SOCB26H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Shift Time, Grade Retention, Cultural Capital
Document Summary
Chapter 6: unequal student attainments: class, gender and race. Introduction: the new role of schooling in social inequality. The structural functionalists believed that schools in modern societies serve as great equalizers that generate opportunities for all and level the playing field. They held that modern schools promoted meritocracy in society. Neo-marxists contend that schools reproduce social inequalities. The very design of mass public schooling, they argue, ensures that youth who are born disadvantaged remain disadvantaged. The central marxist claim that schools reinforce existing inequalities in the wider society by stereotyping disadvantaged youth, devaluing their cultures and skills, and steering them into lower streams. Widely held view for the past 30 years. John porter (canada"s most famous sociologist) coined the term vertical mosaic to describe the intersection of class, ethnicity, and inequality, and he implicated schools a an active generator of disparities.
