Social inequality in education

Social inequality in education.

Introduction

Education is imparted inequality in society by different social institution. School is one of the vital institution which responsible for spreading knowledge in society. But school or educational institutions are not neutral. The system of education is affected by many factors. The sociology of education inquiry the relationship of education with economic, political and cultural factors. The utilization of knowledge is based on economic factors. It prepares students to survive in job market. Student must equip by particular knowledge, skills and technologies to compete in job market. Now the question arises, Is every class of the society gets proper opportunity to acquire the skills? The answer is difficult. The dominant economic class of a society control the education system and job structures. Social inequality in education deeply affect the lower and marginal classes. Let us discuss in brief.

Free Sociology notes

1. Schools are influenced by other powerful institution in society.

The school education influence by the powerful institution in society. Educational institution related to political, economy, cultural and other institution which is control by the powerful class of the society. They generated structural inequalities in society. They work for a particular communities or groups and shows bias attitude in society. Apple remark, that “one of the most fundamental questions we should ask about the school processes is what knowledge is of most worth”

Social inequality in education

2. Biased educational curriculum.

Capitalist society exercise power over education. Inequalities are reinforced through the educational curriculum and pedagogy. The educational curriculums are developed and organized for production of knowledge, behalf of capitalist society. In Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, Boourdieu and Passeron remark that authority derived through school based knowledge was not only highly arbitrary in nature but was representative of a dominant power or cultural authority at work.

3. Education exercise control of dominant class.

Education system is controlled by powerful class. Dominant class use education as a tool to exercise their control in society. Education maintains social hierarchy in society. Michael Young in his book Knowledge and control discuss, how educational system validated knowledge hierarchies in society. The higher classes of the society, making the educational system highly expensive and exclusive. The marginal sections cannot adopt in the system. The elite sections only take benefits of the educational system.

4. Legitimate knowledge, an accessibility of mass determined by dominant section.

The dominant section determine type and quality of knowledge dissimulate in the society. The fix the accountability and intensity of the knowledge for every section of people. The filtered knowledge is called the legitimate knowledge in a particular society. The dominate section of the society determine the legitimate knowledge and control accessibility of masses. M. Apple mentioned that schools are taking an important part of a complex structure of society through which social groups are given legitimacy and through which social and cultural ideologies are re-created, maintained, and continuously built.

5. School teaches different disposition and values to different school population.

The disposition of knowledge and values are different in different sections of society. The poor and marginal section of the society cannot reach the higher level of education. The marginally poor people cannot acquire technical knowledge and skills to achieve mastery over the job market. The higher economic class takes benefit to the situations. The take completely different kind of education, which is suitable for job market. The school education serves interest of dominant class and teach different disposition and values to different school population. The higher class students gets professional and technical education but the semi-skilled and poor section only get education for punctuality, habits formation etc.

6. Inequality in Indian education.

i) Capitalist period: In British India, The school system of education were served only interest of the British. British required unskilled and semi-skilled people to boost their economy. The school system of education required to maintain the colonial structure of the British. The curriculum of the school education are appropriate to generated clerk for official work.

ii) Quality education: Generating quality education was toughed question for early educationalist of India. India is a poor and developing country, creates barrier for quality education. The nation couldn’t generate sufficient funds for schooling of marginal people after independence. The children are divided in two categories, government schools and private school. The lower socio-economic classes are engaged in government school. The infrastructure of those schools marginal. The children are comprised with low quality facilities. The elite class is engaged in private school. The gets better treatment with exclusive educational infrastructure.

Conclusion.

Inequality in education is a problem major problem all over the world. The dominant section of society control the quality of education. Education promote interest of elite class. Inequality in Indian education was seen since independence. The quality of schooling is low in the poor developing countries like India. But in present scenario, the infrastructure of educational institution is quite good.