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Links between social class and education
Effects of social class on students' educational attainment
Links between social class and education
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Our experiences with social class help define and shape our expectations for education, it’s potential and its power. How is it fair that education is provided for all different economic backgrounds and financial circumstances, but yet not everyone is able to use the education system to its full advantage? For instance, in Mike Rose’s “Blue Collar Brilliance”, his mother to quit school to provide for her family, due to their financial circumstance. Most students choose to go off to the military or workforce because they understand that continuing their education is extremely expensive. Gerald Graff, author of “Hidden Intellectualism”, discusses the difference between “book smarts” and “street smarts”. Graff focuses on how smarts can take countless forms and even be hidden. Take the case of, the gap between the upper-class, and the middle and working class. There are far more obstacles facing the lower classes, such as financial worry, compared to the upper-class. Social class often puts us in a group or community of people who share similar experiences such as, having a low income. People that come from upper class households, may have an advantage at …show more content…
Directly, individuals from higher social classes are more likely to have the means to attend more prestigious schools, and are therefore more likely to receive higher educations. Indirectly, individuals who benefit from such higher education are more likely to land prestigious jobs, and in turn, higher salaries. Just as education and social class are closely intertwined, stratification in education contributes to stratification in social class (boundless). The gap between the haves, and the have-nots continues to grow rather than close. It’s a never-ending cycle. There are many reasons why economic inequality is so high, some of which include education and wealth. The gap is vast between skilled and non-skilled
Graff takes a logical approach to defending his opinion on the age old battle of “street smarts versus book smarts” in the article “Hidden Intellectualism”. Through several historical and personal examples, he strongly delivers an argument that schools have been discounting students who may not think academically. In reality the students who can relate articles from sources like Vouge and Sports Illustrated to life may be the ones who will truly be successful. Throughout his writing, he uses many devices to sway the audience’s opinions in the direction of his. Through Graff’s rhetorical writing strategies, he opens reader’s eyes to the fact that any subject can be intellectual when observed “through academic eyes”.
In the essay ”Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, he discusses different types of intellect, more specifically the ways they can apply to us in our lives. He discusses the different types of “smarts” referred to in his paper as street smarts, and school smarts. Graff hints upon the missed opportunities by colleges to embrace the form of intellect called “street smarts” because of a preconceived idea that there is no way to use this form of knowledge in an academic setting. To quote Graff directly “Colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts”. We then learn some of Graffs personal experiences pertaining to this very thing. He shares a story about himself which reviews his underlying love for sports and complete diskliking for books or any form of intellectualism, until he became college aged. He shares that he now believes, his love of sports over over school work was not because he hated intellectualism but perhaps it was intellectualism in another form. He shares his
If I am to read Dr.Seuss over the dictionary does that make me worthless? In highschool I often could never relate to the stories I was made to read. I would always find my mind wandering about different things or I would find myself not caring about the grades I made. I would often put my head in the book and drift off to sleep, that would result in trouble. Many times, when I got in trouble and had to go to the office I did not care because I was not being bored by the readings that were being forced on me. Although teachers feel differently about what is intellectual, but students should not feel bad for not being able to relate.
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
A philosopher once said ”A child educated only at school is an uneducated child”. As we are living in a world where everyone knows the importance of schools and the meaningful of being educated, then why does he believe that a child is illiterate when he only studies at school? Are schools actually limit on areas of study and overlook the essential of real life experience? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff claims that schools and colleges are might at fault due to their omission of the “street smarts”-knowledge necessary to deal with reality-, and their failure to invest them into academic work. By stating the fundamental of intellectualism and the influence of personal interests, he informs readers that those street smarts,
Allen supports her claims about hierarchies and power dynamics in her chapter “Social Class Matters.” She dives into the structures of society by examining power and social class in various contexts. In this chapter, she explains that people are categorized according to themes of class difference and struggle. Social class is associated with the relationship between power and the distribution of resources. Because this stratification system of social class is one of the biggest predictors of school achievement, social identity plays a large role in the social reproduction of inequality in the education system.
In “Hidden Intellectualism”, author and professor Gerald Graff describes his idea of what book smarts and streets smarts actually are. He details how new ideas can help to teach and build our educational system into something great and that perhaps street smarts students could be the factor that traditional education is missing that could make it great.
“Hidden Intellectualism” written by Gerald Graff, is a compelling essay that presents the contradicting sides of “book smarts” and “street smarts” and how these terms tied in to Graff’s life growing up. Graff felt like the school was at fault that the children with more “street smarts” were marked with the reputation of being inadequate in the classroom. Instead of promoting the knowledge of dating, cars, or social cues, the educational system deemed them unnecessary. Gerald Graff thought that “street smarts” could help people with academics. In his essay, Graff confessed that despite his success as an “intellect” now, he was the exact opposite until college. Where he grew up in Chicago, Illinois, intelligence was looked down upon around peers
In their minds, if they do well in school, they can get a career that can help them become successful. Although the students do not put limits on the relationship between social class and education, the school system does. The view that the school system has for the classifications of intellectualism leaves out the interests of most of the students. The writer Graff address this in his article within the lines, “ Only much later did it dawn on me that the sports world was more compelling than school because it was more intellectual than school, not less. Sports after all was full of challenging arguments, debates, problems for analysis, and intricate statistics that you could care about, as school conspicuously was not.” (Graff 790) In those lines, he speaks about sports, which is a topic that is not considered to hold intellectual value by the school system. He shows that other interests besides the things we learn in school can have intellectual value. He makes it apparent that it does not matter the individual’s economic status because they can still be smart. This article shows that everyone can connect and contribute to learning with their different interests, and their interest can bridge the gap that society creates between the social classes if they decide that they want to be successful and take their education
Social stratification as defined by Brinkerhoff et al. is “an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social statuses are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources” (Brinkerhoff et al. 152). By scarce resources, many people have to deal with poverty and having a lack of money to buy the things they need in their lives. Social class is defined as “a category of people who share roughly the same class, status, and power and who have a sense of identification with each other” (Brinkerhoff et al. 155). Your social class has to do with your socioeconomic status along with the power and connections you have. Social mobility on the other hand is “the process of changing one’s social class” (Brinkerhoff et al. 153).
Intellectualism? Have you ever thought what it really means? Does it come naturally or with time and effort? Hidden intellectualism by Gerald Graff explores the concept of street smart incorporated with intelligence, while What College is for? By Gary Gutting explores the theme of books and teachers that will help us achieve intellectualism. These two essays may be different, but contain similar ideas such as intellectualism. They both state that is is important, but they interpret it differently. Gutting describes intellect as something a person can achieve through reading and studying, which make you book smart, while Graff mentions that you don 't have to be book smart in order to be intelligent. Second topic they agree on is openness. Gutting mentions that a student should be open to his teacher 's style of teaching, whereas, Graff argues that students should embrace their own learning style and teachers should accommodate with
Co-author of “They Say/I Say” handbook, Gerald Graff, analyzes in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” that “street smarts” can be used for more efficient learning and can be a valuable tool to train students to “get hooked on reading and writing” (Graff 204). Graff’s purpose is to portray to his audience that knowing more about cars, TV, fashion, and etc. than “academic work” is not the detriment to the learning process that colleges and schools can see it to be (198). This knowledge can be an important teaching assistant and can facilitate the grasping of new concepts and help to prepare students to expand their interests and write with better quality in the future. Graff clarifies his reasoning by indicating, “Give me the student anytime who writes a sharply argued, sociologically acute analysis of an issue in Source over the student who writes a life-less explication of Hamlet or Socrates’ Apology” (205). Graff adopts a jovial tone to lure in his readers and describe how this overlooked intelligence can spark a passion in students to become interested in formal and academic topics. He uses ethos, pathos, and logos to establish his credibility, appeal emotionally to his readers, and appeal to logic by makes claims, providing evidence, and backing his statements up with reasoning.
Class in the American Culture is based on economic and social differences, and it remains a powerful force in American life and has come to play a greater role in today’s society. American culture classified social classes as three different levels, the higher class which is classified as the wealthier and have the most money and a certain lifestyles and clothes. The middle class more like the businesses, people who have a reasonable income. And the last class is the low class which are the working class people. Those in the upper middle classes enjoy better health and live longer than those in the middle classes, who live longer and better than those at the bottom. That 's because money, good jobs and connections help the better-off get the best medical care. People in the upper class also maintain a certain lifestyle and sometimes different clothing lifestyle than the ones in the lower classes.
Social class can be measured unofficially by researchers or by using official scales that are government recognised. An example of an official scale is the Registrar Generals scale which was used in Britain from 1911 to 2000 and used by the government to measure social class. This model was split into two main classes, middle class and lower class. Each class was further divided into separate categories depending on how skilled the individual is. This system was relatively simple and easy to understand. However, the Registrar Generals scale was separated into classes based on the profession not the individual, meaning that individuals that were wealthy and lived off investments or inheritance would be excluded from this particular scale and not given a class position, this means it is not a clear picture of everyone’s position in society. Because the Registrar Generals scale measures occupation and does not take account of peoples own views of their class position, for example, someone with a middle class background may have a working class job but may not consider themselves as working
The Relationship Between Social Class and Educational Achievement Many sociologists have tried to explore the link between social class and educational achievement, measuring the effects of one element upon the other. In order to maintain a definite correlation between the two, there are a number of views, explanations, social statistics and perspectives which must be taken into account. The initial idea would be to define the key terms which are associated with how "social class" affects "educational achievement." "Social class" is the identity of people, according to the work they do and the community in which they live in. "Educational achievement" is the tendency for some groups to do better or worse in terms of educational success.