Question

What is the achievement gap? Compare and contrast the following sociological explanations for this gap: parental socioeconomic status explanations, tracking explanations, the oppositional cultural thesis, social and cultural capital explanations, and hidden curriculum explanations. Which of these explanations do you find the most persuasive? Why?

Answer 1

ACHIEVEMENT GAPS

In education, achievement gap refers to the differences in the academic performances between the groups of students. These achievement gaps can be found in the student's grades, test scores, dropout rates and college or course completion rates. Achievement gaps can arise between different groups such as between students of different socioeconomic status, cultures, gender, students who have learning disabilities or those who does not have proficiency in English language. The federal education accountability focused on eliminating these achievement gaps when an act called the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" was issued. In order to reduce these gaps, the reason behind them must be identified. There are a number of explanation that describes the causes of achievement gaps which includes,

* Parental socioeconomic status

According to this explanation, the differences in the academic achievement occurs between the groups of students belonging to higher socioeconomic status and those belonging to the low socioeconomic status. In many societies the students in the low socioeconomic status receive lesser learning experiences in school or out of school when compare to the students who belong to the higher socioeconomic status. Researches have also identified that, in majority of the countries the achievement gaps increased for each of the three socioeconomic status groups (low, middle and high).

* Tracking

Tracking is a process by which students are assigned in to different classes by dividing them in to categories. In most of the cases, the students are divided in to two group, the one is called a high track where the students of high socioeconomic students (mostly white Americans) belong and the other one called a low track where the students of low socioeconomic status (mostly black African American) belong. The developer of this phenomenon suggests that it will help to reduces the differences between the student groups and will help them to learn better.

* Oppositional cultures theory

According to this explanation, the achievement gap is caused between the groups of white American students and black African-American students. This is because initially the Americans are viewed as the dominant culture whereas the Africans were brought to America as slaves and were viewed as minorities. Due to this, there is a difference in the cultural attitudes between these two group in the society as well as in education.

* Social and Cultural capital

Social and cultural capital refers to people's behaviors, accumulated knowledge or skills that they use to represent their social status and their cultural competence. According to this view, the social and cultural capital influences the accessibility that a person would get to attain knowledge leading to achievement gaps between the students who have different social and cultural capital.

* Hidden curriculum

In an educational setting, a hidden curriculum refers to the hidden expectations, social pressure, beliefs, values, behaviors or procedures that would contribute to achievement gap. These are not formally communicated or explicitly written but are hidden assumptions and may either positively or negatively influence the student's learning environment.

On analyzing all these explanations, they somehow refer to a common idea such as, low socioeconomic status is represented in both parental socioeconomic explanation and tracking explanation. Whereas the cultural differences is represented in tracking explanation, oppositional culture theory and social and cultural capital explanation. So, it could be concluded that the socioeconomic status and the cultural differences are identified to be the most important factors that influences the achievement gap in students.