SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Educational Inequality, Pierre Bourdieu, The Bell Curve
Document Summary
Conflict sociologists: question the value of education. Basic idea: while recognizing its positive effects, they believe education can be a means of negative outcomes as well. We will focus on three such outcomes: Marx: the conflict perspective has many influences, but an early one was marx. Materialism: marx"s materialism suggests that education is dominated by the economic elites. Bowles and gintis" schooling in capitalist america. Legitimizing inequality: schools emphasize the importance of education-based meritocracy. Makes economic inequalities seem based on merit. Critique: there is a strong relationship between a student"s ses background and success in school. In the early 1960s, kids of families earning less than ,000 were over 6 times less likely to attend college than kids of families earning over ,000. As such, educational achievement measures class and helps hide class inequalities. Class-based inequalities in education remain strong in canada and elsewhere today. (1) biology: some claim natural intelligence underlies school success.
