Joining the Conversation: Step 1

Kiara Shuford

Megan Keaton

English 1102

2 April 2013

My sources are on an education board, they are discussing research they found on how education helps low SES students with social mobility. All of my sources are meeting at a local high school to go over what they came up with and are trying to gather solutions to fix the problem of getting low socioeconomic status students better education. I’m in the audience listening to their ideas.

ME: To get the audience fully engaged in the discussion the sources begin by giving their definition of social mobility.

ZEFANG: “Social mobility is a phenomenon in which enables, in the structure of social stratification, an individual or group’s social status to move up or down and their occupations to be transformed.” It can be divided up into horizontal and vertical and intra-generational and intergenerational.

ME: For this discussion the sources were only focusing on intra-generational mobility, which is defined as an individual’s change in social class.

CENTURY FOUNDATION: Students of low economic status don’t have the same resources as the students of higher social classes and tend to fall behind because of their lack of resources.

MCDOWELL: We believe that social class impacts the choices people make including career choices, education selections, values, and expectations. Education is a bride for social mobility and could be the only option some students have for social mobility.

ZEFANG: Social mobility, can also affect your education selection.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS: We performed research that compared a student’s entry to college to their parent’s income. And that many students that are low SES situations haven’t picked college just because they don’t have the means to afford it.

ATTEWELL: We’ve also done research that compared students and the other generations in their family. It describes the maternal grandparents and mothers with low education and low income raise children that are less likely to go to college. Another factor that could contribute to if a student goes to college is a mother’s IQ.

ME: This was surprising to me because I feel like as students we need to have choices in our education selection, be able to choose what we want and not have to deal with what we are given just because of the social class we were born into.

ATTEWELL: These factors combine in favor or against these students, but some can outweigh or even balance another factor. This just means that even if you’re born into one of these unfortunate situations doesn’t mean you’ll never go to college because you can have another factors working in your favor. It’s not “one strike and you’re out.”

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS: But on the other hand we also believe that underprivileged students have more of a drive to finish college because of how they grew up.

ZEFANG: Education selection refers school system examinations, assessment, evaluation and classification. Because of the choices the different students make they become concerned about the types of school and professions available to them on graduating. American students in particular are focused on horizontal mobility because people now go to school based on what their interests.

MCDOWELL: Because education is a bridge to social mobility so many students that are from low social classes are more inclined to choose higher education, but they are also targeted for things like graduate school and higher degree programs.

ME: Now that the audience have gotten some background information on the issue and fully understand that issue the sources can now discuss what they intend to do to better the education of low SES students and how they can reach their goals of vertical social mobility. The first source begins with what they think the best solution is. That is to make the public education better for K-12 students.

CENTURY FOUNDATION: The best thing to make social mobility for underprivileged students accessible is to better the education in our public schools, grades K-12. We’ve seen in our research that the longer the school year and shorter the summer the more the students retain. So summer school to go more in depth with the material would be a part of the solutions we’ve come up with. The second part to our solution is increased funding for these public schools. Not only more money in the school system, but as far as individual classrooms.

ME: I can really relate to these students because I feel like I’ve never really had many resources in my school system, but I’ve made the most of my situation just like many other student in the same situation. So I liked to hear these ideas because it seemed like this source really wanted to help the underprivileged students of these areas.   

ALL SOURCES: The more the public is educated on the issues that are happening around them the faster the issue can get cleared up. Thanks for staying and listening to our presentation.

The sources leave believing that they educated their audience on the issue that they have focused their research on and hoping that the issue will get cleared up, not only for the greater good of the country, but the greater good of those less fortunate in our country.