The relationship between education and social change is multifaceted. The institution of education is a force for social change as it is used to support the formation of countries through national identities, national values, and national pride. However, this formation can come at a high cost. Groups of people who don’t fit the dominant culture or who threaten the goals and beliefs of dominant culture often are prevented from being educated. They receive substandard education or experience violence in school.

At the same time, oppressed groups bring cultural wealth, resistance, and resilience to education to ensure that their children and their communities learn and thrive. We can examine who goes to school and whose education is funded, and we can invest in education to change the chances for economic success for individuals and groups. We can track how changes in laws can expand access to education based on social locations of race, ethnicity, gender, and ability.

Instructors can also learn to critically analyze their society and work to transform it. They can do this by creating classrooms where students can challenge how we teach and what we teach so that Indigenous ways of knowing and other culturally affirming practices nurture our students and ourselves.

Review of Learning Outcomes

This chapter has offered you the opportunity to:

• Discuss how sociological perspectives view the role of education in unequal societies.
• Describe the relationship between education, poverty, and wealth with an intersectional lens.
• Illustrate the importance of social and cultural capital in education.
• Identify how policy can impact access to education and educational outcomes.
• Discuss how education can be a vehicle to advance genocide and cultural hegemony.
• Explain how education can support social justice and cultural restoration.

Key Terms

achievement gap: any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between groups of students with different social locations.

banking model of education: a critical term for a type of education in which “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (Freire 1970: 72).

community cultural wealth: the interdependent overlapping forms of knowledge, skills, abilities, and networks possessed and utilized by communities of color to survive and resist racism and other forms of subordination (Yosso 2023).

cultural capital: the cultural knowledge and items that help one navigate a society

cultural hegemony: the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class that shapes the culture of that society …so that the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm (Bullock et al. 1999).

culturally responsive education: “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings 1994:382).

credentialism: the assumption of social superiority or inferiority based on formal educational attainment.

decolonization of knowledge: the process of examining and undoing colonial ideologies that frame Western thought and practices as superior.

decolonizing education: the process of confronting and challenging the colonizing practices that have influenced education in the past and which are still present today.

de facto segregation: segregation that occurs without laws but because of other social influences.

democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

education debt: the cumulative impact of directing social-political harm toward students of color, including allotting fewer resources toward their education.

forced cultural assimilation: a process by which a community with a dominant culture forces members of other groups to adopt their language, national identity, norms, customs, values, ideology, and way of life.

hidden curriculum: the implicit social and cultural expectations, designed by dominant culture, that inform the educational process.

inclusion: the laws and practices that require disabled students be included in mainstream classes, not separate rooms or schools.

indigenization: a process of making Indigenous knowledge systems evident, prevalent, and available.

social capital: the social networks or connections that an individual has available to them due to group membership.

social justice: a state where “everyone has fair access to the resources and opportunities to develop their full capacities, and everyone is welcome to participate democratically with others to mutually shape social policies and institutions that govern civic life” (Bell 2023).

tracking: a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuates inequalities.

Comprehension Check

Licenses and Attributions for Conclusion

Open Content, Original

“Conclusion” by Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

“Comprehension Check” was created by Veronica Vold and Michelle Culley for Open Oregon Educational Resources and is licensed CC BY 4.0.

Open Content, Shared Previously

Key term, indigenization, by Aimee Samara Krouskop, is gleaned from content in “Indigenization” in Indigenization, Decolonization, and Reconciliation and “The Need to Indigenize” in Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers by Asma-na-hi Antoine; Rachel Mason; Roberta Mason; Sophia Palahicky; and Carmen Rodriguez de France, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.

Key term, tracking, is used from “Key Terms” in Education, of Introduction to Sociology 3e.