Reflections on Social Inequality

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In this course we learned different ways in which social inequality is expressed in our society and the profound effects that it has on individuals. Social inequality cannot be justified in any form or level. For example, in our video for race (reposted below) I clarify that race is a social construct, meaning that there is no biological basis for racial categories and there is no relationship between racial classification and behavior.  I proceeded to use the core concepts we had previously learned, such as stigma and cumulative advantage to see how race affects what we see, what we think, and what we do.

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Currently I work as a sales associate for a department store in the city of Newport Beach.  Whenever I apply to work somewhere, I have to fill out an application, at the end of which there is an usually an optional portion where the applicant can disclose their gender and ethnicity. I typically select the response, “decline to answer”; I am Latina, and prefer that this would not influence an employer's decision, regardless if it is good or bad. In the case of Chicago employers as described in the article, ’We’d Love to Hire Them But…’: The Meaning of Race for Employers, we learned that the effects of race and hiring practices are negative. This study showed how employers stigmatized black prospective employees as unskilled, uneducated, illiterate, dishonest, lacking initiative, etc. In the article, Status process and mental ability test scores”  we see that the effects of stigma can not only affect someone’s ability to get a job, but can affect their life earlier on. The researchers of this study found that stigma can affect the self-esteem and self-efficacy of low-status individuals-many of whom were black- subsequently harming their testing performance.

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Latinos and Higher Education

I was particularly interested in investigating how race, reference groups, and cumulative advantage impact the education of an individual. Being Latino, I was interested in investigating these effects on the Latino population. Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States; they are estimated to grow to 119 million by the year 2060 (Colby & Ortman 2015).  They are also the fastest growing portion of the school-age population; young Latinos currently represent one in four public school students (Lopez & Fry, 2013). However, while Latinos are growing in population, they are not proportionately represented in institutions of higher learning. In fact, of all major ethnic groups, Latinos remain the least educated.  Research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics,  reported that in 2008, of U.S adults (25 years of age or older) 13 percent of Latinos had a least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 52 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders, 33 percent of Whites, 20 percent of Blacks, and 15 percent of Native American adults (2009). Given this critical information, I was compelled to consider reasons that could account for these disparities.

 

 

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Colby, S. L. & Ortman J. M. 2015. “Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060” U.S Census Bureau. Retrieved from . Lopez, M.H & Fry, R. 2013. “Among recent high school grads, Hispanic college enrollment rate surpasses that of whites” Pew Research Center. Retrieved from < http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/04/hispanic-college-enrollment-rate-surpasses-whites-for-the-first-time/>.
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In order to understand the effects of race on higher education, we must first consider its influence on the early parts of an individual's education. This is because an individual can experience events through their life that can present  advantages or disadvantages, the effects of which accumulate over time. In this discussion of cumulative advantage we can consider how race inequality is represented in education. In the article, “School Readiness and later achievement we find that across high and low socioeconomic backgrounds, school-entry math, reading, and attention skills are the strongest predictors for a student’s later achievement in school. Essentially, students that do not have the resources to begin their education at an advantaged state will subsequently lag behind others that can afford to. In the article titled, “The Impact of a Collaborative Family Involvement Program on Latino Families and Children’s Educational Performance”, O’Donnell and Kirkner claim Latino students or low socioeconomic status are especially at risk for this. The focus of their findings, however, remains in a more positive light; the authors claim that there is evidence to support the correlation between well-designed family involvement programs directed toward Latino families and positive education outcomes for the children of these families. This study evaluated the impact of the YMCA Family Involvement Project, of which incorporated workshops that were community oriented in which in-home education strategies, parenting education, family literacy, and community leadership and advocacy were encouraged. Unfortunately the playing field is unleveled, but with the implementation of such policy and programming, we can promote quality education for all students, no matter what race.

Reference groups are another explanation for the social inequality that Latinos experience in higher education. In the article titled “The Vanishing Latino Male in Higher Education” by Saenz and Ponjuan, the researchers sought to understand why Latino male students are “vanishing” from the American education pipeline, which is especially evident at the secondary and postsecondary levels.The researchers concluded that the lack of support that Latino males face on social, cultural, and structural levels provokes Latino males to drop out of high school, to join the workforce rather than attend college, and to leave before graduating. Latinos that are represented in fields that do not require a higher education effectively become the standard for other Latinos. If this phenomenon continues, it could possibly eliminate educated Latino men as a reference group for other Latinos.  In effect, the argument can be made that without examples of successful college graduates in their lives to refer to, both Latino men and women will fail to aspire to pursue such feats.  We saw this in the tragic story of Melanie from This American Life titled, “Three Miles.  At Fieldston, an elite private school, students are surrounded by the influence and expectation to go to college. However, this is contrasted with those of University Heights high school, a predominantly black and Latino school in the South Bronx, where students consider “college” the least of their worries.

These readings demonstrate the importance of reference groups and cumulative disadvantage in explaining race inequality in education. Ultimately, it was important to understand the collective influence of each of the axes to create inequality. It is hardly the case that only one factor accounts for a form of inequality; instead we must incorporate a multidimensional approach to understanding the problems of our society. If we can accomplish this, then we will be able to understand and implement multidimensional solutions.

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