Explain the relationship between inequality and education. How does education reproduce inequality? How does funding for public education reflect and affect inequality? Also, how is inequality present in education?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Education is also one of the primary vehicles by which society reinforces social inequalities based on race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Education is related to inequality in that whites and those in wealthier school districts tend to receive a better education and achieve more education. Education reproduces inequality because those with higher income levels receive more education, and those with a higher level of education receive higher income levels. In addition, though the hidden curriculum, education not only creates social inequalities but makes them seem natural, normal, and inevitable. Because education is funded largely by local property taxes, wealthier neighborhoods and communities have more money to spend on schools than poorer ones. Inequality is present in the educational materials, the ways teachers interact with students, how resources differ from district to district, and who has access to these resources. Public schools in wealthy neighborhoods can afford state-of-the-art labs and libraries, small classes, and highly paid teachers, while poor neighborhoods have the crumbling buildings, overcrowded classrooms, and over-worked, underpaid teachers.