Essay Education and Social Inequality

With the world renown hallmark as the ‘lucky country’, it can be difficult to comprehend how the very people we have to thank for the prosperous land on which we live, are amongst the most disadvantaged in the world, rivalling many from developing countries. The dispossession of land, displacement of Australia’s first people and unremitting discrimination since European settlement, has given rise to intergenerational disadvantage in areas such as education, employment and health (***). Whilst the three areas are intertwined, education is unmistakably a quintessential vehicle for building resilience and improving socioeconomic outcomes for Indigenous Australians(***). Teachers and schools alike play a key role in acknowledging and addressing past and present injustices through:

Public education gives all students the opportunity to gain a quality education within Australia. This education is of a high quality and free, thus creating fairness for all.

Individuals with higher levels of education tend to have better health, greater social engagement, longer life expectancy and they generally feel happier (OECD 2013). Throughout the Australian history, Aboriginal communities were deprived of basic human rights which resulted in poor quality of life and poor education outcomes

Expansion of education is closely related to idealistic views of democracy. In developing and wealthy nations, education is valued because it helps the individual mind to develop capabilities. In contrast, education has also been seen as a way to promote equality. Having access to public education, in theory, has the potential to reduce poverty and promote equality. If all are entitled to the same public education, not to mention they are required by law, why do school systems seem segregate their students? Researchers have searched for the answer and have theorized that economic background, tracking, and hidden curriculum are a few things that help contribute to the imaginary lines drawn between students in society.

     Will Durant, a businessman and the founder of General Motors, once said, “Education is the transmission of civilization.” Unfortunately, education is still one of the most deliberated and controversial issues in the United States. Thus far, the privilege or right to receive education has not attained the level of equality throughout the nation; poor districts obtain less educational funding while rich districts obtain more, creating an immense gap between the quality of schools in poor and rich areas.

Education is fundamental to growth, the growth of the individual, and the growth of a nation. Anthropologically this can be seen from the earliest of developments of human societies where practices emerge to ensure the passing of accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. In the centuries since the invasion and colonisation of Australia in 1788, colonist authorities and governments have dominated the making of policies regarding most major aspects of Australian life, including the lives of Indigenous Australians. The enactment of these policies and legislation, whether targeted at society as a whole or directly at education, has had significant and most often negative causal impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, resulting in not only poor educational outcomes, but the loss of cultural identity, the development of serious issues in health and wellbeing, and the restriction of growth of Aboriginal communities. Moreover, there has been an ongoing pattern of the adoption of ill-informed policies in Australia, resulting in these poor outcomes and cultural decimation. Aboriginal people have developed a wariness, a mistrust, and even an attitude of avoidance to engage with non-Indigenous officials and those who they associate as their representatives, i.e. personnel working within

Education has been the subject of some of the most heated discussions in American history. It is a key point in political platforms. It has been subject to countless attempts at reform, most recently No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Ardent supporters of institutional schools say that schools provide access to quality education that will allow the youth of our country to gain necessary skills to succeed in life. Critics take a far more cynical view. The book Rereading America poses the question, “Does education empower us? Or does it stifle personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds?” The authors of this question miss a key distinction between education and schooling that leaves the answer far from clear-cut. While education empowers, the one-size-fits-all compulsory delivery system is stifling personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds.

Though this policy attempts to achieve a support of diversity and an increase of equity among the Victorian community, its affects are hindered by an education system that favours the middle class and above. As stated by Reid (2013, p. 13), the equity espoused within policy ‘is produced by policy processes which are counterproductive to the achievement of equity.’ This means that, in order to really achieve equity for all students, the education system needs to

One of the concerns regarding social justice in education is that there are marginalised groups within society do not having equal access to the learning and life opportunities that they deserve. The concept of social justice stresses that every individual within society is entitled to have equal rights and opportunities. This means that an individual from a lower class background deserves the same opportunities as a person from a wealthier background. It is about becoming aware and recognising that there are certain situations where the application of the same rules to unequal groups can sometimes lead to imbalanced results. It is therefore crucial that the government create a curriculum that can empower every student regardless of their

How is it in the year 2017, we are still considering there isn’t a class structure in Australia? There are so many examples occurring in our everyday life such as, where one person is living geographically could justify their wealth or where someone went to school could justify how intelligent this person is. But with these examples, it seems like it is an invisible factor that we have become accustomed or prone to these types of justifications. Verity Archer a writer in the book “Sociologic: Analysing Everything life and culture” said “we all think were in the middle-class wise, this belief is a core part of our national identity” . This is similar to what I am trying to explain, that we all think we’re on the same level, however, we’re all on an imaginary level of various class-structures . Two sociologists Karl Max (1818-1883) and Erik Olin Wright (1947) had two similar but different views on the way our society is classed and how their theories are adapting in our everyday lives, with the privileged minority of Australia to reinforce ongoing inequality to the working-class. The aim of this essay is to see how in today’s reality, the theories of Max and Wright are adapted into our workforce, education and family structures. We get an insight in what the theories are trying to explain? And the differences between the two theories

Cultural capital is an idea that was used by Bordieu to contribute to his explanation of inequality in social settings (Zepke & Leach, 2007). It comprises the “norms, values and practices of a society” (Zepke & Leach, 2007, p.657). “Cultural capital includes cultural resources and activities that are expressed in the relationships between parents and children” (Tramonte & Willms, 2010, p.203). This results in cultural capital being different in different social settings. This can create inequality because of the difference in values, knowledge and skills that individuals can bring to a certain environment. One issue can be the conflict between teacher and student because of their cultural capital and can result in unequal educational outcomes because the cultural capital of others is valued higher than other students.

Bowles and Gintis felt it was important to write this article, because they believe that the politics of education are better understood in terms of the need for social control in an unequal and rapidly changing economic order. This point is illustrated on page 396 when the authors say, “The unequal

America is often enamored of itself as the champion of equality in every aspect of its society; however, this is often not the case. This is true in every aspect of life, but is very evident specifically in the American education system. Although America claims to give an equal education to all, regardless of any external factors, economic class often plays a role in what type and how good of an education a student may receive. Since education is the basis for future success, this inequity resulting from socioeconomic status implies that this is where inequality in everyday life starts, and that the system generates this inequality. If this is true, then one might ask, what then is the purpose of education? If economic class predetermines

Although education should be the way out of poverty and inequality, there is the evidence that still, ‘graduates who went to private schools earn substantially more than those who went to state schools’ (The Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2014). The gap was quite substantial as it amounted up to 17 per cent, depending on the university and subject they studied. Nonetheless, even for those who came from a similar background, graduated from the same university, studied the same subjects, achieved the same grade, and chose a similar career, those, who attended state schools, still earned 7 per cent less than graduates from private schools. Such evidence suggests the question, why the higher education, which is perceived as the route out of poverty into equality and prosperity, does not level the opportunities and does not prevent the discrimination. Would implement a social justice approach be able to close such gaps? Social justice with equal distribution of opportunity, income and wealth achieved through respective policies in the politics, economy and social welfare (Craig, 2002).

As with most institutions, vested interests have a hand in shaping education. There are more stakeholders in education with differing views on how education should run than in the past (Meadmore, Burnett & O’Brien, 1999). Education is driven by internal and external agendas (Meadmore et al., 1999), but the neoliberal agenda is a mostly external influence. In the Australian context, neoliberal policy is supported by a broad middle spectrum of politics (Forsey, 2008). Hill and Kumar’s (2008) identify the capitalist class and business as stakeholders. This is true, as under corporatism large interest groups wield stronger influences over states and organisations. However, Hill and Kumar (2008) view leans towards a rationale