The Documentary : Class Divide

In most if not all cases, the class you are born into will determine how you will be raised, and who you will grow up to become. Whether you can speak up for yourself, if you are humble with what you have or you have a more hectic schedule or not, it all plays into what class you are from. No two childhoods are equal and Annette Lareau in her book, Unequal Childhoods explains why this is the case. I will be examining chapters four, five, and seven. These chapters examine poor and working children and teenagers and how their childhoods differ and relate to each other based on the class they were born in whether that be lower class to the poor. What can be learned from examining these three kids, Harold McAllister, Katie Brindle, and Tyrec Taylor is the advantages and disadvantages of having a childhood in the class of the poor or working class.

Throughout decades, education inequality is still one of the most deliberate and controversial issues in the United States. Thus far, the privilege or right to receive education has not attained the level of equality throughout the nation. Poor districts obtain less educational funds while rich districts obtain more, which create an immense gap between the quality of schools in poor and rich areas. In other words, the education gap is the root of inequality in America. Inequality in education is linked to the major problems in the society. The need for studies to be done to find ways of overcoming these inequalities is very inevitable. The means of mitigating these inequalities are important for the entire world. This is something of great interest due to the fact that children need quality education which is a pillar for a guaranteed future. Generally speaking, the distinctions among races, genders, and classes in the society have caused the educational inequality in America.

There has been a tremendous change in East Harlem between class warfare and gentrification. East Harlem is one more economic factor to the city’s wealth per capita since the attack of September 11, 2000. It is Manhattan’s last remaining development and it is on the agenda of the tax revenue of our government. East Harlem has become a profit driven capitalism. Gentrification enforces capitalism, it does not separate people, it does not go against race, poor and the working class, it wages war on the poor and the working-class.

Privilege is giving someone unearned advantages that all cannot attain. When you are privilege most likely you are ignorant to the fact that you have received the best education, compared to others who do not share the same privileges. In this article the author mainly discusses the effects of social and economic privilege in our education system. Socio-economics deals with a person social class and income level. People who have the advantage of belonging to this social class are upper-middle and the upper class. They are the people who make six or more figures, compared to those who only make about $40,000 a year. The upper-middle and the upper class live opulently. To live opulent you have to have money, and money brings status and influence in

Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol explains the inequalities of school systems in different poor neighborhoods. Kozol was originally a teacher in a public school in Boston. This school didn’t have very many resources and was unable to keep teachers for very long. After pursuing other interests, Kozol took the time from 1988-1990 to meet with children and teachers in several different neighborhoods to better understand issues relating to the inequality and segregation in the school systems. Kozol writes from his own perspective as he visits six different cities and the poorest schools in those cities. These cities consist of East St. Louis in Illinois, the South Side of Chicago in Illinois, New York City, Camden in New Jersey, Washington

Jonathan Kozol, in the chapter entitled “Other People’s Children, discusses and justifies the kinds of limitations placed on children who must attend poorly funded, educationally inferior school. Kozol argues that children in the inner-city schools are not fit to go to college and that they should be trained in schools for the jobs they will eventually hold, even though these jobs are less prestigious, lowest-level jobs in society. Kozol’s argument is based on the fact that students from the inner-city or rather from the societies that do not have enough job opportunities are not supposed to learn much because their society cannot accommodate most of the courses that are often found in the urban settings. For example, there is a point where Kozol cites one of the businessman’s statement which says, ‘It doesn’t make sense to offer something that most of these urban kids will never use.’ The businessman continues to argue, ‘no one expects these ghetto kids to go to college. Most of them are lucky if they are literate. If we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the most that they can hope for’ (Kozol 376). This statement clearly indicate that the society should accept the inequalities and exercise the same inequalities even in education.

The educational system of the united states is not capitalizing on the full potential of its people. Jonathan Kozol in his article “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, discusses the drastic difference in the quality of education based on a family’s income. Kozol discusses how economic disparities usually coincide with race, but focuses on the economic gap of education. Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “Carlos doesn’t remember”, gives a story and a personal touch, to the issues low income students face. Kozol writing and Gladwell’s podcast, both show that the quality of a child’s education is pure chance. A lottery of being born into a high or low income family dictates the outcome and capitalization of a child’s future.

In this article the author explains how the schools are based on a class system and higher-class areas have better recourses and more classes offered. Higher-class societies have better equipment, new technology, modern facilities, better books, and better teachers. Not only are the school’s educational facilities better the extracurricular activities are also better. For example sports facilities, training facilities, band, art, all because these lower class schools cant afford what these lower class schools can. Students in lower end districts are actually ending up worse off then the higher end students. Meaning attrition rate, drop out rate, sat scores and much more.

Now days walking down the streets of Atlanta, we see the new neighborhoods consisting of condos, Starbucks, yoga classes and Chipotle. Gentrification is a growing problem in urban areas as the influx of the riches have caused the displacement of lower class families due to higher economic demands and local politics. According to Diane K. Levy, Jennifer Comey and Sandra Padilla (2005), “We define gentrification as the process whereby higher-income households move into low income neighborhoods, escalating the area’s property values to the point that displacement occurs. In addition to changes in economic class, gentrification often involves a change in a neighborhood’s racial and ethnic composition…” (p.1). Though gentrification has lasting affects on the economic status of cities, there are also repercussions that not only effect working individuals but also the students that attend school in these gentrified areas. When areas are gentrified, schools are rezoned thus leading to long lasting consequences that students must face. Some believe that gentrification is beneficial to a growing economy in a growing city, but the realities of the its lasting effects on education are often left under the radar. The issues that lie within the education system as it pertains to gentrification include day segregation and unequal opportunities between affluent and low-income areas.

Education is provided to people who come from all economic backgrounds. However, not everyone is able to use the education system to the best of their abilities. For example, children who live in poor situations might not be able to focus only on their studies such as taking up a job to help support their families. Moreover, it’s a fact that the areas that have a higher income generally often have a better schooling system. This might be arising from donations from local families and from a better economic structure in the area. A higher social class has advantages to access to resources such as tutors, private lessons, private schools and higher quality public schools. On the other hand, children in lower socioeconomic classes might live in impoverished, stressful environments with fewer resources.

Viewing the complex matter of gentrification succinctly, it helps to uncover how multifaceted it is; in that gentrification involves the oppression, marginalization, displacement of vulnerable populations, particularly, the poor, and the black who are often already negatively impacted by the effects of classism, and racism. Gentrification threatens to erode the communities and livelihood maintained by these set of people because their displacement becomes a precondition for the total transformation of the area.

In addition to wealth contributing to separated education, teachers based on their type of social class school perpetuate behaviors and learning strategies that either limit or expand students’ focuses and values, thus creating unequal development across different curriculums.

a. Social Class/pg. 96: large numbers of people who have similar amounts of income and education and who work at jobs that are roughly comparable in prestige. Social class is basically what makes up a majority of what the mega slum documentary was about. In India, which is where this documentary took place is featured at one of the largest slums in the country. Thousands and thousands of people live in what is just one square mile of land. Within this mega slums are the people who live there in run down homes that most of us would not even dare to enter let alone live in. All of the people who live in the slum are in the same situation in life. Poverty is very high in the slum and people work long hard days to only make a small fraction

Tracing the life of a child, he shows how an initial slow start can cause the child to lag further behind as time goes on. What struck me the most about this was how early children’s life courses are set – even before birth. Barry lists poor nutrition during pregnancy, lack of paid parental leave, and low-quality medical care in childbirth as factors that can permanently impact the child’s future learning abilities. And when students carry their environmental disadvantages into schools, Barry ways schools become places where these hindrances are “compounded and not corrected for.” These early life experiences often disqualify students from even reaching college and getting a degree, which is becoming necessary for obtain a well-paying job. In this way, education seems to become a trap – education is a way out of poverty, but poverty is a hindrance to education. The ways in which inequality compounds in schools challenges how I think about the role schools play in society as educational institutions. By looking at how disadvantages and advantages accumulate through the course of schooling, I can better understand how schools contribute to wider social

Department of Education, “documents that schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because school districts across the country are inequitably distributing their state and local funds”. (Education, 2011). Students that come from low income families are not given the equal chance to get the education that students from high income families get. If students are not given the tools they need to be educated, then they will have a poor chance of succeeding in the world.