Race and Ethnicity in Education

Introduction

Education influences altruistic behaviors, such as volunteering. People with more education are more connected socially. They tend to marry and have children later. Their schooling experiences greatly influence the available pool of marriage candidates (Anyon, 71). Those with more education tend to have better physical and emotional health.

Sociologists examine the impact of attending higher education and how these effects differ according to the type of school attended. They study how the effects of attaining higher education vary by society and why. We have encountered some good international comparisons but have yet to fully understand the differential causal processes at work in different societies. One can learn much about promoting higher-education attendance from research in other societies. There are status advantages gained by attending elite colleges, and these benefits vary by race and social class (Bank, 32).

Discussion

Americanization was advocated by citizens in all levels of government and social strata. As early as 1904, Theodore Roosevelt used assimilation as a theme in his campaign for president, stating, “We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one soul loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” Woodrow Wilson, in a speech to new citizens in 1915 contended, “You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups (Bogardus, 56). A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American.” Calvin Coolidge in his state of the union address in 1923 said, “America must be kept American.” This goes against the attitude needed to achieve in the education system. The home could also be seen to be to blame for the failure of working-class children in the education system. There are structural and cultural reasons. Bernstein looked in to the home as a reason for educational failure (Bogardus, 55).

He found that cultural deprivation was to blame. This is lacking the appropriate skills, attitudes and values. An example of a cultural reason could be that the values of the parents are placed on going out to work to achieve the material possessions that this society places emphasis on such as a foreign holiday. This would discourage higher education. A structural reason could be there is no quiet, clean, warm room to study because the parents could not afford one. Society could also be seen to be to blame for the failure of working-class children in the education system (Bogardus, 54). This is a Marxist view. Bordieu suggested that schools are middle-class organization run in order to further the middle-class and their children. The middle-class children benefit from 'cultural capital' because the schools teach cultural understanding (Carlson, 46).

The middle-class culture will seem alien to the working-class but the middle-class children can use these values and ways of behaving to trade on, because they know and understand the system. Bowels and Gintis argue that the education systems ...