5.2 Education as a Social Problem
Kimberly Puttman
The stories that open this chapter illustrate core issues in education. Sociologists define education as as a social institution through which a society’s children are taught basic academic knowledge, learning skills, and cultural norms. On the one hand, the institution is essential. In modern societies, people need the ability to read, write, and think to succeed in their societies. On the other hand, not everyone can attain their educational goals.
As we remember from Chapter 1, a social problem is “a social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or our physical world (Leon-Guerrero 2018:4). In this case, because not everyone has access to the education that they need to succeed, we experience negative consequences for individuals, families, and even global communities.
The story of modern education is a story of a significant social shift. As the video in Figure 5.1 noted, most people across the globe can read and write, something that wasn’t true even a hundred years ago. Although men and boys historically have had more chances to go to school than women and girls, the gender gap in education is closing around the world (Roser and Ortiz-Espinosa 2016). Recently, evidence shows that young women are more likely to attend and complete college in the United States than young men (Pew Research 2021). These positive results in creating equal access to education don’t tell the whole story, though.
Like every social problem, our social identities and social locations, as discussed in Chapter 2, play a significant role in the kind of education available to us. Social identities and social locations also influence how much school we can finish. When sociologists study education, they find that race, gender, geographical location, socioeconomic status, and all the combinations of these locations have a role in predicting a particular group’s likelihood of succeeding in school.
In this section, we will focus on the dimensions of diversity that students like you are most interested in understanding—education for d/Deaf, neurodiverse, and Indigenous students. However, if you’d like to learn more about how race and gender affect education, you may be interested in this chapter: An Overview of Education in the United States.
d/Deaf and Black: Intersectional Justice
When sociologists examine the social problems of education, they look at who is defining the problem or claim. We examine the evidence that supports the claims. We evaluate what activists and community members suggest can be done about it. We review law and policy changes to understand their consequences. Finally, we explore how changes might feed subsequent social action.
When we examine educational access and outcomes for d/Deaf students in general and for Black and d/Deaf students in general, we see conflicting claims, different outcomes, and unexpected consequences of law and policy c