Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Inequality in education
Social class and educational achievements
Poverty and its impact on education
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Inequality in education
Education is key to knowledge that strengthens the perspectives, skills, and abilities of learners to participate in different aspects of life, including society, arts, politics, and economics. Knowledge is power to interact, discover, preserve or change various things in life.
Children around the world vary in their opportunities to education because of factors including culture, socioeconomic conditions, and policies. Poverty disadvantages education in that it results in difficulties with expenses, poor resources, few transportation opportunities, poor technology, crammed schools, little individual attention and support by teachers and or parents (Frankema 2008). Health problems also affect children’s abilities to take opportunity of primary education (Frankema 2008). Cultural and economic expectations also negatively affect many kids, as girls may be expected to do domestic work and boys to do outside labor; child labor take educational opportunities away (Torche 2010; Frankema 2008). Also, many governments in Latin America have neoliberal policies that favor economic development have cut social and education spending, negatively affecting the educational opportunities and achievement of children.
Inequality in educational opportunities deprives many children and society of power, participation, and development in a world where education is especially expected for all types of positions. It results in an unfair system where all children do not have the chance to compete in society and reach types of independence including intellectual and financial. This imbalance increases the gaps between the educated and uneducated, often intensifying the gaps between the associated poor and affluent people. Communities with low education...
... middle of paper ...
...of children from different economic classes (Frankema). Efforts targeted at poor and indigenous are also not showing to make huge changes in primary enrollment and achievement rates (Mier et al 2003). The funding and quality of the school, including classes, teachers, materials, and the involvement of family in the students’ academic efforts are other factors to consider. As mentioned earlier, society believes the first step to success is giving the opportunity. Society needs to reform this idea by including both opportunity and quality in the same step. Many programs have done these in separate steps, but including both in the same step will produce more efficient and positive change in the educational outcomes of students. This will take lots of commitment, investment, and collaboration with governments, organizations, schools, communities, families, and students.
Education is the act or process of acquiring knowledge to prepare oneself intellectually for mature life. It is the standard foundation for most youth growing up. A good solid education background is what can take you to different heights as they become young adults. “The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives” quoted by Robert Maynard Hutchins. The statement is true to the form of getting an education prepares you for a prosperous life ahead. Knowledge is power and knowledge is needed to have stability within your life. In “Bodega Dreams” by Ernesto Quinonez education is the basis of entire society. But does it
If I had to describe a moment from INEQUALITY FOR ALL that is really sticking with you – maybe you found it particularly inspiring or particularly troubling it would be the statement made by Robert Reich, “Of all developed nations the U.S. has the most unequal distribution of income.” What was it about that moment that is so memorable? He also states, “the richest 400 people in America have more wealth then the bottom 50 million of us put together.”
Even the mere inequality of wealth in a child’s social, cultural, or educational setting can have effects on a child’s peer to peer interactions, hierarchical structure and their ability to achieve. Gorard 2010 as discussed in Victoria Cooper, 2014 (p160), links poverty and or social deprivation with lower academic results. In the Xiao Bo case study by Child poverty research and policy centre, 2013 (Heather Montgomery, 2014) it demonstrates the multifaceted effects of poverty on a child, such as the stresses it places on the family to educate children, pressure on the children themselves to succeed in education to enable them to assist with family finances and lifestyle, the compromises and sacrifices made as a family unit in lifestyle and financial planning in order to pursue education of the child, as well as demonstrating the wide range of instigators that create inequalities of wealth, such as political/policy decisions, loopholes in aid assistance, cost of education and unequal access to resources. In 2001 the Millennium development goals were set out in response to the millennium summit of the united nations to reduce poverty and its associated issues, of the eight goals, the first goal was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, demonstrating the comprehension of the wide ranging affect of poverty on children and society as a whole, and an understanding that poverty ‘Damages children in every way’ as stated by Unicef
The film “Inequality for all” directed by Jacob Kornbluth, begins with Robert Reich asking students three questions to consider in a lecture when talking about the uneven distribution of wealth. First, what is happening regarding the distribution of wealth? He then inquires to why this is happening. Last of all, he asks the students if the distribution of wealth is a problem in America. He addresses these questions as well as many others in his lecture on the growing divide between America’s rich and poor. Robert Reich is an economist, author, and educator as well as public policy professor who served in the Ford, Carter and Clinton administration. He has dealt with this particular topic for over three decades and continues to spread his political views as a professor at the University of Berkley. Furthermore, he talks about the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor/middle class. He goes beyond the obvious facts to show us why this is happening and uses statistical data to display this growing problem. He gives concerning evidence that wages are declining, and that America’s weakening economy is based on consumerism.
Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most importantly, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students. School funding is systemically unequal, partially because the majority of school funding comes from the school district’s local property taxes, positioning the poorest communities at the bottom rung of the education playing field. A student’s socioeconomic status often defines her success in a classroom for a number of reasons.
Students in poverty tend to obtain low grades, have little academic achievement, and often misbehave. Many often drop out before graduating high school. Students ages sixteen through twenty-four are up to seven times more likely to drop out. A study published in Nature Neuroscience discovered “a link between physical brain development and poverty level. In a study of eleven hundred children, adolescence and adults from around the US, researchers found significant differences in the brains of children from the lowest income bracket in comparison to those in the highest. Families who lived on less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year had as much as 6% less surface area in their brain in areas like language and decision making than families who made more than one hundred and fifty dollars a year.” This may support why many students in poverty tend to do worse in school over middle class students. Employers usually lean toward more educated workers, leaving the poor at a serious disadvantage when it comes to work Children growing in poverty regularly have families of their own poverty. Some workplaces, manufacturing jobs have replaced their human labor with machinery and technology, which leaves many potential jobs out of the hands of people hungry for work. Having a weak education leaves them unskilled, resulting poor and low paying occupations. This creates a long lasting loop of poverty, a loop which is hard to escape. They
Low- income children 's school districts often lack the money to provide these children with resources, and therefore the children will not get these resources any other way. Devarics (2011) stated, "Only 22 percent of local districts reported offering pre-kindergarten or other early learning programs for low-income children" (para.8). Denying this resource affects the many children who reside where that 78 percent of local districts do not offer pre-kindergarten, because many go to kindergarten not knowing minimal skills required. As a consequence, this postpones their education even further. Moreover, Davarics (2011) also stated, "Many schools aren 't educationally where they need to be, which ultimately means many students won 't graduate ready to succeed in a career or in higher education," (para.11). Many low-income schools do not offer activities such as, art, music or sports, because of the lack of money, facilities, or staff. They are not supplied with the right tools and have poor access to computers and Internet. They also do not offer rigorous courses at many of these schools, and have less qualified, trained, and less experienced staff that cannot proficiently teach such courses. Going to school with these disadvantages, can make these children unmotivated to continue an education where there will be little educational progress.
The means of justifying these inequalities are important for the entire world. Education played and will always play a big role in everyone’s lives. Equality in education will eventually guarantee every person a better position in society. Educational inequality is the difference in learning effectiveness and results as faced by students with varying backgrounds. The effects of educational inequality are not only left within the circles of education, but also remain further to have an impact on other life aspects. All over the world, there have been unending calls to reform education at each level. With various causes that are very much connected to society, history and culture, the educational inequality has apparently been one of the most difficult challenges to address. Regardless of the challenges faced in removing educational inequality, education has continued to be a very important part of society with a big expectation of moving it forward. In the current-day America, very many disadvantaged children have continued to grow up missing key skills. Discrimination has continued to persevere in educational achievement between racial issues. Above all, low performance levels among these disadvantaged children have over the years been responsible for the long-term issues, especially in such an society with higher levels of skills and a failing incomes offered to those people that are less-skilled.
Throughout the nation, education inequality affects many minority students that have low-income which reinforces the disparity between the rich and the poor. The amount of children that have a socioeconomic background of poverty in the United States is estimated to be 32.4 million (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2011). Since many of these children are from
Have you noticed that a lot of Americans most disadvantaged children grow up without the skills they need to thrive in the twenty-first century? Have you ever wondered how NYC High School scholars judge each other? Whether in educational attainment between income groups or racial/ethnic groups, inequality still persists. In New York City, the nation’s largest school system, on average student outcomes and their opportunity to learn are more determined by social class and family backgrounds. Think of your own experiences when you were in high school? We always hear people speak about others because of the way they dress, where they live, and who their parents are. Also some are treated differently and have greater opportunities than others. For example, children growing up in low-income neighbors are much more likely to experience repeated stress from violence crime that may cause them to be capable for development. On the other hand, high income in the United States has increased the importance of how external environment factors impact students and schools. What is a good education to you? A good education is the key foundation and the need for every child to succeed in the world today, with the fast growing markets and a lot of competition. A lot don’t understand and need to learn what it takes to compete with other individuals and make a decent living. However, not every child has been receiving a fair and equal education throughout all of society and education inequality has become a major issue. Many of the children living in low-income and middle-income families are not receiving an equal type or quality of education as those who live in high-income families.
Living in poverty exposes children to disadvantages that influence many aspects in their life that are linked to their ability to do well in school. In the United States of America there are an estimated 16.4 million children under the age of 18 living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). “The longer a child lives in poverty, the lower the educational attainment” (Kerbo, 2012). Children who are raised in low-income households are at risk of failing out before graduating high school (Black & Engle, 2008). U.S. children living in poverty face obstacles that interfere with their educational achievement. Recognizing the problems of living in poverty can help people reduce the consequences that prevent children from reaching their educational potential.
There is no one single definition for what education really is. Experts and scholars from the beginning have viewed and commented about education in different ways. The definition mostly agreed upon was that education is an acquisition or passing of skills, behavior or knowledge from an institution to another. This institution can either be a person, a school, a family or even the society. If we go in the ancient meaning and the ideology of education, it means to lead out of ignorance. In other words, education or knowledge in this sense was light and education brought the person out of the dark. The purpose and ideology of education is therefore to bring out the potential of a person and pass on knowledge
Inequality refers to the differences in living conditions in a society; it could also be defined as an unequal distribution of a country’s resources across its population. Inequality is obviously an important issue, since higher levels of inequality will usually translate into higher levels of poverty, crime and social unrest. However, it is often ignored by society. This is because people have many misconceptions about inequality and it’s origins. Some argue that there is an equality of opportunity and that it’s people’s fault if they earn less than they should. However this is a myth, since most hard working low-income students rarely attend college and when they do, they usually attend public universities. Which leaves them at a great disadvantage, so the idea that poor people are poor because they ‘haven’t worked as hard’ or because they are ‘lazy’ is a very ignorant one, which people choose to believe in order to justify inequality.
Education will help you grow as an individual because the more knowledge you have the better understanding you will have in any given problem that will come your way. It will give you self satisfaction and will boost your self confidence. As an individual I know it will help me in a lot of aspects in my life. It will give me a financial stability because I will be able to land a good job and a high paying salary. I will learn how to spend my money and will learn how to invest it wisely. The more education I have the more respect and acknowledgement I will get from people. Knowledge is really important that is why we need to take it seriously. It is the strong weapon you can have to conquer this complex world. If you have a good education nobody can fool you and you will not tolerate any mistreatment from people. It will give you a better views in life if you are well educated.
Education plays a vital role in shaping tomorrows’ leaders. Not only can we become a better nation by acquiring the skills necessary to be productive members of a civilized society. Increase knowledge to actively achieve and meet challenges that can produce changes in which are productive for attaining business innovations, political and economic objectives.