Educational Equality
Educational equality refers to the principle of providing all individuals with the same opportunities and resources in education, regardless of their background or circumstances. It aims to ensure that every person has access to quality education and is not disadvantaged due to factors such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, or disability. The goal is to create a level playing field for all students.
6 Key excerpts on "Educational Equality"
eBook - ePubTeaching Music in American Society
A Social and Cultural Understanding of Teaching Music
- Steven N. Kelly(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Equality of education requires equal access, treatment, and opportunity to achieve success in our society regardless of students’ race, gender, socioeconomic status, or other cultural variables, philosophical view, and biological factors. In schools, equal opportunity also includes equal facilities, financing, curriculum, and availability of resources. Equity is a democratic ideal not confined to education but a common value throughout our society. From a social perspective, schools and society again mirror each other in both positive and negative ways. Opportunities have become more open for different cultural groups, including individuals with special needs, different races and ethnicities, and improved gender equality. Yet discrimination and biases pervade throughout both society and education settings. Consequently, some people may never overcome the disadvantages with which they began (Hallinan, 1990). Many social policies that exist and keep the social playing field uneven also exist in our schools and music classes (Coleman, 1990; Kozol, 1991). Human biases exist in every aspect of American culture and affect opportunity. However, after an individual’s home environment, biases may exist in schools more than any other institution in society, a realization that often surprises many new teachers. Practices of sorting and tracking students, providing different access to resources and knowledge, and high-stakes testing are often discriminatory based on race, gender, home environment, socioeconomic level, language, and even physical and intellectual abilities. Such practices are too common, contribute to biases and injustices, and deny students opportunities to make decisions on their own. Biases extend to attitudes and behaviors of teachers, administrators, parents, business leaders, and politicians. However, despite partialities in the education system, schools may be a student’s best hope for learning to overcome biases...
eBook - ePubSocial Equality in Education
France and England 1789–1939
- Ann Margaret Doyle(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...Yet, although an educational system may have a highly standardised structure, with schooling providing equality of experience for students, as long as societies remain divided along social class lines, social class differentials in outcomes will remain. This study defines social equality in education in the following way. The key concept of social equality as it applies to education has to do with the reduction of social inequality. This involves breaking the link between social class and attainment. It acknowledges there will be variation between individuals because of natural characteristics but it advocates the elimination of the association of social class and social background with educational outcomes. This definition of social equality will be used in my analysis of the historical material to test the educational policies pursued at different times in France and England from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of war in 1939. Bibliography Archer, M.S. 1979. Social Origins of Educational Systems. London: Sage. Althusser, L. 1971. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: New Left Books. Apple, M.W. 1982. Cultural and Economic Reproduction in Education: Essays on Class, Ideology and the State. London/Boston/Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Ball, S.J. 2003. Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Crossref Bihr, A., and R. Pfefferkorn. 1995. Déchiffrer les inégalités. Paris: Syros. Boudon, R. 1974. Opportunity and Social Inequality. New York: Wiley. Bourdieu, P. 1977a. Cultural Reproduction and Social Production. In Power and Ideology in Education, ed. J. Karabel and A.H. Halsey, 487–511. New York: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1977b. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crossref Bowles, S., and H. Gintis...
eBook - ePub- John Kleinig(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...But what do they amount to? The principle of equal opportunity remains hollow until the nature of the opportunity is specified. In this case the opportunity is limited to 'the matter of education', where it seems to involve access to schooling resources. But for many egalitarians this is far too restrictive, since it ignores the effects of family and socio-economic background on the ability to utilise those resources effectively. Thus James S. Coleman, the architect of a major U.S. study on equality in 'education', has argued that the concept of 'equality of educational opportunity' is a mistaken and misleading one: It is mistaken because it locates the 'equality of opportunity' within the educational institutions, and thus focuses attention on education [i.e. schooling] as an end in itself rather than as properly it is, a means to ends achieved in adulthood. It is misleading because it suggests that equal educational opportunity defined in something other than a purely formal (input) way, is achievable, while it is not. 17 If Illich's critique of schooling is roughly correct, not even equal 'educational' opportunity of a 'purely formal' sort is likely to be achievable, given the economics and politics of schooling. However, we shall not pursue this, since it should be clear that the pursuit of a policy of equal access to schooling resources abstracted from the other social factors which affect people's lives is a pointless exercise, 'justified' only as a piece of public rhetoric. Several variants of the principle of equal opportunity have been noted, and bear examination: 18 (a) On one version, the principle amounts to the view that there should be available to all opportunities of equal worth. Those who support this variant recognise that for a whole range of reasons the opportunities available to X are not going to be identical with the opportunities available to Y...
eBook - ePubPhilosophy of Education
An Encyclopedia
- J.J. Chambliss(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Equality Kenneth E. Howe DOI: 10.4324/9780203054253-77 Educational Equality emerged as a philosophic issue at least as early as Plato (c. 427–347 B.c.). In his celebrated Republic, Plato made the radical suggestion for his time that women be granted equal educational opportunity, and he extended this suggestion to social class as well. His reasoning was that the talents needed for ruling that were emphasized in his educational system were not confined to the class of aristocratic men, and that such talents should be developed in whoever possessed them. Plato, however, was no egalitarian. He did not believe that all persons need or deserve an equal education because he did not believe that there is any sense in which all persons are equal. Indeed, he ridiculed this notion of equality and identified it with democracy, which he roundly criticized. The notion, contra Plato, that there is an important sense in which all persons are equal took root as a political ideal only relatively recently, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the advent of liberal political theorizing exemplified by seminal philosophers such as John Locke (1632–1704). Today the commitment to political equality is thoroughly entrenched in the political thought, rhetoric, and institutions of all Western democracies. This is not to say, however, that such a general commitment now entails or ever did entail unanimity on the specific requirements of equality, including how education should exemplify and foster it. On the contrary, controversy regarding equality in general and Educational Equality in particular continues to be intense. Equality of Educational Opportunity The contemporary discussion of Educational Equality (especially in the United States) has adopted equality of educational opportunity as the locus. Couched within the liberal tradition, a strict form of equality is eschewed, on the grounds that it is undesirable, unattainable, or both...
eBook - ePubPromoting Equality
Working with Diversity and Difference
- Neil Thompson(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...1 Equality and diversity in context Introduction This opening chapter in many ways sets the scene for what is to come in the rest of the book. The social scientific concept of ‘equality’ has a long history of being oversimplified as a result of being too closely identified with the common-sense view of equality as meaning ‘sameness’. To promote equality has, for many people, meant to promote sameness, to see difference as a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be avoided (see Practice Focus 1.1 below). As Witcher so aptly puts it: ‘The vision is not for a stagnant pool of sameness. Equality does not have to mean “the same”. It can also mean equivalent: different but of equal worth’ (2015, p. 11). This tendency to misinterpret the idea of equality can be seen to have had two sets of unfortunate and unhelpful consequences: 1. Some people have rejected the idea of promoting equality, regarding it as an illegitimate goal as they recognize that trying to make everybody the same is not socially useful and is personally disempowering for individuals. 2. Others have regarded promoting sameness as a legitimate goal to pursue, and have therefore taken steps to reduce or remove difference, in the mistaken view that this is a legitimate and helpful thing to do. This conflicts strongly with the notion of ‘valuing diversity’ that we will discuss later. Either way, the result is problematic, as it is based on a misguided understanding of the word, ‘equality’. One of the key tasks in this chapter, therefore, is to explore what we do actually mean by equality, to try to do justice to the complexities involved so that the tendency towards oversimplification is challenged, rather than reinforced. To facilitate this discussion and thus to set equality in context, this chapter also examines the historical background to our understanding of equality and related concepts of discrimination and oppression...
eBook - ePubThe Sociology of Education
A Systematic Analysis
- Jeanne Ballantine, Jenny Stuber, Judson Everitt(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The very fact that they “beat the odds” means that the odds are stacked against them. On the one hand, many view the educational system as “the great equalizer”: the preeminent social institution in society where talent and hard work are rewarded; where individuals succeed or fail based on their own efforts, rather than their family background. On the other hand, many scholars challenge the idea that the educational system is a meritocratic institution; they argue that the educational system perpetuates social class inequalities: it reproduces the existing system of social stratification, rather than altering it. While educational inequalities exist with respect to race, class, and gender, those related to social class are the deepest and most enduring. School children enter school with different levels of abilities, and these achievements gaps persist throughout their educational journeys. In later years, social class gaps exist in terms of whether one goes to college (enrollment), where one goes (selectivity), and whether one graduates (attainment). In fact, college completion rates for the lowest-income groups have not increased in the last 40 years, despite massive expansion of the system of higher education. With respect to the open systems approach, the relevant question is whether students, as inputs, are fundamentally transformed as outputs by the educational system. This chapter provides answers to this question. To explore the relationship between social class stratification and educational inequalities, we take a sociological approach, combining an understanding of the micro- and macro-levels. At the micro-level, we assume that a student’s experiences in school reflect what that student brings to the game. This includes their intelligence and efforts, their primary socialization, their knowledge of how the educational system works, and—especially when it becomes time for higher education—access to financial resources...
