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3 Ngleza
3 Ngleza
Social efficient
education
egalitarian force or a great equalizer, but are viewed as a repressive force. Bowles and Gintis
noted several distasteful aspects of our system:
-Schools serve the capitalist order in modern society
-Schools reproduce values necessary in a repressive capitalistic society
-Schools repress, coerce, and guide students to a certain niche of the labor force
-Schools allow the dominant class to maintain the current class structure
Furthermore, Bowles and Gintis reject the idea that a meritocracy exists within our nation.
They propose that meritocracy instead serves as a sort of mask for the dominant,
powerful, and wealthy. They say that these demographics of people have a false notion that they
are where they are because of merit, yet are really only dominant, powerful, and wealthy because
of social class.
An aside: To read about a current issue regarding meritocracy, please click on the link,
"Meritocracy: Asians on Berkeley's Campus."
And finally, Bowles and Gintis debunk the premise of educational reform. They say the
notion that schools can create equality of opportunity is false.
Ultimately, Bowles and Gintis call for democratic socialism as the only way to obtain
egalitarian education, for they believe that educational reform requires economic transformation.
John Ogbu researched the relationship between socialization and upward mobility for
minorities in the United States. He identified three different types of minorities (autonomous,
immigrant, and caste) but focused mostly on caste-like minorities. Ogbu maintains that it is the
variations in opportunity structure that control how children will perceive and attain their adult
roles in society. In studying the motives of caste-like minorities, Ogbu found that the motives for
acquiring formal education were quite different between majority and minority groups, and thus,
the two groups dont really participate in the same education system even when they attend the
same schools. Much like Bowles and Gintis, Ogbu states that an individuals education may
allow that person to raise his or her social status, but the romanticization of this idea of education
as a tool of upward mobility under any conditions is a false notion. Ogbu believes it is the nature
of opportunity for future adult roles and what a student is socialized to believe about their place
in life that will limit their upward mobility. Additionally, Ogbu states the presence of a job
ceiling that limits the ability of caste-like minority groups to compete freely for any jobs on the
market.