Teachers' challenges and the promise of equitable classrooms: why students who need more get less
Date
2018-09-28
Authors
Wood, Suzanne
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Abstract
The education of youth in the United States has become a highly contested subject over the past decades. This thesis argues that one of the earliest institutions American citizens encounter – the public school system – organizes the work of many teachers in ways that reproduce inequality of opportunity for students. Drawing on qualitative data from fourteen in-depth interviews with experienced elementary school teachers in Los Angeles, this thesis illustrates how teachers experience and navigate specific structural barriers to the pursuit of equity in the classroom. Applying social reproductive theory to teacher interviews, this research discovered how, despite rhetorical commitment to equality of opportunity in education student outcomes continue to vary according to the socioeconomic status of the student population. This will help us understand systemic barriers built into the structure of the education system. These barriers operate as obstacles that teachers and students must navigate, in order to achieve success. This thesis argues that teachers should begivenmore flexibility to assess the needs of each specific class and adapt their curriculum and strategies to meet those needs. Unfortunately, in the current test-score driven system, schools with the lowest performing students are the ones whose administrations are under the most pressure to improve the low scores rather than fix the problems associated with low scores. As such, the teachers that need this flexibility the most, are the ones whose administrations keep them on the tightest rein, further reducing their ability to utilize their knowledge and implement effective strategies in the classroom. The result is the self-perpetuating cycle of inequality reproduction that we can see across North America today.
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Sociology of Education, Inequality in Education, Class Based Inequality, Education, Teacher Accountability, Teacher Attonomy, Teacher Challenges, Addministrative Constraints when teaching, Education Institutions, Social Mobility, Education for Social Mobility, socioeconomic status, equal opportunity, cycles of inequality