PowerPoint developed by Dr. Raymond Lee

1. Living in Two Worlds
Confronting Poverty, Equity, & Justice Issues
Created by Dr. Raymond Lee

2. When you move to a new town, how do you: What is the ―right‖ neighborhood?
• Find a house • Education level?
• Make friends • Income?
• Select a school • Occupation?
• Select a church • Other?
• Socialize

3. Socio-Political Context of Education
• Conditions, laws, regulatio
ns, policies, practices, trad
itions, and ideologies that
influence and define
education at any given
time

4. Inequity in Schools
• High poverty schools
– Many teachers unlicensed in the subjects they teach
– Limited technology access, inadequate facilities
– Inoperative rest rooms
– Vermin infestation
– Insufficient materials
– Multiple teacher vacancies
– Less rigorous curricula
– Employ fewer experienced teachers
– Higher student-to-teacher ratios
– Lower teacher salaries
– Larger class sizes
– Receive less funding
Barton, P.E. (2004). Why does the gap persist? Educational Leadership 62(3), 8-13.
Barton, P.E. (2003). Parsing the achievement gap: Baselines for tracking progress. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.
Carey, K. (2005). The funding gap 2004: Many states still shortchange low-income and minority students. Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust.
Karoly, L.A. (2001). Investing in the future: Reducing poverty through human capital investiments. In S. Danzinger & R. Haveman (Eds.), Understanding poverty (pp. 314-356). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (2004). Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education: A two-tiered education system. Washington, D.C.: Author.
Rank, M.R. (2004). One nation, underprivileged: Why American poverty affects us all. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

5. What about the ―Achievement Gap‖?

6. Is any of these considered the
“norm” or measure of the “natural”
state of society?

11. Possible Underlying Reasons for the
Achievement Gap
• Cultural capital (middle class and poverty)
– Middle class children have vocabularies two to three times larger than low-income
children, are praised more often, have significantly more non-school learning
opportunities, move much less often, and have much lower rates of asthma, vision, and
hearing problems.
• Language
• ―Acting White‖
• Home environment
• Ethos of various cultures and sub-cultures
• Individuals’ propensities and talents
• High poverty schools’ characteristics
• Teaching environment and competencies
• Students fail to see themselves as being socially mobile and having opportunity
with education (classism – social injustice)
• What about middle class minority students’ performance?
Source: Class and Schools by Richard Rothstein

12. Interpretive Frameworks for
Understanding the Achievement Gap
• Socioeconomic Model
• Legacy of slavery and other forms of oppression that Blacks
have suffered
• Achievement correlates more strongly with economic status
than with any other single variable
• Sociopathological Model
• While history cannot be minimized, the effects of civil
rights legislation has removed legal roadblocks to black
advancement.
• Therefore, various social pathologies within the Black
community must be at fault.
• Genetic Model
• Biological disparity based on race
• Murray & Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve (1994)
• Little evidence to support this model
Source: Class and Schools by Richard Rothstein

13. Fordham’s Research and Black
Students’ Views of Achievement
• ―Acting white‖
– Adopt values and behaviors of the white-dominated establishment as a
temporary strategy for the long-term benefit of the black community
• Found young black people see success of black ―pioneers‖ did not
breed widespread success.
– See strategy of using individual success to lead to community success
as a fatally flawed one
– Replaced with a ―stick together and advance together‖ strategy
maintaining ethnic identities (avoid ―acting white‖)
• Presents dilemma for higher achieving Black students.
– Relationships and identity versus achievement
– Many adopt ―racelessness‖ strategy
• Behave in a race-neutral manner so as not to draw attention to themselves
• Study alone or in secret (pattern of isolated study)

14. Steele’s Research on ―Stereotype Threat‖
• What contributes to poor academic
performance by Black students?
– Stereotype threat affects performance when
students labor under performance standards which
may be perceived to measure academic abilities.
– Applies to other comparisons such as
gender, whites, and Asians.

15. Social Mobility and Education
• Wages and earnings tend to correlate with the
amount of education a person has obtained.
– Less than a high school diploma earned a median
income of $21,000 (2003)
– Four year college degree earned a median income of
$53,000 (2003)
– James 2005
• White collar jobs require more human capital and
knowledge and therefore produce higher earnings
and require greater education.
– Education is a primary determinant for social mobility
in American society.

16. “The rich are different from you and me.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
“Yes. They have more money.”

17. ―It is impossible to understand people's behavior...without the concept of
social stratification, because class position has a pervasive influence on
almost everything...the clothes we wear...the television shows we
watch...the colors we paint our homes in and the names we give our
pets... Our position in the social hierarchy affects our
health, happiness, and even how long we will live. ‖
—William Thompson, Joseph Hickey, Society in Focus, 2005
―A stratified society is one marked by inequality, by differences
among people that are regarded as being higher or lower...it is
logically possible for a society to be stratified in a continuous
gradation between high and low without any sharp lines...in
reality...there is only a limited number of types of occupations...
People in similar positions...grow similar in their thinking and
lifestyle...they form a pattern, and this pattern creates social class.‖
—Dennis Gilbert, The American Class Structure, 1998[

20. References: Gilbert, D. (2002) The American Class Structure: In An Age of Growing Inequality. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth; Thompson, W. & Hickey, J. (2005). Society in Focus. Boston, MA: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon;
Beeghley, L. (2004). The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States. Boston, MA: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon.
1 The upper middle class may also be referred to as "Professional class" Ehrenreich, B. (1989). The Inner Life of the Middle Class. NY, NY: Harper-Colins.

21. Educational attainment is related to both
occupation, as seen above, and income. This
graph shows the educational attainment of
individuals age 25-64, employed full-time, by
occupational field
"U.S. Census Bureau report on educational attainment in the United States, 2003".
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-550.pdf. Retrieved 2006-07-31.

22. Social Mobility
Social Class
Occupations
Education

23. Favored Values for Social Mobility
• For the past 100 years:
– Ambition
– Economic foresight
– Habits of industry
– Verbal or mechanical intelligence
• Are these still favored values?