BLOG #6 Ch. 3

Income, education, occupation, wealth, and power are aspects interrelated with socio-economic status (SES). These components have a strong role in ranking individuals and families in specific classes. As children, women, minorities, and people with disabilities are born into a particular status, education seems to be a helpful step for moving into a higher class ranking. Although the United States is a democratic society with the ideals of equality, this country contains some of the largest gaps in pay wages when compared to other industrialized nations.

Unfortunately, those inequalities tend to continue from one generation to the next. The lack of affordable housing is one cause of poverty and homelessness in our country. 12.7% of the population actually remain in poverty, and between 500,000 and 1.3 million children have experienced homelessness each year. Poverty persists in the young, minorities, women, workers in low status jobs, and the illiterate. However, women typically earn less and remain in poverty more than any other group.

While education offers hope to our nation's children, the institution is not without its flaws. The funding of schools, negative aspects of tracking, inequality of the curriculum, and unbalanced expectations of teachers are among the more difficult issues in education today. Two views of current eduacational practices suggest that schools can either aid in the future successes of its students, or continue to prepare students for jobs that correlate with current economic status.