'The Book ' Blog 30

Chapter ten continued ...

The authors go onto say that the egalitarian school reform must be political. Its aim must be to undermine the capacity of the system to perpetuate inequality. This entails three objectives:

1. Educational reforms must make it clear that equality is not a question of sub cultural values, biological or just an economic issue. It is a political issue and equality in society can only be solved through political struggle.

2. The existing myths that inequality appears to be beneficial or unavoidable must be dispelled.

3. There must be unification within diverse groups and there must be an attempt to combat the segmentation of workers of different social circumstance.

What the authors are saying here does make sense, but in today’s political climate, particularly in Alberta, I think that to essentially change the government will not happen in my life time or my children’s life time. The way that education is looked as in Alberta seems to some what mirror part of what the authors have been proposing in this book. That education is a tool that is used to prepare our children for the work force, and the values that the workforce is typically comprised of – in Alberta is based on our bread and butter. By this I mean big business and oil.

The rest of this section looks at open enrollment in higher education in regards to the three objectives stated above.

1. The authors feel that open enrollment could meet the first objective. If youth of minority and blue collar workers could attend higher education, thus gaining the educational credentials that were used by the individuals as a legitimization of the hierarchy of labour, the reasoning behind organizing this division of labour along class and race lines would be drastically undermined. The continued exploitation of labour and social oppression of minorities would be then seen as rooted in the political power of elites rather than a cultural or biological issue, or a skill deficiency on the part of the workers themselves. Yet it is interesting to note that along with more open admissions comes a stronger internal tracking system, which symbolizes the new education stratification.

2. Open enrollment has laid to rest the idea that only a select few can benefit from higher education, yet some of these minorities have been faced with a hostile faculty.

3. Finally, the authors state that open enrollment can play a significant role in unifying workers. Higher education breaks down can break down artificial cultural distinctions among working people. This does come with a cautionary tale: the political arena must be on board with the funding necessary to facilitate this change in the school system.