Inequalities of race and ethnicity in education

INEQUALITIES OF RACE
AND ETHNICITY IN
EDUCATION
Presented by:
Alejandro Bulan Jr.
Master in Education
Major in Guidance and Counseling

LEARNING
OUTCOMES: By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
 To acquire insights about the inequality of
race and ethnicity on education;
 To acquire knowledge about the outcomes
of these inequalities;
 To share insights how inequalities deeply
affects students on learning effectively;

Introduction:
 In recent years, especially in the international
arena, increasing attention has been paid to
equity issues in education. As several of these
studies suggest, access to education among
various groups in many countries is severely
unequal (Thomas et al., 2001). For a lot of
countries, disparities among geographical areas,
across social classes and between sexes exist.

 On the context of foreigners in terms of inequalities of
race and ethnicity and education, they have come up to the
assumption that educational outcomes for minority children
are much more a function of their unequal access to key
educational resources, including skilled teachers and quality
curriculum, than they are a function of race (Hammond,
2000).
 Schools serving greater number of students of color had
significantly fewer resources than schools serving mostly
white students.
INEQUALITIES OF RACE AND
ETHNICITY IN EDUCATION

 Those students that are from the South also has the
lowest capacities to finance public education. In these
states from the South and mostly minorities, has the
worst educational expenditures or in rural districts
which suffers from fiscal [money, economical] inequity.
In fact, there are a lot of savage differences between
public serving students of color and their suburban
counterpart, which typically spend twice as much per
student for populations with many fewer needs.

 Even within urban school districts, schools with high
concentrations of low income and minority students
receive fewer instructional resources than others.
 And tracking systems exacerbate these inequalities by
segregating many low-income and minority students
within schools.
* de jure segration – racial segregation

 In combination, these policies leave minority students with
fewer and lower quality books, curriculum materials,
laboratories, and computers; significantly larger class sizes;
less qualified and experienced teachers; and less access to
high quality curriculum.
 Many schools serving low-income and minority students do
not even offer the math and science courses needed for
college, and they provide lower-quality teaching in the
classes they do offer.

 In a comparative study of 300 Chicago first graders by
Dreeben found that African-American and white students
who had comparable instruction achieved comparable
levels of reading skills. But he also found out that the
quality of instruction given African-American students was,
on average, much lower than that given white students,
thus creating a racial gap in aggregate achievement at the
end of first grade.

 Education resources do make difference,
especially if funds are used to purchased well-
qualified teachers and to purchase what really
student needs.
 There should be no “special treatment”. Special
programs should be given to those with special
needs.

 Another research from American Psychological Association (2016)
also showed that compared to white students, Black students are:
1. More likely to be suspended or expelled
2. Less likely to be placed in gifted programs;
3. Subject to lower expectations from their teacher;
4. Teachers less likely spot black students who excel academically
(Journal of Public Administration, 2016)
*This may have been arisen due from cultural misunderstanding or
unknowingly “implicit biases” that unknowingly affect the teachers
and administrators thoughts and behaviors.

 On Philippines context, studies have found that there are
substantial differences among the Philippines’ regions and
provinces in terms of income.
 Poverty incidence, poverty gaps and income gaps greatly
vary from region to region and from one province to another
(Monsod and Monsod, 2003).
 Also, there is a widely held view that Luzon gets more
than its fair share as opposed to Visayas and especially
to Mindanao in terms of development policies (Balisacan and
Fuwa, 2003). Given such disparities, there is enough reason
to suspect that there may also be inequality in the
distribution of education across regions and provinces.

 Knowing the extent and nature of education inequality
in the Philippines and how it has fared over time is of
great interest because an unequal distribution of
education opportunities represents large welfare losses
for society.
 As the Philippine Human Development Report (2000)
points out, “insufficient or poor education deprives a
person of the means of doing and becoming.” While
education increases productivity and creativity, unequal
access to schooling opportunities may create greater
inequities (Alonzo, 1995).

 Without equal access to education, those who are unable to
improve their productivity and skills will be unfit for better-
paying jobs and will be more likely to be economically
disadvantaged.
 Thus, areas where most people have low educational
attainment are likely to be more economically distressed.
EFFECT TO THE COUNTRY:

 As based from the study
made by Philippine Institute
for Development Studies
(2018), disparities in terms
of years of schooling and
literacy appear to be
narrowing between 2000
and 2010, as shown by
various inequality measures.
 There are higher within-
group inequalities exist
among Muslim ethnic
groups while the non-
Muslim, non-IPs are
generally better-off in terms
of years of schooling and
literacy.

 Their conducted study
also found that Filipinos
had higher access to and
more equitable
distribution of primary
education services, while
lower and less equal
access in terms of
secondary education
services.

 But as of the now, the Philippine government had been
exerting efforts to improve access of ethnic groups to
education (e.g., IP Education of the Department of
Education; IP component of the Modified Conditional Cash
Transfer, or CCT, program of the Department of Social
Welfare and Development).a

 However, today, the prolonged ban on face to face
learning during the pandemic could worsen the learning
gap in the Philippines, highlighting the need to reform the
educational system, according to an article released by the
Business World (2020).
 According to Teach for the Philippines (TFP) (2021), this
pandemic has taken a toll on past efforts and threatens to
generate insurmountable inequities. The students who
were already disadvantaged before the COVID-19 are now
even more crucially and cruelly impacted.

 As TFP said, without the immediate and long last action, the
most undeserved children will continually fall further behind,
compounded by other pre-existing challenges such as
poverty, gender, disability, geography and ethnicity.
 With this, we can say that it is an another eye wide opening
scenario and sad reality that despite teachers’ best efforts,
student’s do not have equal access to quality education.

What do you think should
our government do to
address inequalities on race
and ethnicity on education
especially now during the
pandemic?

THE CHANGING
FAMILY, SOCIETY
AND EDUCATION

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this report, you will be able to:
• Explain how technology, social institutions, population, and the
environment can bring about social change.
• Identify the trends and changes on a family.
• Discuss the current changes on education and impact on
teachers and learners.

The world is changing, and changing fast as we can imagine.
Technology, education, health, eating habits, dress – there is hardly
anything in life that is not changing, some challenges we like, while
others create fear and anxiety. On these changes – some others can’t
keep track and some others just chose to go along with it because
like what we always hear – “life goes on”.

TRENDS ON FERTILITY AND
FAMILY FORMATION
Fertility behaviour can be constrained for different reasons:
1.The perceived inability to match work and care commitments
because of Inflexible labour markets and/or the lack of public
support
2. The financial costs of raising children;
3. The difficulty for prospective parents in finding affordable
housing to establish a family of their own.

FAMILY FORMATION
- Demographic trends involve low and/or declining fertility
rates and increasing life expectancy;
- The resultant ageing populations have led to a decline in
the number of women of childbearing ages, and curtailed
growth of the potential labour force;

FAMILY FORMATION
- In some countries there has a sharp decline of the working-
age population due to increase number of ageing population,
as seen in the Russian Federation (OECD, 2011a).
- The growing number of retirees will lead to higher public
(and private) spending on pensions and longterm care
supports for the retired population (OECD, 2010b and 2011b).

FAMILY FORMATION
- Informal support networks will come under increasing
pressure as the declining number of children will lead to
a reduction of future informal carers for the elderly
population

TREND ON POSTPONEMENT OF
FAMILY FORMATION
-Postponement of childbearing is a major reason for the
decline in fertility rates.
- Greater access to contraceptives has given more adults
control over the timing and occurrence of births.
- And as more men and women first want to establish
themselves in the labour and housing markets, many
adults have chosen to postpone having children.

TREND ON POSTPONEMENT OF
FAMILY FORMATION
 Postponement of first childbirth generally leads to a
narrower age-interval in which women have their
children and fewer children overall. The proportion of
large families has fallen, while the number of children
growing up without siblings has risen

CHILDLESSNESS
 In addition to those women who cannot conceive or
those women who have decided not to have any
children, the upper limit to the childbearing years, set
by the so-called biological clock, makes it difficult for
women who postpone having children to give birth at
later ages.

CHILDLESSNESS
 The proportion of women who remain childless has
increased. Inevitably, the increase in the
childlessness rate, along with the drop in the fertility
rate, has led to an increase in the proportion of
women living in households without children

CHILDLESSNESS
 The household childlessness rate is strongly linked
to the education level of women.
 The difference also suggests there is ongoing
tension between employment and childbearing.

TRENDS OR CHANGES IN
HOUSEHOLD
 Children in households
- Changing family structures, lower fertility rates and
ageing populations have led to a growing share of
households without children.

HOUSEHOLD
 Partnership patterns
- Both falling marriage rates and increasing divorce rates
have contributed to the increase in sole-parent families as
well as “reconstituted families”.
- The decline in the marriage rate has been accompanied by
an increase in the average age [32 y/o] at which first
marriages occur

HOUSEHOLD
 Partnership patterns
- Cohabitation is increasing, and because there are more
people cohabiting before marriage, people are older
when they marry.

HOUSEHOLD
 Children and parental partnership patterns
- Many people now get married after having children or
have children without getting married This has resulted
in a sharp increase in the number of children being born
outside marriage.
• Children today are also more likely to end up with
divorced parents

HOUSEHOLD
 Work life and family life
- Changing patterns of female labour market
participation;
- Gender differences in paid and unpaid work remain;

HOUSEHOLD
 Parents in work
- The growth in the proportion of women in the labour force
is strongly related to the growing numbers of mothers re-
entering the labour force or remaining in employment
- Virtually all employed mothers take a short break from
paid work just before birth and during the first few months
after a child’s birth

HOUSEHOLD
 Parents in work
- In many countries maternal employment rates rebound when
children are three to five years of age, and maternal
employment rates often increase further when children enter
primary school around the age of six
- The increase in female and maternal employment has led to
an increase in the share of couple families where both adults
are in paid employment. In most countries the male
breadwinner household has now been replaced by dual-earner
couples: on average nearly 60% of couples are now dual-earner
families

HOUSEHOLD
 Joblessness and poverty among households
-The economic vulnerability of families is linked to
parents’ incapacity to reconcile employment and
parenthood. The most disadvantaged families with
children are those where no adults are in paid
employment

HOUSEHOLD
 Joblessness and poverty among households
- Joblessness is generally much higher for soleparent families
than for couples with children, and the growth in the
incidence of soleparent families has been a significant
contributor to trends in family joblessness.
- Sole-parent families with a working adult generally have
higher poverty rates two-parent households where only one
parent is employed,

Collective behavior and social movements are just two
of the forces driving social change, which is the change
in society created through social movements as well as
external factors like the technology, social institutions,
population, environment and modernization.

CAUSES OF SOCIAL CHANGE
 Technology
- Some would say that improving technology has made
our lives easier. Imagine what your day would be like
without the Internet, the automobile, or electricity.
- Technology is a driving force behind globalization,
while the other forces of social change (social
institutions, population, environment) play
comparatively minor roles.
- - Drawback – digital divide

 Social Institutions
- Each change in a single social institution leads to changes in
all social institutions. For example, the industrialization of
society meant that there was no longer a need for large
families to produce enough manual labor to run a farm.
- Further, new job opportunities were in close proximity to
urban centers where living space was at a premium. The
result is that the average family size shrunk significantly.

 Social Institutions
This same shift toward industrial corporate entities also
changed the way we view government involvement in the
private sector, created the global economy, provided new
political platforms, and even spurred new religions and
new forms of religious worship like Scientology.

 Population
- Population composition is changing at every level of
society. Some families delay childbirth while others
start bringing children into their folds early. Population
changes can be due to random external forces, like an
epidemic, or shifts in other social institutions, as
described above.
- Family planning

 The Environment
- As human populations move into more vulnerable
areas, we see an increase in the number of people
affected by natural disasters, and we see that human
interaction with the environment increases the impact of
those disasters.

 The Environment
- Dozens of species are going extinct every day, a number
1,000 times to 10,000 times the normal “background rate”
and the highest rate since the dinosaurs disappeared 65
million years ago.
- The Center for Biological Diversity states that this
extinction crisis, unlike previous ones caused by natural
disasters, is “caused almost entirely by us” (Center for
Biological Diversity, n.d.).
- The growth of the human population, currently over
seven billion and expected to rise to nine or ten billion by
2050, perfectly correlates with the rising extinction rate of
life on earth.

 Modernization
- Modernization describes the processes that increase the
amount of specialization and differentiation of structure
in societies resulting in the move from an undeveloped
society to developed, technologically driven society (Irwin
1975).

THE CHANGING EDUCATION
 Learning is becoming more virtual
 Educators are now leveraging technology to create a
different role for themselves in their classrooms. Instead
of using class time to spoon-feed information,
technology is helping them use their time with students
to advance problem-solving, communication and
collaboration—exactly the type of higher-order skills
that leading education specialists say should be the
goals of education for today’s world

 Among the fastest-growing and irreversible trends at
all levels of education: increasing use of laptops,
tablets and other mobile devices.
 Teachers are using technology to replace old models
of standardized, rote learning and creating more
personalized, self-directed experiences for their
students.

 Within all levels of education, learning is now
occurring both remotely and onsite through blended
learning programs that combine online and face-to-
face interaction.

REFERENCES:
https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/47701118.pdf
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_social-problems-continuity-and-change/s13-the-changing-
family.html
Lumen. 2021. “Social Movements and Social Change”.
(https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/social
change/?fbclid=IwAR236R69HB2f6emYY2AlAMSKVvkZc7Nz6viWPd2o9ullkZk9tr42sGdapNw)
Center for Biological Diversity. 2014. “The Extinction Crisis. Retrieved December 18, 2014
(http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_c
risis/).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). n.d. “Technology and Youth: Protecting your
Children from Electronic Aggression: Tip Sheet.” Retrieved December 18, 2014
(http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ea-tipsheet-a.pdf).
Freidman, Thomas. 2005. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century. New York, NY:
Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.
Irwin, Patrick. 1975. “An Operational Definition of Societal Modernization.” Economic
Development and Cultural Change 23:595–613.
https://www.steelcase.com/research/articles/topics/technology/how-technology-is-changing-
education/
https://necsi.edu/changes-in-the-teaching-and-learning-process-in-a-complex-education-
system

1. Do you think that
modernization is good or bad?
Explain, using examples.
2.Based from your own
observation, what are the
significant changes have
occurred on education?

Inequalities of race and ethnicity in education

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