Where Should We Look to Find the Causes of Educational Inequalities Essay Example for Free

Where Should We Look to Find the Causes of Educational Inequalities Essay In this essay, I will be attempting to explain where I believe the causes of educational inequality lie. I will be focusing on 3 of the reasons that I believe there are such deep rooted inequalities in the education system. I believe that gender, ethnicity and class have the biggest impact on inequality in education. These are the issues which I will be discussing. The statistics are daunting, as Asthana, A (2010) states: boys are falling behind girls in 11 out of 13 learning categories by the age of five and Caribbean pupils are three times more likely to be excluded than any other ethnic group. I have chosen to focus on gender, ethnicity and social class in my essay, though these are by no means the only problems within the education system. I will start by discussing gender and educational inequality. Gender inequalities in education The impact on child attainment Women have always been allowed formal education, though formal education for all children has only been an ideal since about the mid-19th century. There were always a large proportion of people of both sexes who could not read or write, and many for whom formal education never went beyond basic reading and writing and simple arithmetic. Practical skills were more important for most people. Girls in ancient Greece and Rome for example, were educated, it was normal for women to be able to read and write, though most would not have had the same degree of education as boys. For girls, learning the practical skills to run a household would have been the most important part of their education. But some women did manage to make their mark as writers; Sapphos poetry was admired more than any other poet in ancient Greece except for Homer. Girls were often educated at home, though in medieval times for instance there were schools that educated children of both sexes. And upper-class girls sometimes went as boarders to nunneries. Among the upper classes it was commonplace for girls to be more literate than boys, because reading and writing were usually regarded as effeminate pursuits, a boys proper occupation was warfare. Grammar schools were normally only for boys, and in England, universities were open only to male students, though the proportion of boys who went there was tiny compared to the number who go today. Education for girls was of a fairly low standard during the 17th and 18th centuries, but from the early 19th century in America, and the mid-19th century in the UK, it was increasingly the case that all children were expected to attend school. Although boys and girls went to the same schools, they were not in the same classes and certainly were not taught the same subjects. Girls learnt subjects such as embroidery, needlework, music and writing as it was thought more important for them to study ‘accomplishments’ rather than academic subjects. Although a lot has changed regarding the differences between boys’ and girls’ education, there are still some issues that concerns us; the gender gap for example. The gender gap is the difference in attainment with boys and girls. In recent years, there has been a lot of worrying about the growing gap in attainment between boys and girls. By the age of 5, 53% of boys had reached the expected writing level compared with 72% of girls. They then underachieve at GCSE and not as many go on to university. Even once there, they are less likely to achieve a 2:1 or a first (Asthana, A 2010). Some contribute boys’ lower attainment to the changing notions of masculinity and differing attitudes to schoolwork. As Renold, E (2001) stated, many boys learnt the hard way early in their school careers that studiousness and academic success conflict with conventional forms of hegemonic masculinity. Renold (2001) then goes on to argue that as a result of the contradictory masculinities produced by the school, the boys invented an array of strategies and techniques to avoid what were perceived as ‘non-masculine’/ or ‘feminine’ classroom behaviours and to disguise both their desire for and the achievement of, academic success. As Connell (1996, cited in Renold, E 2001) claims, when he discusses ‘gender strategies for schools’, existing patterns of gender relation can only be altered or changed by paying close attention to the ‘dynamics of masculinity’, especially the means by which alternative masculinities are construed (peer support/ collectivity) and resisted (gender and sexualised bullying). Another issue is, of course the same sex school debate. I believe that Co-educational schools are better for children as it teaches them things that are not on the curriculum. It teaches kids maturity with members of the opposite sex. We can logically conclude that members from a coeducational school are generally more understanding of their opposing sex than those who are in a single-sex school. This doesn’t apply to students who have no siblings or are in relationships. It applies to the vast majority of students with any form of schooling. A sibling only has one personality, a girlfriend or a boyfriend only possess one personality. One must be able to understand and cope with members with different personality types to be counted as mature. Also, in a co-ed school, pupils form more diverse relationships. More diverse friendship types would supposedly lead to a bigger and better social life, which is important to have for school students as they progress in life. The logic behind this reasoning is that once you are in the working force, you must be able to deal with anyone that you work with, work for and assign work to. In the real world, we are not separated from the opposite sex so why are we separated in schools? Ethnicity and Inequality in education Ethnicity and inequality of education has always been, in my opinion, a delicate subject. There’s always the possibility of appearing racist or as though discriminating in some way. Rob Meyers (1994) when talking of educational inequality states; â€Å"with the passing of slavery, equality of education was one of the rights formerly held back that was now for Black people to take advantage of. With this equal starting ground, social integration would be a realizable dream. Yet after over 120 years, equality of education had been denied to Black children, thus preventing them from the amount of financial success white children have in life after school. Through benign neglect and the goal of some to find a genetic link to race and intelligence, Black students have been railroaded into low end jobs and inescapable poverty. As Bowles and Gintis have stated, the purpose of education is to preserve the existing class structure. Since the abolition of slavery, racist whites have used the educational system to keep their thrones and to keep blacks poor. Ideas of minority inferiority are spread, and the misinformed fall into the trap of believing that race determines intelligence, using skewed test data to help support their ideas. † Although I’m sure Meyers work has some implications of truth, I don’t believe that this is all about racism and it certainly isn’t all about black children. There are ethnic minorities from all over the globe who experience educational inequality and discrimination. For example, while some ethnicities like Caribbean boys receive negative discrimination I. e. teachers thinking that they won’t perform to as high a standard as the other children, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, other ethnicities such as Chinese girls receive positive discrimination; teachers thinking that they will be able to perform naturally higher than other students for example, thus putting added stress and pressure on the students. Though one could argue that the fact Asian girls excel is not due to positive discrimination but because their families, friends and societies value hard work, discipline and educational achievement. It is however, very important to maintain high expectations for all students, no matter the race, social background or ability. In the UK, there is evidence that points toward black Caribbean pupils being excessively moved into for lower tier maths and science exams at age 14. Strand (in press, cited in Twining 2012) has shown that black Caribbean students are the only ethnic group to be regularly under represented, relative to white students in entry to higher maths and science test tiers. Furthermore, this under-representation is not a by-product of their lower prior attainment; nor of variances in gender, social class, and a wide range of contextual variables. Strand concludes it is possible that teachers’ conclusions of black Caribbean students’ academic possibility may be distorted by observations of their behaviour as more challenging than it actually is. This may, in turn, lead to a inclination to miscalculate their academic capability (Twining 2012). While black Caribbean children (especially the males) have been consistently labelled as being the underachievers in secondary level education, research has shown that white working class males actually make up around half of the number of low achieving school leavers (Kingdom and Cassen, 2007; Cassen and Kingdom 2007, cited in Twining, 2012). As Asthana (2010) convincingly states, â€Å"Once it was a story of black and white, in which racial discrimination was a major driving force. But in tomorrows report, the story of ethnicity is a complicated one – in which poor black boys underachieve, as do those from Irish Traveller families, but poor Chinese girls overachieve; Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities see different outcomes to Indian ones; and there is a growing group of mixed race children who in themselves have complex outcomes. Other issues students from other cultures face is the need to conform to British culture. I believe that the classroom would be a more efficient place to learn if students were allowed to incorporate knowledge from their cultures into it. Or perhaps teachers should be trained to understand other cultures and to try to teach students by referring to things they may have learnt in their communities.

Jean-Pierre Jeunets Film Amelie Essay -- Imagination Film Movie Ameli

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Film Amelie Imagination is an intrinsic part of the human experience. It has the power to mold reality by defining the limits of possibility and affecting perception. Both Alan White and Irving Singer examine aspects of this power in their respective works The Language of Imagination and Feeling and Imagination. White delineates how imagination is a necessary precursor to possibility (White 179) while Singer primarily illustrates imagination's effect on human relationships, such as love (Singer 29-48). Despite their different focuses, White and Singer demonstrate the impact that imagination has on human perceptions of reality. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie explores this facet of imagination: the film provides a poignant depiction of imagination's influence as the title character Amelie exacts changes in her life and in the lives of others with her boundless imagination. In the chapter entitled "The Imaginable and the Possible," Alan White argues that imagination is the key factor in testing the "acceptability of something as possible" (White 183). In seeking to answer the questions whether what is possible is imaginable and whether what is imaginable is possible, White examines a variety of seemingly impossible ideas, such as the three-dimensional triangle. From these examples, he concludes that the possible must be conceivable by the imagination but that the imagination's capacity to visualize extends beyond the mere possible (White 179-183). Amelie addresses this dichotomy between the limitations of the possible and the unfettered possibilities of the imagination in a less didactic manner. Instead of intangible ideas, the film illustrates the link between imagination and possibility throu... ...ng their imagination to bestow value to each other, much in the manner Singer describes. In terms of inherent worth, neither the relationship between Georgette and Joseph or Amelie and Nino seem to have any tangible basis. However, when revisiting these interactions with the idea of bestowal in mind, it is understandable why the characters are willing to "appraise" each other so highly. Thus, through the interaction of the characters, the film Amelie demonstrates how the imagination governs the daily existence of human beings with the power to either help or hinder an individual by defining the realm of possibility. Works Cited Singer, Irving. Feeling and Imagination: The Vibrant Flux of Our Existence. Lanham: Rowman and Littlerfield Publishers, Inc., 2001. 21-48. White, Alan R. The Language of Imagination. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc. 1990. 173-183.

Hate Crimes Agrumentative Paper Essay

On October 6, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was beaten, tortured, tied to a fence, and left to die. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but succumbed to his severe injuries 6 days later. A young man, who still had his whole life ahead of him, lost the chance to experience it because he was gay. Hate crimes, such as this case, still happen today and at an increasing rate, according to the statistics gathered by the U.S Department of Justice. A hate crime is a criminal offense against a person or property motivated by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. Harsher punishments must accompany hate crimes because of their unique characteristics such as the impact it has on the American society, their high possibility of recidivism, and the immense amount of psychological trauma these cases can create. Although individuals are free to believe in what they want, there is a limit to how much an individual can practice it. Hate crimes attac k the very base of American society, built on freedom and equality. This is where the line must be drawn. It is America’s job to ensure that freedom and equality is available to everyone without the oppression of any individuals who think otherwise. Hate crime offenders practice their beliefs to the point that their actions are no longer safe on the individuals against their views. As with any case under the American law, crimes become hate crimes if, and only if, there is sufficient evidence that the motive was a bias against the victim. For example, the Shepard case involved a witness, an attacker’s girlfriend, which stated that the suspect’s actions were triggered by â€Å"how he felt about gays.† The trials resulted in both suspects receiving an additional life sentence due to the hate crime evidence. Another famous case is the Zimmerman case which involved a Hispanic man who shot, and ultimately killed, an African-American teenager because he thought the teenager was suspicious. Although the majority of the public believed it was due to the teenagerâ€⠄¢s skin color, the Zimmerman case was not labeled a hate crime due to the insufficient amount of evidence, and Zimmerman was later acquitted by the jury. Those harsher punishments allow hate crimes to be feared, thus, stopping the problem before it happens. Whether labeled as a hate crime or not, cases like these  taint the American image of freedom and equality. Hate crimes have a much higher recidivism rate than unbiased crimes, such as burglary, because it is a more deep-rooted hatred in which cannot be eased with just the death or injury of just one person, but rather, the group as a whole. Recidivism is the legal term for the tendency of a criminal to relapse into the same behavior that individual was convicted for in the past. This makes the group or community much more afraid than if it was a crime of hatred towards a specific person. The fact is, hate crimes involve a much bigger set of victims. Everyone in that specific group could have been a target and would still be a target. These cases don’t just involve the victim in question, nor their family members, but, rather, a whole community. Hate crimes are different from other crimes since the offender sends, whether directly or indirectly, a message to the members of that group that they are unwelcome and unsafe in that particular neighborhood, school, or other environment. Based on the studies observed by the American Psychological Association, the targeted communities often lose their sense of security and safety, This leads to depression and low self-esteem in the members of that group. If the law puts the suspects back onto the streets without any attention on their motive against the race or sexual orientation of the victim, that specific group will feel unsafe due to the fact the motive did not matter at all in the trial. It is absolutely necessary to add the harsher punishment in order to, at least, ease the minds of the targeted community and to show that the motive against that community does matter. Hate crimes involve more than just a traditional act of violence. They involve a whole community and a whole society. Hate crimes affect the American image set upon freedom and equality. They are also motivated by something an individual can not control nor does any harm to the offender. The special circumstances that these crimes have need special attention, and the harsher punishments are just one of the ways to reduce the frequency of these horrid attacks.

James Gordon Bennett, Legendary New York Herald Editor

James Gordon Bennett was a Scottish immigrant who became the successful and controversial publisher of the New York Herald, a hugely popular newspaper of the 19th century. Bennett’s thoughts on how a newspaper should operate became highly influential, and some of his innovations became standard practices in American journalism. Fast Facts: James Gordon Bennett Born: September 1, 1795, in Scotland.Died: June 1, 1872, in New York City.Accomplishments: Founder and publisher of the New York Herald, often credited as being the inventor of the modern newspaper.Known for: An eccentric with obvious flaws whose devotion to putting out the best newspaper he could led to many innovations now common in journalism. A combative character, Bennett gleefully  mocked rival publishers and editors including  Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune and Henry J. Raymond of the New York Times.  Despite his many quirks, he was respected for the level of quality he brought to his journalistic endeavors. Before founding the New York Herald in 1835, Bennett spent years as an enterprising reporter, and he is credited as being the first Washington correspondent from a New York City newspaper. During his years operating the Herald he adapted to such innovations as the telegraph and high-speed printing presses. And he was constantly seeking better and faster ways to collect and distribute the news. Bennett became wealthy from publishing the Herald, but he possessed little interest in pursuing a social life. He lived quietly with his family, and was obsessed with his work. He could usually be found in the newsroom of the Herald, diligently working at a desk he had made with planks of wood placed atop two barrels. Early Life James Gordon Bennett was born September 1, 1795 in Scotland. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family in a predominantly Presbyterian society, which no doubt gave him a sense of being an outsider. Bennett received a classical education, and he studied at a Catholic seminary in Aberdeen, Scotland. Though he considered joining the priesthood, he chose to emigrate in 1817, at the age of 24. After landing in Nova Scotia, he  eventually made his way to Boston. Penniless, he found a job working as a clerk for a bookseller and printer. He was able to learn the fundamentals of the publishing business while also working as a proofreader. In the mid-1820s Bennett moved on to New York City, where he found work as a freelancer in the newspaper business. He then took a job in Charleston, South Carolina, where he absorbed important lessons about the newspapers from his employer, Aaron Smith Wellington of the Charleston Courier. Something of a perpetual outsider anyway, Bennett  definitely did not fit in with the social life of Charleston. And he returned to New York City after less than a year. Following a period of scrambling to survive, he found a job with the New York Enquirer in a pioneering role: he was sent to be the first Washington correspondent for a New York City newspaper. The idea of a newspaper having reporters stationed in distant places was innovative.  American newspapers up to that point generally just reprinted news from the papers published in other cities. Bennett recognized the value of reporters gathering facts and sending dispatches (at the time by handwritten letter) instead of relying on the work of people who were essentially competitors. Bennett Founded the New York Herald Following his foray into Washington reporting, Bennett returned to New York and tried twice, and failed twice, to launch his own newspaper. Finally, in 1835, Bennett raised about $500 and founded  the New York Herald. In its earliest days, the Herald operated out of a dilapidated basement office and faced competition from about a dozen other news publications in New York. The chance of success was not great. Yet over the course of the next three decades Bennett turned the Herald into the newspaper with the largest circulation in America. What made the Herald different than all the other papers was its editors relentless drive for innovation. Many things we consider ordinary were first instituted by Bennett, such as the posting of the day’s final stock prices on Wall Street. Bennett also invested in talent, hiring reporters and sending them out to gather news. He was also keenly interested in new technology, and when the telegraph came along in the 1840s he made sure the Herald was quickly receiving and printing news from other cities. Political Role of The Herald One of Bennett’s greatest innovations in journalism was to create a newspaper that was not attached to any political faction. That probably had to do with Bennett’s own streak of independence and his acceptance of being an outsider in American society. Bennett was known to write scathing editorials denouncing political figures, and at times he was attacked in the streets and even publicly beaten because of his strident opinions. He was never dissuaded from speaking out, and the public tended to regard him as an honest voice. Legacy of James Gordon Bennett Before Bennett’s publishing of the Herald, most newspapers consisted of political opinions and letters written by correspondents which often had obvious and pronounced partisan slant. Bennett, though often considered a sensationalist, actually instilled a sense of values in the news business which endured. The Herald was very profitable. And while Bennett became personally wealthy, he also put profits back into the newspaper, hiring reporters and investing in technological advances such as increasingly advanced printing presses. At the height of the Civil War, Bennett was employing more than 60 reporters. And he pushed his staff to make sure the Herald published dispatches from the battlefield before anyone else. He knew members of the public might purchase only one newspaper a day, and would naturally be drawn to the paper  that was the first with the news. And that desire to be the first to break news, of course, became the standard in journalism. After Bennett’s death, on June 1, 1872, in New York City, the Herald was operated by his son James Gordon Bennett, Jr. The newspaper continued to be very successful. Herald Square in New York City is named for the newspaper, which had been based there in the late 1800s. Controversy has followed Bennett many decades after his death. For many years the New York City Fire Department has awarded a medal for heroism named for James Gordon Bennett. The publisher, with his son, had set up a fund to award the medal to heroic firefighters in 1869. In 2017 one of the recipients of the medal issued a public call to rename the medal in light of the elder Bennetts history of racist comments.