Academic Achievement Gap

Academic Achievement Gap between minority and disadvantaged students and their white counterparts



Academic Achievement Gap between minority and disadvantaged students and their white counterparts

The primary elements of the achievement gap are a matter of race and social class. It is evident through intensive studies that there is an obvious gap between academic success amongst minority students, mainly African Americans, and students of Caucasian race. The issues of racial and social inequality have been of controversial discussion and a consistent problem in education for nearly forty years. Throughout these studies, many concepts and theories have arisen that embark upon the possible reasons or explanations for such an apparent variation in achievement.

Traditionally, schools are expected to reproduce the cultural, political, social, and economic order of society. In other words, we can think of this as an eternal chain of perspective. For years it has been expected that schools would pass down established beliefs of the society of the norm in the hopes that students would render those same beliefs with age and thus, pass them on to their children, so on and so forth. However, theorists often disagree in their views as to how schools essentially carry out this reproduction responsibility. For example, functional theorists support democracy in schools. They concentrate on the significance of technological advance and the availability of resources and materials within all schools. Since the release of the federal report A Nation at Risk in 1983, most reports calling for the reform of schools have referred to the need for an educated workforce (2005, 97). In addition, functional theorists promote equal opportunity for all students to excel in their education and to transition into higher socioeconomic status (SES). This theory seems ideal in a nation whose primary platform is to practice equality in the form of democracy.

There are many factors that can be studied in an attempt to explain the educational outcomes of certain individuals. Every aspect of a child's life ultimately effects who they become as an adult. Homes and families vary according to a number of social characteristics. Among these are socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and religion (RIO 67). A child's most vital learning experience starts from the age of two until the day they start their first day of kindergarten. These years are extremely significant since this is the time in which their brains are the most alert. In many cases, children are not ...