Thursday, January 4, 2018

EDUCATIONISM: THE HIDDEN BIAS WE SOMETIMES IGNORE

      
“A subtle form of discrimination exists towards those who are less educated and it divides society in a number of ways: welcome to educationism”
By: Melissa Hogenboom
Level of difficulty: ***
BEFORE YOU READ
·         Cultural bias in education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ZVlltjM8s
QUESTIONS
1.       Read the story of Lance Fusarelli. The reason why he had a harder time adapting to university life was:
·         The other students he was studying with
·         The way his parents brought him up
·         The working class environment he was brought up in
·         The uneducated people he had been surrounded with
2.       The knock on effect of income inequality is ……………..which basically means that …………are looked down upon.
3.       What seems to be the practical basis for the bias described thus far?
4.       Read the paragraph beginning “Education also appears…” Which of the following phrases would you substitute for the words “in many ways”?
·         In terms of income, health and happiness
·         In terms of general wellbeing and social status
·         In terms of general wellbeing, health and votes
·         In terms of financial status, quality  of employment, general wellbeing and political leaning
5.       What widely held belief was disproved by the experiments carried out by Kuppens and his colleagues?
6.       Education is inherently unfair because people…
7.       The illogical link between poverty and a sense of shame and stigma is due to…
8.       Read the account of Sheehy and Skeffington’s studies. We understand from this section that the widely held prejudice that poor people are more stupid is blatantly wrong because…
9.       The change of focus experienced by poor people and described by Skeffington is due to…
10.   Fabricio Butera’s study reached a damming conclusion. State clearly what it was.
11.   People from working class backgrounds who receive higher education have to make important sacrifices. State clearly what this means.
12.   The purpose of the current system of testing is……….The down side of this system is that…
13.   What does “This” refer to in the phrase “ This appears to reduce social class and gender inequalities..”?
WRITING TASK
Refer back to the text and the videos to write an essay discussing the causes of educationism.
EDUCATIONISM: THE HIDDEN BIAS WE SOMETIMES IGNORE KEY AND TEACHERS’ NOTES
This interesting text focuses on a problem we are all well aware of but perhaps haven’t thought too deeply about. In this respect, it is very interesting. It has also given me the opportunity to write some good inferential questions. The writing task can be extended.
1.       3
2.       Educationism / less educated people
3.       The fact that the education system was invented by the ruling classes, with middle class knowledge and questions appearing in tests
4.       4
5.       People who are more highly educated are inherently more tolerant (We want this answer verbatim)
6.       Cannot be blamed for their low education
7.       Meritocratic ideologies in societies
8.       Those who were told they were low status individuals performed worse on both financial decisions and cognitive tasks.
9.       A diminished sense of control over future life outcomes
10.   The education system is motivated to maintain the status quo
11.   They have to discard the original parts of their identity
12.   Assessment for selection / it reduces motivation and performance in reasoning and decision making
13.   Creating a classroom environment where assessment is part of the learning process


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