Schooled and sorted : how educational categories create inequality /
"The popular imagination views education primarily in terms of teaching and learning. Schools matter, in most tellings, because they give students skills that they draw upon as they move into the labor market, the public sphere, and other areas of their adult lives. But teaching and learning is...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
The Russell Sage Foundation,
[2023]
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "The popular imagination views education primarily in terms of teaching and learning. Schools matter, in most tellings, because they give students skills that they draw upon as they move into the labor market, the public sphere, and other areas of their adult lives. But teaching and learning is only a part of what happens in schools. In this book, we want to advance a view of schools as category construction machines. We do not want to discount the importance of the skills and knowledge that students gain at school. But we argue that educational organizations are always and everywhere engaged in the production, manipulation, adaptation, and enactment of categories. This category work necessarily creates inequalities and is essential to the operation and social significance of educational systems in contemporary schooled societies. Schools construct social categories-kindergartener, English language learner, honor roll student, cheerleader, Ivy League material-that shape students' identities and their access to resources. In the process, schools also reflect, adapt, and reify powerful social categories- including categories related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and religion-that organize and divide the societies in which they operate. The categories that schools create, enforce, and even on occasion reimagine have far reaching consequences for people's lives. At the most basic level, we argue that exposure to any form of formal schooling marks a person's potential to be a full member of contemporary communities. Becoming a student, we argue, is a crucial step on the way toward becoming a citizen. Furthermore, we argue that the credentials that schools confer to students at the end of their educational careers play a central role as young adults move out of school and into a complex and highly specialized adult society. In the contemporary world, educational categories don't just influence where we work or what we earn. They influence where we live, who we live with, our civic participation, and even our longevity"-- |
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| Physical Description: | xiv, 277 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [229]-267) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780871540003 0871540002 |