This article discusses whether education promotes social equality or exacerbates inequality, and explains how parental background and home environment affect academic achievement.
A famous Korean proverb, “A dragon rises from a stream,” refers to a child who grows up to achieve great things despite having a difficult life. Despite the various purposes of education, the most important one at the individual level is to maintain or improve social status through education. In other words, social mobility (there are many types of social mobility, including intra-generational and inter-generational mobility, but we are talking about vertical mobility, which is the upward or downward movement of socioeconomic status based on personal factors such as desire, family background, and ability) has become the main purpose of education. However, the social environment is not favorable for those who are pursuing education to achieve this goal. Recent studies have shown that the more educated the father and the higher the family income, the more professional the male caregiver, and the more urban the neighborhood, the higher the student’s academic achievement. In this situation, it is hard to see how education contributes to social equality, but rather promotes social inequality.
Before we talk about this, there are a few things we need to clarify to avoid misunderstandings. First of all, we are not looking at the impact of education on social equality, all things being equal. We’re talking about whether the tool of education can create social equality or increase social inequality for people in different situations.
It also assumes that the social situation is not the same for everyone, but that it varies from person to person, with the current gap between the rich and the poor. In other words, as mentioned above, it is not completely focused on the act of education itself, but rather on social equality by considering education as a tool and applying it to the situation of modern society.
Also, class and social status are not the same thing as status. There are many ways to classify people in modern society, such as occupation and income level, but if we briefly describe the characteristics of the upper, middle, and lower classes, the upper class is characterized by a conservative personality that values family and tradition, a socially prominent family background, and wealth. The middle class is characterized by a stable life, with a forward-looking outlook, a strong emphasis on education, and a strong interest in social upward mobility. Finally, the lower class is characterized by being predominantly working class and often having more present-oriented values.
Finally, this article is not meant to dismiss any particular group of people or to eliminate their possibilities. I’m simply arguing that, given the social context and the tool of education, there is a higher likelihood of greater social inequality. This is not to say that so-called “success” is unattainable, just that it may be more difficult for some than others.
To cut to the chase, let’s first think about what social equality is. In a nutshell, social equality is the value of equitable distribution of resources or status in a way that protects the disadvantaged, giving priority to those who are socially, economically, or politically disadvantaged. There are two main ways to look at social equality, and its opposite, social inequality, from an educational perspective.
The first is the functional perspective, which is an optimistic view of education, in which the upper and lower classes are determined by an individual’s level of achievement, and anyone can move up the social ladder if they work hard enough. It is an optimistic view of education, in which upward mobility in modern society is possible, and education functions to enable people to achieve high social status through fair and just competition. The second is the optimistic view of education: education can reduce or resolve inequalities and allow social status to be determined by merit, i.e., it contributes to social equality.
The other is a conflictual perspective. This is a pessimistic view of education, which believes that education is not solely a function of an individual’s ability and effort, but has a lot to do with family background. This is a view that education is for the ruling class, that the quality of education is different between the upper and lower classes, and that education is a means of maintaining and deepening social inequality. The point here is that in the context of our current society, the conflictual view is more applicable: education is a means of maintaining and deepening social inequality. Let’s take a look at this.
Nowadays, the so-called “cutlery class theory”, such as “gold cutlery” and “dirt cutlery”, is often on people’s lips. These neologisms are believed to have originated from the English idiom “Born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth,” which means “to be born blessed,” a reference to the fact that in old Europe, wealthy families often used silverware, and nannies fed their children with silver spoons as soon as they were born. In short, the idea is that one’s social status is determined by what one inherits rather than what one works for, with one’s class being determined from birth by one’s parents’ wealth. While these words are in vogue, society is becoming more and more divided between the rich and the poor. The rich are passing on their wealth and the poor are passing on their debt.
Of course, compulsory education up to junior high school is designated as compulsory, free lunches are provided, and equality of educational opportunities seems to be realized, but there is a social myth that graduating from college is necessary to get a good job, so the difference is made by going to high school and college and taking classes. In order to get into a better school, parents often choose to have their children receive private education, and this is where the gap occurs. The children of wealthy families are the ones who have the advantage in this regard, as they can send their children to expensive tutors or prestigious academies to prepare for high school and university entrance exams.
For example, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Research’s ‘Social Integration Diagnosis and Countermeasures II’ report found that parental social class level and social capital have a significant impact on academic performance. This effect is even stronger for younger generations.
In short, the better off you are economically, the more and better educational opportunities you have, and the more likely you are to become a more “successful” person. It’s important to note that this isn’t a 100% causal relationship, but it’s highly probable.
Let’s start with the idea that family background and genetics are related. “Having a good family background” can be thought of as having an advantage over your peers, either in economic terms or in terms of personal abilities (such as Nobel Prize-worthy research, or dexterity, which can be correlated with economic things, but we’re going to look at it in a slightly different way). When looking at this genetically, there are two main cases. Either there’s an exceptional person in the family (someone with exceptional genes for wealth or ability, which we’ll refer to as exceptional genes from now on), or there’s a steady stream of descendants who either maintain what they already have (wealth or ability) or make slight improvements.
Consider the first case. If there is a single individual with a great gene, the probability that the next generation will inherit that gene is higher than if there was no individual with a great gene. In fact, even if the gene is not inherited in the middle, the probability that a common gene may have mutated into an exceptional gene due to external environmental factors such as family customs, traditions, behavioral habits, etc. cannot be ignored. In other words, the same genetic variation may occur in descendants who follow the same customs, traditions, behavioral habits, etc. In other words, we’re talking about epigenetics.
In the second case, the genes that are able to maintain or even slightly improve the existing wealth or abilities of an individual are passed on, and the interaction with the environment is such that the genes are adapted to survive in that environment, which is a kind of survival of the fittest. In a way, it’s a story about genes and evolution, that a family that survives in this way will have an increased frequency of genes that lead to advancements in existing wealth or abilities, and the degree of advancement will become higher and higher, so that eventually the descendants of that family will have outstanding abilities to develop existing things.
In this way, having outstanding abilities can be seen as having superiority in receptivity and application of the same education, which can lead to a larger gap when applying the current education reality in Korea.
The above two genetic perspectives do not imply that this will always be the case. It is purely that the probability can be higher. This means that the tool of “education” is unlikely to bridge the gap. In other words, education cannot contribute to social equality.
Before we wrap things up, let me say one last time that I’m not trying to dismiss the poor, disadvantaged, or hopeless. It’s just that, given the current social situation, they have a harder time than others.
The above is a functional view that education contributes to social equality by enabling class mobility, and a conflictual view that education maintains or deepens social inequality because the quality of education varies by class. In the current situation of the rich and poor, the conflictual view is more applicable, and from a genetic perspective, it can be thought that if a person has an excellent family background, their offspring will also have excellent abilities, so there is a high probability of disparity even in the same educational situation. In other words, “education” cannot contribute to social equality, but rather maintains or exacerbates social inequality. After all, the saying “a dragon rises from a brook” is old news, and considering the current situation, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say “a dragon rises from the first class water”?
