracy. Tocqueville enjoys considering America as an experiment in democracy, but does not find it to be faultless.
America has always seen as the symbolic ideal country of prosperity and equality. This is the reason why people come to America hoping to become successful, but in matter of fact we all have an equal plan field to be successful is not entirely true. For there are social boundaries that keep use limited based upon our own status. Whether we are born of a low class or of a high class the possibility of economic mobility in a sense are predetermined by two factors of social class and success together they both affecting one’s another opportunity of success. In order to achieve success, we must know that it is made up of two main concepts and they are fortune and position. But when a person is limited by their class prohibiting them to achieve success, the point of trying is meaningless. However, there is a way to break the construct that keep groups stuck in the lower-class and is through education. Education gives more opportunities for success to the individuals and since education is very important, culture and the government should focus more directly upon this to reach economic stability. Class standing directly affects economic success in America by limiting a person’s chance of success however; one can overcome by focusing more upon education and culture.
Tocqueville (rather bizarrely in retrospect) conceived of America as having “an almost complete equality of conditions”. While in respect to the French alone, Tocqueville argues, “the taste and the idea of freedom began to exist and to be developed only at the time when social conditions were tending to equality and as a consequence of that very equality.” Tocqueville draws the first stirrings of equality to the “political power of the clergy,” which upon being consolidated began to spread and upon its ranks to “all classes, to rich and poor, commoner, and noble.” Thus “through the Church, equality penetrates into the government, and he who as a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage could, as a priest, take his place in the midst of nobles, and would often sit above kings.” Tocqueville continues to trace the ascent of equality and descent of aristocracy to the financial demise of kings “ruining themselves by their great enterprises; the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, [while] the lower orders enriching themselves by commerce”. And with the advent and spread of education, the “value attached to high birth declines just as fast as new avenues to power are
So now you have met the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. You’ve learned about their lives, seen their journeys, and traveled with them from the past to the present. In all I hope this paper gives a greater understanding of the history and a look into another culture to broaden minds.
In Mantsios’ “Class in America” he provides us with four myths about the United States. In one of these myths the idea is brought up that the United States is, at its core, a classless society. It is also states that whether rich or poor, everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. The myth also states that health care and education are provided to everyone regardless of their financial stability. This idea about a classless society is exactly what Mantsios claims it to be, a myth. It is untrue to state that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, and to believe that whatever differences exist in financial standing are insignificant. There are clear distinctions between different groups of people depending on their economic and social standing.
...ychedelics no longer shed light on the possibility of peace but instead the insanity of a social world.
The ideal concept of American society is one in which all of the citizens are treated equal in all every realm and situation. Class, race or gender does not divide the utopian America; everyone is afforded the same opportunities and chances for success. In this chimerical state Americans are able to go as far as their dreams allow and with hard work and perseverance any thing is possible. Many Americans subscribe to this pluralist view of the Country, believing that within our democratic system it is the majority who maintains control and sets policy. Unfortunately this idyllic country does not exist nor has it ever existed. America is made up of distinct social classes and the movement within those classes is for the most part, limited to the various classes in the middle where the lines of demarcation are blurred. Although the majority of the Country's population would attest to the myth that America is a classless society, the distinctions definitely exist and influence the entire life scope of most Americans. Housing, health care, education, career prospects and social status are all dependent on the amount of wealth one has and their class standing. Our system needs the built in inequities of the class system in order to perpetuate itself and the upper class needs to have their interests as the dominant determiner of corporate and governmental power and policy.
Weber, Wright and Tilley each contribute various theories to that can be applied to inequality and stratification within the contemporary United States. Reaching back to Weber’s work on class, status and parties, it is clear that this class is still a relevant concept even today. Weber views the class stratification system as a segmented structure, broken down into the simple components of class, status and party which in turn relate to power within a capitalist society. He defined “class situation” in relation to the following conditions (1) "have in common a specific causal component of their life chances in so far as (2) this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income,
Frank Johnson, a writer for the National Center for Education Statics, “Disparities in Public School Spending.” Reported in 1995, public education expenditures per student are higher in the nation's smallest districts whereas students receive an average fully adjusted expenditure of $4,862 versus $4,216 in the largest district’s 10,000 students and above. (Johnson 4)
America’s role in the establishing of Israel marked the beginning of resentment among many Arabs and Muslims communities (Evara, Stratmann & Natta 2007). With this political stand, the US was forced to adopt policies that conflicted with major political movements in the region, namely secular pan-Arabism and Islamic fundamentalism. Egypt was on the forefront pushing for the first movement; it described its position on the Middle East and the rest of the world. Both the movements called for unity among the Muslim and Arabic community. Consequently they alienated the western countries, to an extent of advocating for violence. In 1991 the relationship was complicated further when the US led the gulf war against Iraq. However the more recent September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America soil hig...
Inequality exist and is high in America because the amount of income and wealth that is distributed through power. In America the income distribution is very inequality and the value of a person wealth is based on their income with their debts subtracted. “As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers)” (Domhoff, 2011). In contrary the poor do not get ahead and the rich get more. Americans are judged and placed in class categories through their home ownership which translates to wealth. Americans social class is often associated with their assets and wealth. “People seek to own property, to have high incomes, to have interesting and safe jobs, to enjoy the finest in travel and leisure, and to live long and healthy lives” (Domhoff, 2011). Power indicates how these “values” are not distributed equally in American society. Huge gains for the rich include cuts in capital gains and dividends and when tax rates decrease for the tiny percent of Americans income is redistributed. Taxes directly affect the wealth and income of Americans every year.
Andersen, Roy, Robert F. Seibert, and Jon G. Wagner. Politics and change in the Middle East: sources of conflict and accommodation. 9th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Print.
This difference in mean values can be reflected through the absence of an appropriate context presented during the encoding phase. It can be seen that the Context before group had more retrieval cues than the Context never group (Bransford et al. 1972) leading to easier comprehension and memorisation. But as highlighted in Bransford et al. (1972), comprehension does not necessarily mean correct recall but rather the participants has a better understanding of the passage than if the context was not presented at all.
Wealth inequality is the uneven distribution of resources in a given state or population, which can also be called the wealth gap. The sum of one’s total assets excluding the liabilities equates the person’s wealth also known as the net worth. Investments, residents, cash, real estates and everything owned by an individual are their assets.In reality, the United States is among the richest countries in the world, though a few people creating a major gap between the richest, the middle class and the poor control most of its wealth. For more than a quarter of a century, only the rich American families have shown an increase to their net worth.Thisis a worrying fact for the less fortunate in the country and calls for assessment (Baranoff, 2015).