Learning Power

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18 September 2007

Learning Power Introduction

Education and schools play a substantial role in the United States This century has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people from all socioeconomic levels attending schools . Schooling continues to be seen as a path to opportunity . Schooling in the United States also reflects the value of equal opportunity . National surveys show that most people think schooling is crucial to personal success (N .O .R .C 2001 . Moreover , most

of us think that our society offers educational opportunity : 70 percent endorse the notion that people have the chance to get an education consistent with their abilities and talents (N .O .R .C , 2001 . But this view better expresses our aspirations than our achievement . As until now , however , opportunities within the educational system itself are not necessarily equal . Hence , education may empower a few but regrettably have stifled the personal growth of many by squeezing them into prefabricated cultural molds . Educations have empowered only those few wealthy students who are provided with quality schooling while many poor students are barely provided with it . I believe that inequalities in the educational system are largely the product of socioeconomic status . An example given by Jonathan Kozol in Still Separate , Still Unequal ' is that , the socioeconomic background still strongly affects test scores and college attendance . In addition it also predicts tracking , the grouping of students according to perceived abilities and career interests . Tracking is perhaps the greatest obstacle to equal opportunity in American schools early tracking labels students in ways that are difficult to escape Moreover , even intelligence tests are culturally biased in favor of the middle and upper social classes

Hence , many have perhaps overlooked the extent of inequality inherent in our educational system . From this point of view , schooling perpetuates social inequality and acceptance of the status quo . Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1996 ) claim that the expansion of public education provided the U .S . capitalists with a docile and disciplined work force . Compliance , punctuality , and discipline were-and still are- part of what is sometime called a school 's hidden curriculum .As Jean Anyon stated in the article From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work ' that the hidden curriculum is the set of unwritten rules of behavior that prepare children for the world outside : students learn to be quite , to line up , to wait and to act interested even when they are not

Another major function of education is to integrate individuals politically and socially into the mainstream culture . Such socialization is both direct and indirect . Social integration helps ensure that those at the bottom of the social hierarchy will not rebel against the system-another function of schooling . Historically Americans also have used the educational system to prescribe values This function can be seen in courses in American history and government According to power theorists , social and political integration means that Americanism is forced in minority students . For example , many...