SOCI 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Ascribed Status, Korean Canadians, Visible Minority
28 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Learning that takes place within an academic setting, such as a school, which has a planned instructional process and teachers who convey specific knowledge, skills, and thinking processes to students. From the middle ages until the end of world war i, only the sons of the privileged classes were able to attend european universities. As societies industrialized, the need for formal education of the masses increased significantly. A system where people are ranked equally on the basis of merit, talent, ability or past performance and based on those factors move upward or downward in the system. Schools constitute a meritocracy where resources are distributed fairly on the basis of merit: this perspective fails to understand how one"s social location and other larger socio-political relations/conditions affect one"s achievements. Formal education has been designed by and maintained by the ruling elite. Schools do not promote egalitarian ideals, rather they protect the status quo and reproduce social inequality.
