Kiara Shuford
Megan Keaton
English 1102
10 April 2013
Joining the Conversation: Step 2
When we read the article “Social
Class and the hidden Curriculum of Work”, in class it focused on the negative
impact that low social class has on a student’s education. It described how
growing up in a low class meant you would stay there because of the education
you received this also included students of a higher class. So for this paper I wanted to focus on how a
student’s social class contributes to their education and how they can use education
for social mobility. My research took me in a lot of different directions, but
this is what I thought answered my question, how can education help low SES
students with social mobility?, the best.
To begin you have to
define social mobility and how it’s actually related to education. Zefang the
author of the article, “Social Mobility and Educational Selection” defines
social mobility as, “a phenomenon in which enables, in the structure of social
stratification an individual or group’s social status to move up or down their
occupations to be transformed.” (Zefang 610) Social mobility can be divided up
into categories horizontal, vertical, intergenerational, and intra-generational,
but for this question I only focused on intergenerational, which means in the
same generation. So now how is social mobility related to
education? The article “Social Mobility and Educational Selection” says that
social class impacts the choices people make including education selection and
what career people choose as well. The authors of the article define
educational selection as “Education selection refers school system
examinations, assessment, evaluation and classification.” But students that
have a low socioeconomic status don’t have the resources than those students
that belong to a higher class, so they tend to fall behind because of their lack
of resources. “Education is a bridge to social mobility and can give
underprivileged people the way to a more privileged life” (Zefang 611) and
could be the only option for some students.
Three specific factors
can contribute to the social mobility and education selections these students
make according to the article. The first factor is your family's income;
students are born into their social class and the income of their family’s
impact them tremendously. So if other generations in your family have low
incomes they most likely received a low education and this will ultimately be
your fate as well. Another factor that contributes is your parents IQ; there is
a direct relationship between your parents IQ and yours. The higher an IQ a
student has the further they will go with their education. The last factor that
contributes to social mobility and education you choose is what the author,
Paul Attewell, calls high-mastery. The book describes high-mastery as “a sense
that controls one’s own fate” (Attewell). These three things combine to predict
how a student’s educational career will possibly turn out compared to their
relationship. According to this research being in a low class will not keep you
from going to college or higher education opportunities.
Not everyone thinks
that being raised in a lower class actually hinders students educationally, the
authors of the book Mobility and
Inequality, they believe that underprivileged students have more drive to
finish high school and to pursue higher education. And because they can choose
what education they receive and where, as we learned from “Social Mobility and
Educational Selection”, these students are choosing careers and schools they’re
interested in not the ones chosen for them. Saying that “Wealth
differences across families are interpreted more broadly, either as indicators
of differential behavioral orientations correlated with savings behavior and lifetime
success or reasons families to pursue alternative strategies for human capital
investment in their offspring”.(Stanford University Press) And in the article,
“Social Class in Family Therapy Education: Experiences of Low SES Students”
they actually say that students from lower social classes are also targeted for
things like graduate school and higher degree programs. And
because they can choose what education they receive and where, as we learned
from “Social Mobility and Educational Selection”, these students are choosing
careers and schools they’re interested in not the ones chosen for them. They
also believe that these students will be more inclined to work with students
with low socioeconomic statuses’ in their career choices.
So, what can happen to
give lower class students better resources and a better understanding of their
curriculum? In the book A Notion at Risk,
the authors give a few suggestions on how we as a country could make the
education provided in our public schools better for these students. The first
thing they think would help is summer school or an extended year for these
students. As you can imagine all students loose most of what they learn during
the school year when they have summer break, so if summer school or an extended
year was enforced this wouldn’t happen as much and these students can advance.
They say “summer programs should provide poor children with
the types of enriching experiences that middle-class children receive during
the summer, as opposed to the traditional approach of reviewing curriculum
taught during the year.”(Century Foundation), so not teaching the same subjects
twice, but going more in depth with these subjects. The other thing they
believe will give lower class students more of a chance for social mobility is
increased funding in their schools. The authors of this book say that funding
should go to the people that are in dire need of it, individual classrooms
could receive it. This funding could buy the resources and materials needed by
school systems and teachers to raise the standard of learning in these
underprivileged neighborhoods. These funds wouldn’t be to just increase the
resources students have at school, but to also help their families at home, so
they have a better environment there as well. Money for things like food and
housing would be given because they are conducive to a good learning
environment and because the student would only have to worry about their
studies.
To conclude this paper
I thought it would be appropriate to tell some success stories of just how far
education can take someone. There is hope for everyone in the world that thinks
their life can’t get any better. The story of Oprah Winfrey is a good place to
start. When she was a young girl she lived in a very poor area of Mississippi
with her grandmother while her mother looked for work in the North. When her
mother did find a job she went from living in a poor area of Mississippi, to
living in a poor area of Milwaukee. From the ages of 9-13 she was molested and
sexually abused by male relatives when her mother was working. Oprah was
emotionally distraught by all this pain that she had suffered from the early
years of her life, so she ran away from that situation and went to live with
her father. She then began to focus more on her studies, not because she wanted
to, but her father was very strict and wanted the best for her. Vernon Winfrey
wanted the best for his daughter, so he made her read a book and write a book
report every week. Oprah began excel in school, she was an honor student and
won oratory awards. Doing well in school ultimately led to Oprah receiving a
full scholarship to Tennessee State University and a job at a local new station
being a correspondent. Since going to college Oprah has done so much, things
like having her own show showing in 140 different countries, being in movies,
and owning a couple of different businesses. She reached her goals by getting
the education she needed and turning her bad situation into a place she didn’t
want to go back to. She is now one of the richest people in the United States,
and she is a black woman which makes what she has done and even greater feat.
Another very inspiring story
about a black woman that used education to get ahead in life is someone you probably
never heard of. Ursula Burns, now the CEO and Chairman of Xerox, was raised in
the projects of the lower east side of Manhattan. “Many people told me I had three
strikes against me. I was black. I was a girl. And I was poor.”(Burns) Her mother
reassured her that that was not the case and encouraged her that the only way
to get out of this situation was to get and education. She would tell Ursula, “Where
she was didn’t define who she was” (Burns). Even though her mother didn’t make that
much money she still thought it was necessary to send Ursula to good catholic schools.
She finally found her love of Mechanical engineering when she was offered a spot
in the freshman class of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. After this opportunity
popped up more started to emerge, things like: taking an internship with Xerox
in upstate New York, going to an Ivy League school for a graduate degree, and signing
on with Xerox. Making her way to the top wasn’t an easy job, but Ursula Burns did
it with “a good education, a strong work ethic and the courage to lean in.”(Burns)
These stories are very inspiring
for anyone in the same situation these women were or even someone trying to get
a perception of what their life was like. And after doing all this research and
what I‘ve witnessed I’ve acquired an opinion on education and social mobility. For
me I would say that I didn’t grow up as bad as the students that I’m writing
about or even Oprah and Ursula’s life, but I know some people that did and have
made, something out of their life with education. Having more resources than
others can help, but it shouldn’t hold anyone back. People that work hard to
overcome their shortcomings I believe deserve what they strive for and as a
country if we can help give students more of a chance to overcome these short
comings we should.
Works
Cited
A
Century Foundation Book. A Notion at Risk. New York: Richard D. Kahlenberg,
2000, Print.
Anyon,
Jean. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” Journal of Education.
Vol. 162, no. 1(1980): 1-11. Print.
Attewell,
Paul and David E. Lavin. Passing the Torch. New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
2007. Print.
Dong
Zefang, Wang Yanbin, Chen Wenijiao. “Social Mobility and Educational
Selection.” Educational Research and Experiment vol. 1 (2009): 13-18.
Electronic.
“Oprah
Winfrey.” Academy of Achievement. American Academy of Achievement, 1996-2013.
Web. 28 Nov 2011.
Stanford
University Press. Mobility and Inequality. Stanford, California: Board of Trustees
of the Leland Stanford, 2006. Print.
Teresa
McDowell, Andrae’ L. Brown, Nicole Cullen, and April Duyn. “Social Class in
Family Therapy Education: Experiences of Low SES Students” Journal of Marital
and Family Therapy Vol. 39 (2013): 72-__. Electronic.
“Ursula M. Burns.” Lean In. Leanin.Org. 2013 Web.
