Upperclass Education

Rachel Relle

3/9/2005

SOCL100-5

Midterm Paper

Prof. Eric Magnuson

Land Of The Free, Home Of The Upper Class

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door." (Lazarus) This incredible, sentimental homage to the American dream brings many to ask, what a wonderful concept- but is this truly the case? Is America truly a land of opportunity and dreams realized, or is it more so a case of realizing we have been dreaming? In a country where image is made and sold like bread in a bakery, it is no wonder the idea of a land of opportunity still exists- it smells so good. In theory, a land of opportunity and self-motivation would be a real chance at success and pure determination and hard work could get a man wherever he desires to be. However, reality poses quite a different story. Everyday hardworking families struggle to get by on food stamps and minimum wage. If theories of equal opportunity held true, every single parent working multiple jobs for their children would be able to send their kids to good schools and not need to worry about how to pay for a trip to dentist or a doctor's check-up. And while it is easy to point fingers at the poor and say that its all their fault because of the decisions they've made or as luck would have it, a gray area develops when taking a look at the working class and realizing that there are boundaries in place that try to keep people in their positions of powerlessness. One of these boundaries is class through education. Through background, cost, and strategic tokenism, the American society has bordered out the same people it claims to embrace.

First of all, one may point out the arbitrary nature of class. While ideally most people would like to see a country of hard work and payoff, the fact of the matter is that from the moment we are born, before any chance to prove oneself, we are placed into a category that has either great advantages or vast disadvantages. The elite are nearly always born that way, just as those in poverty. Once a child is born into their status, where they live has major impact on how their life will pan out. For most of Middle America suburbs comprised of housing developments and apartment complexes put children into mediocre public schools with minimal funding and an overabundance of students. This initial mediocrity sets the stage for the rest of a students' life. "This separate educational system is important evidence for the distinctiveness of the mentality and lifestyle that exists within the upper class because schools play a large role in transmitting the class structure to their students." (MAP 290) From mediocre grade school to overcrowded mediocre high schools, an attentive student might graduate with a 3.3 GPA and a position as writer on the school paper; little do they know that to get into a decent college while competing against those of private school educations and a great knowledge of college preparatory skills this is not nearly enough to give a student the competitive edge that he or she needs. Aside from the token rags-to-riches cases that colleges like to add to their idea of diversity, the often overlooked are those that have taken the hopeful leap from mediocre, community college dreams to driven and university status aspirations. Unbeknownst to many, this transition is risky for a working class adolescent. "To succeed in the middle-class world means facing great pressures to abandon working-class friends and ways." (Langston 129) This means that if their efforts to up their status fail, they will often be met with resentment and animosity back in their group of peers. From personal experience, I find that when I visit back home there is a great deal of bitterness towards any sort of success that I have achieved in getting out of my blue collar neighborhood and putting on my suit and tie per se. They treat me as an outsider, as if I have secretly fallen into some great deal of money and return home just to parade it around and not share like a greedy child. With this in mind, it is all the more important to realize that striving to move up must be perceived to be met with as few obstacles as possible- otherwise, why risk the abuse of one's peers? Just after an acceptance letter may be received, however, a new barrier comes into play- how to pay for the education.

Like so many other children I know, I have been the product of a single-parent household for the majority of my life. This means that not only is my mother raising four children, she's doing it on her own and once we hit the age of 18, without the minor assistance of child support. This leaves us at a crossroads; we have made it past the educational requirements of the system only to be blocked by monetary liability. Since students such as myself are not considered a token cases for financial assistance due to technicalities laid out, coincidentally, by the upper-class of the government and school officials, we are often offered little or no assistance and come to bare financial responsibility on our own. "The rags-to-riches myth is perpetuated by creating enough visible tokens so that oppressed persons believe they, too, can get ahead." (Langston 127) At this point, most people would lay forth the option of taking out a loan, because if all goes the way it should