Education and Social Advancement

The relationship between access to a quality education and social advancement can be very different depending on the society. This relationship may depend on the ethnic group and socio-economic status of the group, also. Three studies (Lukas, 1986; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988; Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 1991) explore the relationship between access to quality education and social advancement. Each study uses a different program model and approach to investigate that relationship.

The first study (1986), contained in the book, Common Ground, by Lukas, documented the impact of desegregation in the Boston Schools by school busing on the lives of three families. The second study (1991) was a program called "A Better Chance." The ABC program involved 16 independent secondary schools with assistance from Dartmouth College, the Merrill Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The progam was founded in 1963 in response to the civil rights movement. The third study (1988) was completed by two researchers from Kean College in Union, New Jersey, who conducted an ethnographic study of four inner-city families living on Shay Avenue. This study focused on black children living in urban poverty who were perceived by their parents to be successfully learning to read and write.

Common Ground is the author's account of the Boston school desegregation crisis from 1968 to 1976. The book opens with the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, and the riots that fo

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to low-income junior high schools throughout the East, Midwest and South to introduce the program and screen candidates. They received referrals from community resource people, church leaders, and community leaders to help them identify promising students. Potential students were tested and asked to fill out a written application. If accepted, students were matched with participating prep schools. The prep schools made the final decision on whether to accept the students ABC recommended. If accepted, the students attended an 8-week summer orientation program before going to the prep school. The summer orientation program was designed to address any social or academic deficiencies the students might have (Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 1991, p. 3). More than 5,000 students completed the program over a 20-year period. This program examined how young blacks from economically and educationally impoverished backgrounds, who entered the elite world of the upper-class prep schools, survived. The prep school world was permeated by overt and covert, blatant and subtle forms of discrimination. Yet, in spite of their families' poverty and the discrimination they faced, the minority students competed successfully with heirs in the most p

Category: Psychology - E