Schools prepare children to occupy particular rungs on the social ladder (Journal Article)
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Anonymous
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This essay first appeared in the Journal of Education in 1980. It was a sobering although not entirely surprising to me that there would be such large discrepancies in the educational experiences of children who were all within the same public school district. The children were predominately from the same racial group but from different SES groups. Even though this is a 34 year old article I think some of these issues persist today. I live in a working class area and am sacrificing to send my child to private school in a more affluent area in part because I have witnessed the discrepancy first hand. What do you think about this issue?
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/nlu/fnd504/anyon.htm |
Anonymous
OP you are not alone in your motivation. I suspect, if people are truly honest with themselves, that this is what they hope to achieve from sending their children to National Cathedral School, St. Albans, Sidwell, GDS, et al. -- the education, preparation, and social and professional connections to prep them to occupy one of the "higher" SES rungs on the ladder. |
Anonymous
| Didn't read the whole article but agree with the premise and its partly why my kids are in private school. |
Anonymous
| That's why I homeschool. I don't want my kid in a box. |
Anonymous
| Ivy leaguer for grad school here. HS guidance counselor kept steering me to voc programs when applying to colleges during my senior year. Kept on talking about how some students can be mistaken in what they think would be a good program for them. Didn't matter that I was on line to graduate with high honors, A- average, etc in a college prep curriculum (hadn't taken a single voc ed program except for two mandatory courses in middle school). She just wasn't able to place me in any context other than my working class roots. |
Anonymous
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Wow, I was treated differently for sure. Graduated in 1985 and had all kinds of comments from teachers and guidance counselors, (and my parents), trying to set my sights lower.
Now I'm an attorney with an upper middle class income, and I'm amazed how much differently people treat my son. My husband insisted on private school. I was fine with public. But I can see social advantages that my son is getting. Not sure if they are worth the tuition, but it's fascinating to watch. David Brooks' book, The Social Animal, explores this in great detail. As does the book Unequal Childhoods. Very sad. Education is supposed to be the greats equalizer. |
Anonymous
But they will be in a box. The "home-school-ed" box. |
Anonymous
I imagine there are very few private schools that elicit that type of respect in DC. STA or Siidwell? |
Anonymous
| The essay is 35 years old? |
Anonymous
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This essay is just a summary of Bowles and Gintes - it was a core reading for any pedagogy or social mobility undergrad class back in the 80s. If you strip out their Marxist rhetoric, there's a fair amount of common sense and those kinds of observations have driven efforts to strengthen curriculum over the past 30 years. Some people think the "executive" style education offered by the msot prestigious and expensive prep schools just produces spoiled trust fund brats. Yet, the majority of private school parents send their kids to church schools that emphasize worksheets and being "right."
At the same time, this is America and it is possible for kids of every class to excel. The immigrant parents who insist that they can push their kids to memorize everything they need to become a success are just following a traditional working class educational model. They can imagine what it takes to get a steady six-figure paycheck as a pharmacist or engineer. They just have no clue at what it takes to get a job at JP Morgan, McKinsey, or Cravath. And no parent knows what it takes to help their kid become the Zuckerberg/Brin/Page/Jobs for the next generation. |
Anonymous
Yes, but the "home schooled box" is whatever you want it to be. Since the guidance counselor and instructors are the parents (plus any teachers selected by the student/parents), the parents define the expectations. This may make a student less socially mobile, or more so, depending on the parent's goals and the initiative they take. Some people are going to be haters or make assumptions about home schoolers, but they are easy to avoid and don't matter. The only audience that matters is the colleges, who will have test scores, essays, portfolios, and so on. I will never know for sure, but when my blue collar parents pulled me from school and encouraged me to consider college and a professional career, they may well have set my expectations far higher than they otherwise would have been. I was a working class kid with decent grades among a sea of professionals' kids. People make assumptions, which I avoided by going entirely off the map. (Side-note: I am not PP.) |
Anonymous
well this just about describes half my generation so it doesn't prove much. But I got a lot out of the Social Animal. Great book and right on target. |
Anonymous
And "boxed in" from any outside influences - it's like the opposite of getting positive exposure - it's getting none at all. |
Anonymous
All the top schools in DC (NCS,GDS,Potomac,Maret, etc) elicit respect in the DC area, if not in the mid-Atlantic, among those familiar with private schools. |
Anonymous
I know that as well, but something about the post made me narrow it down to only two. You are guilty of the sin of omission also, as you can add Burke, WIS, Landon, Holton Arms, and many other local schools to that list. |