Can More and Better Education Reduce or Reproduce Racial, Gender, and Social Class Inequality in the United States?

• In Event: 56.029 - Conditions and Consequences of Educational Inequalities

Abstract

Despite decades of US policies and programs aimed at closing or eliminating race, gender, and class inequalities, almost every indicator of income, wealth, employment, occupational attainment, morbidity and mortality, and involvement in the criminal justice system continues to reflect racial, gender, and social class gaps. More often than not policy makers, pundits, politicians and parents prescribe better education and more of it as the key remedy to address these persistent inequalities. In this paper I argue that more and better education, while central to the well-being of individuals and society, cannot close race, gender, and social class inequalities. Instead, education is more likely to reproduce rather than reduce inequality. I draw upon historical data from the US Census and National Center for Educational Statistics to make four arguments. First, historical trends indicate more people have access to education than ever. In the past 60 women, lower income, and ethnic minority youth have increased their educational attainment but income and wealth inequality has grown. Second, while greater education attainment can lead to social mobility for some individuals, in societal terms attainment gains alone cannot reduce inequality in the host of indicators listed above. This is because the current organization and financing of schooling, how schools are staffed, and the curricula and pedagogy employed in schools reflect the contours of the persistent race, gender, and social class inequality in the core economic, political, legal, and culture institutions. Third, until the foundations of race, gender, and class inequalities in the political, legal, economic, and cultural spheres are transformed, educational institutions themselves will reflect and thus are likely to reproduce these same inequalities. Fourth, as the late Jean Anyon observed, reforming schools without also transforming the political economy of which they are an integral part is akin to cleaning air on one side of a screen door.

Author

• Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, University of North Carolina - Charlotte