Christopher Jencks Democratic Equality Summary

Christopher Jencks is looking at the issue of how teachers bring equal opportunity into the classroom. He believes it can be interpreted in five different ways: democratic equality, moralistic justice, weak humane justice, strong humane justice and utilitarianism. (Jencks, 1988) These different types of equality question how a teacher’s attention should be allocated. Should Ms. Higgins focus more on the poorer students, due to their disadvantage? Or should she put more effort into helping the better students excel? A big question that is focused on, is whether achievement or effort should be awarded in the classroom. The interpretation that I see as most appropriate in the context of a third grade reading class is moralistic justice. This interpretation is best suited for a group of children, compared to some of the other interpretations such as weaker humane
“Democratic equality” focuses on spreading resources and time out equally to all students in the class. Jencks sees the students as all being deserving of the exact same from Ms Higgins. The students background, capabilities or effort are in no way taken into account. Each student deserves the exact same from Ms Higgins. Moralistic justice shall be discussed in the next paragraph. Jencks describes “weak humane justice” as how some students have had more disadvantage in their pasts. This includes having a difficult home life or poor schooling in the past. “Strong humane justice” is the same as weak humane justice but also looks at those who have lost out in relation to genetics. This interpretation works for any student who is behind in class, regardless of their situation. Utilitarianism focuses on achievement based benefits. Jencks looks at the way the students who perform the best are given the most resources and attention. These five interpretations are opposing ways of viewing how to spread resources to a third grade class. (Jenks,