5.6 Chapter Summary
Kimberly Puttman
Education, the social institution that teaches us reading, writing, critical thinking, and how to get along in our society, is both a social problem and a response to a social problem. This complexity makes it challenging to make sense of. On the one hand, students have unequal access to education and unequal outcomes. This inequality is a characteristic of a social problem. On the other hand, we see that investing in education can give individuals better employment options. Education also can contribute to economic growth in whole societies. Finally, transforming education by radical teaching and closing the digital divide creates social justice.
5.6.1 Essential Ideas
Learning Objective 1: How do social identity and social location impact who learns?
As we can see from the experiences of d/Deaf, neurodivergent, Latinx, and Indigenous students, your access to education and educational outcomes depend on your race, class, gender, and ability. However, it’s not enough to look at achievement gaps. We must also examine the wider social and historical forces that cause educational debt.
Learning Objective 2: How do changes in education models reflect the social problems process?
Parents acting alone and in community advocate for universal education. Their work, and the work of their supporters, has led to integration, more education for girls and women, and increases in global literacy. With each improvement, the call to open to expand equity in education only gets louder.
Learning Objective 3: What is the relationship between education, poverty, and wealth?
To deeply understand the relationship between education, poverty, and wealth, we must understand correlation and causation. While education and wealth are correlated, an increase in education does not fully cause an increase in wealth. Other factors matter. However, even that is not the whole story. We also see that educating women and girls influences maternal health, family stability, and economic growth in countries worldwide.
Learning Objective 4: How can education be an interdependent, transformative method to create social justice, particularly during global health crises?
One response to the global COVID-19 pandemic was to increase funding that would narrow the digital divide. This collective action was an example of educational transformation in action. It relied on federal and local governments, non-profits, school districts, and you to create change. Using education for transformation is social justice.
5.6.2 Key Terms List
- achievement gap: any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as White students and students of color, for example, or students from higher-income and lower-income households.
- banking model of education: the concept of education in which “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing”
- cultural assimilation: the process of members in a subordinate group adopting cultural aspects of a dominant group.
- causation: a change in one variable causes a change in another variable
- correlation: a change in one variable coincides with a change in another variable, but does not necessarily indicate causation
- digital divide: the uneven access to technology due to inequalities between different social, cultural, and economic groups; often caused by location.
- discrimination: the unequal treatment of an individual or group on the basis of their statuses (e.g., age, beliefs, ethnicity, sex)
- education: a social institution through which a society’s children are taught basic academic knowledge, learning skills, and cultural norms
- educational debt: the cumulative impact of fewer resources and other harm directed at students of color.
- equity: the state of everyone having what they need, even if it means that some people need to be given more to get there.
- genocide: the systematic and widespread extermination of a cultural, ethnic, political, racial, or religious group.
- Identity first language: language that focuses on an inherent part of someone’s identity, such as deafness or neurodiversity
- implicit bias: the hidden or unconscious beliefs that a person holds about other social groups.
- inclusion: the laws and practices that requires that disabled students be included in mainstream classes – not separate rooms or schools
- medical model of disability: a model which says that people are disabled because they have impairments or differences.
- neurodiversity: an axis of human diversity describing how brain differences are naturally occurring variations in humans
- pedagogy: the art, science, or profession of teaching
- person first language: a way to emphasize the person and view the disorder, disease, condition, or disability as only one part of the whole person.
- prejudice: an unfavorable preconceived feeling or opinion formed without knowledge or reason that prevents objective consideration of an individual or group.
- segregation: the physical separation of two groups, particularly in residence, but also in workplace and social functions.
- social mobility: an individual’s or group’s (e.g., family) movement through the class hierarchy due to changes in income, occupation, or wealth.
- social model of disability: a model of disability which says that disability is caused by the way that society is organized.
- structural mobility: a shift in hierarchical position of an entire class of individuals over time in society.
- wealth: the total amount of money and assets an individual or group owns.
5.6.3 Discuss and Do
- Educational Inequality and Social Location: This chapter contains many videos that describe unequal experiences in education. Please watch one or two of them. Using some of the chapter’s key terms, what inequality and response to inequality do you see?
- Power in Education: One of the places that we see power in education is at the level of the school board. Please look at your own school board. Who is on it? What kind of actions have they taken recently? Do you think your school board is making decisions that meet the needs of your community?
- Causation and Correlation: Why are you pursuing higher education? Please use the concepts related to education and wealth to expand your answer.
- Education and Transformation: You may have experienced teachers who teach from the banking model of education, or from the perspective that education is transformational. How can education be used to impact social problems?
- Recognition, Reparation, and Resilience: Indigenous people are fighting for recognition, reparation, and resilience. One example of this action is Canada settles residential schools lawsuit for $2.8bn. Please find another example of recognition, reparation and resilience in your area or the wider world. How does this action reflect the repairing of the historical and current harms of colonization? Does it go far enough?
5.6.4 Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Summary
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Summary” by Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY 4.0.