Minority Access to Higher Education and its Social
Outcomes
Noga
Admon
New York
University
The
mobilization of demands by minority groups for mobility opportunities through
schooling can only contribute an extension of the prevailing pattern.”
(Collins, 1971 p. 1016). Interestingly, internal stratification within the
system casts doubts on the successes of community colleges and open admissions
in narrowing social gaps. Neither was able to offer minorities with real equal
opportunity in higher education, without explicitly or implicitly diverting
them to lower-prestige, lower-strata credentials.
Today,
high schools promise open access to college and generate high student aspirations
regardless of academic performance, and as a result students do not see the relevance
of high school performance to future success (since in a seemingly open admissions
system they see little reward for high school success and little penalty for
lack of high school success; Rosenbaum, 1998). They do not realize that in
reality, high school grades hold the strongest effect on college success (Lavin
and Hyllegard, 1996; Adelman, 1999) and that open admissions exist almost
exclusively in community colleges and not in 4-year schools. Minority students,
who perform less well than Whites in high school (Digest of Educational
Statistics 2001, table 139), are being fed false hopes, and end up at a
disadvantage as they graduate and suddenly realize that their high school
records are not sufficient for the kind of higher education they had hoped for.
In addition, inadequate student-to-counselor ratio, which can be seen in many
inner-city schools, leaves many students with deficient information.
First-generation college-goers in particular lack information about college,
and are especially affected by high school counseling; ironically, an
inadequate student-to-counselor ratio is more common in schools serving
first-generation college-going students (McDonough, 1997). This affects
minorities in
particular, as they have large rates of potential first-generation
collegegoers.
During
the 20th Century, as minority groups gained access to different levels of
education, the
value of these levels has decreased. As education expands among lower status groups,
it also expands among high-status groups, and so the gap remains. As a result,
the returns for higher education were depressed. Higher education cost was
increasing as a response to the increased demand, but salaries stood still, especially
for those college graduates who were filling out previous “high school” jobs (20%
of degree holders in 1990 were either unemployed or employed in “high school” jobs),
and the rapid technological changes of our era make it also difficult for older
graduates to find jobs (Tyler, Murnane and Levy, 1995).
Professions
who let minorities in are still afraid they will suffer a prestige loss, similar
to the one experienced by professions as they went through the process of feminization
during the last century. We should stop looking at higher degrees as the simple
solution to social inequality, since their success in reducing social gaps is contingent
upon the market’s recognition of these degrees as valuable market currencies. Pushing
the entire system upwards is not synonymous with reducing the social gaps between
Whites and minorities. We should not be content with minority access to community
colleges. Our goal should be equal opportunity, not equal participation.
RESPONSE
Based on the description in the above journal, can be said that
the opinion from Noga Admon is
similar with the opinion of Randall Collins about Some Comparative Principles of Educational
Stratification. Three major points that Noga Admon says are (1) internal
stratification within the system casts doubts on the successes of community
colleges and open admissions in narrowing social gaps, (2) high schools
promise open access to college and generate high student aspirations regardless
of academic performance, and as a result students do not see the relevance of
high school performance to future success, they do not realize that in reality,
high school grades hold the strongest effect on college success. (3) As
education expands among lower status groups, it also expands among high-status
groups, and so the gap remains. As a result, the returns for higher education
were depressed. Higher education cost was increasing as a response to the
increased demand, but salaries stood still, especially for those college
graduates who were filling out previous “high school” jobs, and the rapid
technological changes of our era make it also difficult for older graduates to
find jobs.
Randall
Collins said that a great deal of research in the sociology of education has
taken an existing structure and its content for granted and concentrated on
describing the social processes that occur within it. And at the same time education
may be explain as a weapon in the struggles for domination that make up the
phenomenon of stratification, whether considered from the viewpoint of Marxist
theory, Weberian Theory, or some mixture of the two.
Economic
classes or organizational politicians are stronger if they also possess the
unity that comes from common cultural resources. Three types of resources may
be differentially distributed : strong ethnic, national, religious, or other
cultural divisions can shape struggles for economic or political domination
into pattern very different from those emerging along class lines. The most
common modern interpretation of the role of education is that it meets the
demand for technical skills. Most contemporary evidence, however, contradicts
this interpretation.
The
content of most modern education is not
very practical : education attainment and grades are not much related at
work performance, and most technical skill are learned on the job. Although
work skill are more complex in some modern jobs than in most preindustrial job,
in many modern jobs they are not. Similar pattern appear in an overview of
society throughout history. And in the other side School have sometimes been
established in cases where the fundamental components of practical skill could
be learned by repetitious drill, such as in the acquisition of literacy and
arithmethics skill. Usually such schooling has been unritualized and aimed at developing
proficiency in the most efficient manner. This has been particularly true
where dominant social classes have had a ritualized form of education and
practical work has been relegated to unprivileged middle or lower class. Powerful
groups have incorporated practical education into a ritualized system. In the
United Stated, for example, a formal structure surrounds elementary education,
which alone among all levels of modern education bears a clear relationship to
economic productivity.
References :
Admon Noga, Minority Access to Higher Education and its Social
Outcomes, New York University
Collins, Randal. Some Comparative Principles of
Educational Stratification, University of California, Riverside
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