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More handpicked essays just for you.
The role of a teacher
How do social class affect the status and education of a child
Impact of social class
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According to James W. Loewen in “The Land of Opportunity” (Lies my Teacher Told me) Social class determines the quality of one’s life. It starts from the womb, children who come from an affluence family gets to enjoy health care environmental and educational advantages while the non-affluence struggles to survive. “Woodrow Wilson’s recommendation that liberal meaning rich people should get a better education and that other people meaning poor do not need a good education because they will get meaningless jobs”. Schools use rote learning in a way to look down on non-affluent kids. Quite often teachers can be stereotype towards poor children these teachers feel that only children who come from an affluent family can excel, but these teachers
Stephen W. Sears’ Landscape Turned Red is an account of political and military plans. Especially General Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign as well as the Battle of Antietam. Sears frames his work around the pending support of Great Britain and France to the Confederate cause due to cotton. Landscape Turned Red covers the battle of Antietam. It offers a vivid account of both armies, the soldiers and officers, and the bloody campaign. It analyzes the impact of Antietam on the Civil War as a whole. Sears' use of diaries, dispatches, and letters recreate the Battle of Antietam. You experience the battle not only from its leaders but also by its soldiers, both Union and Confederate. Sears attempts to examine the tactical moves of both Lee and General George McClellan. He also talks about the foolish decisions that troubled both the Federal and Confederate forces. Sears' use of traits, political pursuits, and tactical preferences, explain the thoughts of many. Some of these include President Lincoln, General Halleck and General McClellan, and their subordinates. Stephen Ward Sears is an American historian specializing in the American Civil War. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and an attendant to a journalism seminar at Radcliffe-Harvard. As an author he has concentrated on the military history of the American Civil War. Such as the battles and leaders of the Army of the Potomac. He was an editor for the Educational Department at American Heritage Publishing Company. American Heritage Publishing two of his ten books.
Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American community in California 1919-1982 by Valerie J. Matsumoto presents a close and in-depth study of social and culture history of Cortez, a small agricultural settlement located in San Joaquin valley in California. Divided into six chapter, the book is based primarily on the oral interviews responses from eighty three members of Issei, Nisei, and Sansei generations. However, many information are also obtained from the local newspapers, community records, and World War II concentration camp publications.
The Europeans changed the land of the home of the Indians, which they renamed New England. In Changes in the Land, Cronon explains all the different aspects in how the Europeans changed the land. Changing by the culture and organization of the Indians lives, the land itself, including the region’s plants and animals. Cronon states, “The shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes well known to historians in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations less well known to historians in the region’s plant and animal communities,” (Cronon, xv). New England went through human development, environmental and ecological change from the Europeans.
The United States of America is known as the land of opportunity and dreams. People dream of migrating to this nation for a chance of a better a life. This belief has been around for many years, ever since the birth of the United States; therefore it’s a factor in which motivate many people migrate to the United States. Upton Sinclair, author of the Jungle, narrates the life of a Lithuanian family and there struggles with work, crime, family loss, and survival in the city of Packingtown. Sinclair expresses her disgust as well as the unbelievable truth of life in the United States involving politics, corruption, and daily struggle that many suffered through in the 19th and 20th century.
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
Class is a “relational social categorization based on economic, cultural, and social characteristics” (Barnes 2016) this includes a person’s: income and wealth, networks and connections, cultural knowledge, and social status. When a person has a high social status, that often means that they have more power in society compared to a person who is in a lower social class than they. A good example of class and how it separates the lower classes from the higher classes are private schools. Private schools are often very expensive and people who are in lower class systems often cannot afford to send their kids their, causing an even larger gap between classes. In Conley’s memoir, with him switching schools from a public, working class school to a private, middle class school shows how the schools that people go to can greatly effect their
Some people may believe that education all over the United States is equal. These people also believe that all students no matter their location, socioeconomic status, and race have the same access and quality of education, but ultimately they are wrong. Throughout history, there has been a huge educational disparity between the wealthy and marginalized communities. The academic essay “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon, an American critical thinker and researcher in education, conveys that depending on the different economic backgrounds students have, they will be taught in a specific way. He reveals that the lower economic background a child has then the lower quality their education will be and the higher their economic background is the higher quality their education is. Anyon’s theory of a social ladder is extremely useful because it sheds light on the
Since the schools symbolize cultural capital of the middle and upper classes, children from lower social backgrounds, who are not familiar with the hierarchy codes will have more difficulty understanding the schooling process. The influence of cultural capital is especially prominent in the first years of schooling. The lack of cultural capital is especially drawn from the video we have watched in class on “Tammy’s story” which was about Tammy’s cultural capital and how it has a big impact on her aspirations, opportunities, and achievements. Furthermore, from this video we learned unfortunately, much of the competition to get ahead in America is rigged. Wealth in America is highly concentrated on and it defines your place on the social ladder. Likewise, Tammy is very poor and she walks 10 miles a day to go to work and clean bathrooms. Not to mention, she has four kids and one of her kids that stands out the most is her son Matt. Matt on the other hand, thinks he’s going to be much better off than his family, and in the video clip he seems embarrassed by his family. Alternatively, Matt tries to dress well, make good friends and he hopes to get a scholarship to a college that he wants to go to. Also, Matt
Throughout the years, many aspects of the educational curriculum have been altered and modified as it relates to the material that is being taught within schools worldwide. Some of the changes are due to new laws that are being implemented and “raising the bar” for the education of the upcoming generations. But with all of the changes being made does it level the playing field or does it make it more competitive? Which brings up the questions, “How does social class effect the quality of education and does equal opportunity in education exist in America?” Social class affects the quality of one’s education through power, social status and equality within the educational system.
In many cases the transition of class involves a lot more than hard work and opportunity. In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the Younger family is faced with a situation where an opportunity to be prosperous comes at the price of pride. The grandmother talks to her son explaining how the American Dream is not worth losing your pride for, “Son – I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers – but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. (Raising her eyes and looking at him) We ain’t never been that – dead inside.” Slaves had little choice, but to keep their pride hidden; the Younger family now has the choice. This is the issue emphasized by grandmother; a shot at monetary success is not worth pride. However, because the Younger family did not take this opportunity they will be forced to continue working for other people, and even if they feel as though they are working hard little progress can be made. In the trouble with geniuses by Malcolm Gladwell he explores various explanation for the lack of correlation between intelligence and success. Gladwell cites a study preformed by sociologist Annette Lareau. In Lareau’s study she observed an advantage rooted in the
In the United States, class-avoidance has become culture norms. For example, when people sneeze we are socially programmed to say “bless you” or “gesundheit”. When the topic on social class or classism comes up we have to avoid the topic by changing the subject. Class-avoidance is like a put a bandage on cancer or one of the big elephants in the nation. Gregory Mantsios, talks about four common or myths that contradict, beliefs about United States. According Mantsios (2013) myth 1 says “rich or poor, we all equal in the eyes of the law, and such basic needs as health care and education are provided to all regardless of economic standing” (p.150). If are rich, you can afford the best lawyer or a team of lawyers and avoid prison time or get community service. If you are rich, you can live long because you have access to the best doctors and medicine. If rich or a legacy, you do not look for look best education, but rather education knocks on your door. Only the rich are equal in the eyes of the rich. If you are poor, you are highly likely to do jail time, die early, and going to college is just a
Everyone knows about the various stereotypes and social stigmas that come with socioeconomic status whether they will choose to admit it or not. Society has come to assume that a child who comes from a family of low socioeconomic status, that they will not do as well as a child who comes from a family of a greater socioeconomic status. Unfortunately these assumptions are so ingrained in our brains that we start to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy. When a child from a noticeably low socioeconomic status walks into a classroom, it is not uncommon for the teacher to automatically assume that the child will not perform well in class, and in turn either grades the child more harshly or does not give the child as much attention as the other children from high socioeconomic status families. Do these children not perform well in class because of the self-fulfilling prophecy or is there something that happens during the critical period that causes the child to fall behind?
According to C. Wright Mills’ “The Promise”, he feels that an individual’s life and how they act is based on the society and what is happening around them at that time. Mills states in his essay that the sociological imagination helps us understand each individual’s background, lifestyles, and habits and/or traditions. It also allows us to understand the influence society may have on a person and how “historical” events led to it. Based on what he wrote, to understand this “imagination” we must be able to connect a person’s public or personal issues with the events happening within society during that time. According to this a person may act differently depending on their religious beliefs, whether or not they live within the city or the suburbs, etc. For example Mills argues that if a person’s “values” are not threatened then they would be in a state of “well-being” but, if their values were threatened then they would go into some sort of “crisis”. If Mills means “values” as in a person’s “standards of behavior” then this is happening today in our society with the LGBT equal rights movement. Many people feel that being homosexual is not a “standard behavior” and that it is perhaps a sickness. They feel that men should be with women therefor many have gone into a “crisis” and have begun belittling the gay community or bullying them due to the fact that they feel that this is not how an individual should be. Another example is homelessness; a person can be homeless due to a fire destroying their home, being kicked out, being unable to care for themselves due to being mentally ill, developing a heavy drug habit and losing their home due to trying to support the habit, or perhaps some sort of depression. Looking at it without un...
In our society, individuals are often assumed whether they will be successful based on their background. Throughout my years in grade schools, I am lucky that my schools did not discriminate against people from a lower social background. My past high school praises individual skills over anything. We were taught to accept and support people from unfortunate backgrounds. I think this is also due to the area my schools were in. For example, my friend who goes to a high school in Minnesota, in a specifically predominately white area, would experience more discrimination regarding social classes compared to me who went to high school in Washington, specifically in an area that has diverse cultures. In general, the top 1% is upper class, the middle 43% is middle class, the lower 43% is working class, and the bottom 13% is the lower class (Ritzer, 191). My friend lived in a predominantly middle and upper classes, therefore, the school was more likely to help students from these two classes; because in this area, it is socially acceptable to believe that students from these classes are more likely to succeed. Through my years in school, I learned that people from any social classes are capable to be successful. People are not good or bad based on the backgrounds they came from. I identify myself as a middle class person, but I will choose friends based on their characteristics, not their
There lies an obvious gap between the quality of education that is received between citizens with wealth and those who lack it, which makes it quite challenging to work together on social progression. Toni Bambara does a fantastic job portraying this reality in here essay “The Lesson” through a story of a group of children from low income families and their trip to a high class toy store with Miss Moore, a highly educated woman. The kids are blind to the value of education and where it could take them in life. Throughout their acquaintance, Miss Moore reminds the children that “Where [they] are is who [they] are, but it does not necessarily have to be that way” (258). Never understanding what she is saying, the children tend to ignore Miss Moore’s remark and often become agitated with her. The children have access to a better life through education and they can become anything they desire through hard work and learning. Life in poverty must not be a permanent fixation, these poor children are unfortunately blind to what Miss Moore is trying to convey. Due to a lacking education, these children are forming subjectivity quite different from those who are highly educated. With that being said, there is an obvious separation from realities between the wealthy and the poor. Having equal access to education among different classes is vital in contributing to social advancement. In today’s