Poverty, tracking, and the social construction of failure: International perspectives on tracking
Title:
Poverty, tracking, and the social construction of failure: International perspectives on tracking
Author:
Ansalone, George
Appeared in:
Journal of children and poverty
Paging:
Volume 9 (2003) nr. 1 pages 3-20
Year:
2003-03
Contents:
Poverty in the United States, a report by the US Bureau of the Census, revealed that over 5 million US children under the age of 18 live in conditions of poverty. This statistic represents 20 percent of the total population of this age group and an increase of 2 million since the early 1970s. In the past, Americans have looked to education as a means of breaking the seemingly endless cycle of poverty. But rather than having experienced a facilitated transition to the middle class, less-advantaged children are twice as likely to be held back and often fail to complete their schooling (National Commission on Children, 1991). For over a half century, educational sociologists have struggled to explain the cause of this differential academic achievement, and more recently they have suggested that structures operating within the schools may facilitate success for some students and relegate others to academic failure. One such structure is tracking. Supporters of this practice emphasize its efficiency as well as its ability to enhance self-development. Critics emphasize the class and race bias in track placement, with less-advantaged children more often placed in lower tracks. This paper focuses on tracking and how it may perpetuate the cycle of poverty. It explores the impact of tracking on distribution of learning opportunity and career outcomes. An international perspective allows us to compare student outcomes from two countries that enjoy a considerable amount of social and cultural diversity, America and Great Britain, in the hope that cross-cultural analysis will clarify whether or not this organizational arrangement creates similar learning trajectories for all students or has particularly devastating consequences for the less advantaged. Clearly, the existing research has done little to resolve the debate and, now more than ever, a sense of urgency seems to color this issue in light of the overall perception that American education is failing.
Journal description