Date: 14/02/17

Topic: Education and Inequality

Lecturer: Mrs Makaza
Introduction
 Generally the degree of power, prestige and privilege that individuals have in any society
entirely depends on the membership in actual social groups not on their personal
characteristics or attributes.
 Some people are poor because they lack motivation, skills or schooling to find work or
employment.
 In some cases, unemployment is the main contributor to poverty.
 Social class is one’s position in society as a result of their economic situation. It tends to
shape both a person’s social reality and hoe one perceives the world. Social class thus
may not be separated from how an individual learn.
Definition of terms
1. Social inequality- from a sociological point of view, social inequality is the existence
of un-equal experiences, opportunities, life chances and rewards for different statuses
(social positions) within a group or society.
 It has several important dimensions such as income. Occupational prestige,
ancestry, race, gender and ethnicity. Social inequality in most cases may affect
nearly every dimension of human lives, eg. Children from poor families may
more likely die from diseases, accidents or violence than those children born in
wealthy families.
2. Education- it can be defined as the organized part of the process of learning by which
society deliberately calculate knowledge cherished by society.
 It is a learning process to acquire the fundamental skills, behaviors, knowledge,
norms and value considered worthwhile in the society.
 It can either be formal or non-formal.
THE FUNCTIONALISTIC VIEW ON EDUCATION
 From a functionalist point of view the school curriculum is value
consensus(agreed upon norms and values of a society)
 The education system is based on meritocratic principles hence academic
achievement is an objective measurements of ability rather than subjective.
 To the functionalist academic achievements depends on talents or inborn ability.
 Some virtues that determine academic success include hard working,
punctuality, discipline and obedience.
 In this regard, academic achievement has nothing to do with social class, gender
and race.
 The functionalist argues that under achievements is a result of lack of talent
because the educational system is meritocratic.
 The functionalist perspective the school curriculum is multicultural offering
learners with equal opportunity to achieve.
 Therefore education is a means to attain equal opportunity and a vehicle of
social mobility.
 Education is value consensus, derived from the societal pre-requisites (needs
and demands of the society).
 A dysfunction of education causes disorder, dis harmony, social illness and dis
equilibrium to the society at large.
Marxist/ conflict theory on education
 From a Marxist perspective, under achievement is a consequence of poor social-
economic background because children from poor families face financial
constrains to meet schooling costs such as tuition fees, levies, stationery and
uniforms.
 Hunger and malnutrition tend to impact negatively on the academic
achievement of learners.
 Most of the children from poor backgrounds walk long distances from and to
school.
 Poor children normally attend schools where there are poor quality learning
materials and human resources.
 Children from poor families normally lack parental encouragement and
electronic media from home.
 The Marxist perspective also argue that the children’s cultural capital leads to
differential educational achievements.
 The conflict also argues that education purses middle class values and language
because the elaborated cord they use at home is similar to that used at school
unlike the working class ho use the restricted cord at home.
 From a Marxist perspective education is the process of social and cultural
reproduction because it enables the ruling class to reproduce its dominations
over other social classes.
 Education is therefore an ideological state apparatus because the social class is
the main factor which affect academic achievement.
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