Social Class Inequalities In Education

Another significant privilege was my inexperience of racialized social control in my educational capital. Racialize social control is the regulation and repression of a certain race (Rios, 30). To illustrate, my high school was divided into two; the top floor was the magnet program and the rest of the school was for regulars. The schools physical structure depicts the social class within the school system that students are categorized into. Ironically, I was enrolled in the regular school, but because of my outstanding GPA from middle school my classes were a mixed of both magnet and regular. As a result, by being exposed to both magnet and regular classes I witness the inequalities within my schools educational system. The kids in the regular school were known
for being gang affiliated, teen moms, or disruptive students. Thus, many of the classes were dumbed down and the teachers were more focus on a student’s behavior than educating them on the curriculum. In particular, my sophomore English class was filled with so called “delinquents” many of the students would not receive their proper education which caused them to fail the class because of their labelled identity.
Conversely, the classroom environment in the magnet school was far different. For instance, the students in magnet had the same teachers for all four years, thus, receiving special attention and building a social relationship with one another, unlike, the regular classes. Magnet students were praised for having a superior title. Likewise, most magnet students were geared towards attending a four year university after high school, whereas, those in regular were just maneuvered to lower expectations of only receiving a high school diploma rather than higher education. Thus, “[magnet] students [entitled] higher academic expectations place[d] on them, the[refore] appear[ed] to be disciplined less than [regulars]” (Ochoa, 110). In effect, many of the school officers and facilitators did not regulate or punished me as a troublemaker because of my connection with the magnet program. Having classes in magnet granted me luxuries that consisted of all my demands and needs taken seriously and being
fulfilled. On the other hand, many brown and black males in regular received an excessive amount of punishment due to their problematic branded identity. For this reason, I did not experience these inequalities due to being a female and having affiliation with the magnet program, labelled me as one of the higher achieving students. Ultimately, the advantage of not being targeted as a deviant favored my high school success by being conscious of my given academic identity.