I was tidying my house today and found some awards I had from college for "achieving from a disadvantaged background" and "overcoming adversity in education" and such the like amongst cat litter, torn up newspapers and other junk.

I remember feeling quite patronized at the time, but this ties in with my thinking the entire education system was flawed.

My personal opinion is that society nowhere near respects how hard some have had to work to get any qualifications and that said people should be respected. I would even go as far to say that children of alcoholics and children with family in jail should be given more marks in exams. I live in one of the most disadvantaged cities in Europe and think it is ludicrous to suggest that a kid growing up here has the same opportunity as one growing up in Oxford etc.

What is everyone else's opinion of encouraging people from bad backgrounds and positive discrimination slash affirmative action?

I don't think many people will take an interest unless they've personally experienced depravity growing up, in the context of a developed country. Otherwise they just don't have the disposition to empathise.

I also live in a stale and deprived area of the UK and virtually most of my age group living in the same town aren't gaining adequate qualifications to move on to university. They're probably ****ed, basically. Socioeconomic issues may seem trivial in day to day living, but it forces parents and children to operate on completely different level of thinking. They can't afford the luxury of intellectual curiosity most hours of the day, and for those who do, I think it takes an incredible amount of luck and consolation from friends who are stuggling in the same position. It's a shame, but discussion can only do so much. We'll need some of that affirmative action.

Quote:I would even go as far to say that children of alcoholics and children with family in jail should be given more marks in exams.

IMO, the problem with education isn't as big a problem than the environment these kids live in. The internet's becoming a common eucatastrophe for people like me. Teachers need to understand what's preventing these kids from finding the motive to work hard and act against more short-term gratifications. Still, kids need a childhood, and a preoccupation with ones future is just as far from real living than completely living in the moment. Not to say there's no time or place for both, but who can inspire kids to adopt this kind of mature mindset and give it to them straight when it comes to working life? I get the impression that those who "overcome adversity in education" did so by luck. That's the fundamental factor.

I don't mind a bit of affirmative action, but if you want those test scores to actually mean anything you can't start tampering with them based on external factors.

I know where I'm from (QLD, Australia) the scores you need to enter university programs are lowered for people from disadvantaged backgrounds though.. There's also monthly payments given to students that are disadvantaged, and various scholarships.
(well, there used to be, don't know how it is now with the current government who are axing funding to everything)

Letting people pass tests more easily won't benefit them much. If they can't get an A at A level biology normally, they're not going to do that well in medical school.

I don't see the need for affirmative action based on clumsy perceptions on which groups are disadvantaged. Just provide (compulsory) extra classes for anyone lagging behind/not doing their homework. Link it to some reward system so people actually attend.

There is a definite problem with people from disadvantaged backgrounds when they enter school, and we need to get away from the stigma associated with that and stop pretending that if everyone just works hard they can succeed. I don't think artificially increasing their test scores is the way to do that, though.

I remember hearing a report on the radio a while back that 1st-grade teachers see kids from bad backgrounds entering school not only unable to read, but not even knowing what a book is. That is, they don't know what is the front cover, where you're supposed to start reading, that the symbols inside represent language, etc. And yet people still want to say that if everyone just works hard it doesn't matter what your background is.

i think some form of affirmative action is absolutely necessary if you want to see any social mobility.

The problem is that it's not enough on it's own to really change things, and governments tend to use it as a way of avoiding dealing with the real issues of poverty and disadvantaged areas, education, opportunities, and the income inequality which causes some of these problems.

Even just coming from a normal comprehensive / work background, the difference between me and many of the others at university felt pretty huge to me. I felt like you could easily pick out the comprehensive school students on the course. It's not that the private school people were stuck up or anything, but the difference in academic background, general confidence, articulateness, social ability, and understanding the more social and pragmatic aspects of what you have to do to get a job after university were pretty huge. So even where you have affirmative action, if that's all you have, you often find those same students falling behind again, and not because of lack of ability.

@dizmox: affirmative action isn't for people who are lazy and not doing their homework. I don't think you've grasped the concept at all. Good luck getting A's in biology when, for example, your dad is in prison and your mum is working full time to support you and your brothers and sisters and you have to take care of them because there's nobody else to. Or when your parents moved here when you were small, and you didn't understand much for your first few years in school because you were still learning basic English and consequently lagged behind ever since. Or your family were themselves never highly educated and, like Yudantaiteki said, failed to introduce you to what a book was. Or your parents were mentally ill, or you were in and out of the care of social services your whole childhood, and so on and so on.
Being in the right environment to study can make a big difference, but yeah, test scores alone aren't going to be the greatest help.

thanks for the comments everybody. As somebody who has been on the receiving end of these awards I thought the following "idiots are getting better marks than me for stuff They took photos of in holiday when I am reading books on holiday... they are taking the piss out of me."

In short I think there is much wrong with the education system.

I agree that we "stop pretending that if everyone just works hard they can succeed." Education is a blatantly unfair system and one that needs to be changed.

One of the most effective ways to make positive discrimination unnecessary (or at least, less necessary) would be to distribute funding to schools so that those in challenging, deprived areas get more funding, not less. Finland, for example, gives more funding and more positions for teachers, counsellors, etc to schools in deprived areas.

Also, make sure that private schools run as charities offer need-blind admission (i.e. if you get in, you pay as much as you can, but you can't let people in only because they can pay), and take away their tax-free status otherwise. Charity means "an organization to provide help and raise money for those in need", not "non-profit for benefit the children of upper classes."

Unfortunately, in much of the UK it's the other way around. Private schools have the most money to spend per pupil. In the US, state schools are funded by districts, which means the already-richest districts can hire the best teachers...

My thoughts are double edged. My background is very complicated but there have been times where I would be considered disadvantaged. In those times I have been a depressed wreck that wasted my life away for several years, but when I came out of it I was motivated to make something of myself and achieved more than I ever had before. That is still an ongoing process now.

People should be encouraged on their present state of mind, primarily motivation as that is the driver to success in anything.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic about missing the five-year window. This paper http://www.public.asu.edu/~tschoell/pape...lychc3.pdf finds that immigrants from war-torn Indochina do equally well regardless of whether they arrived at birth or at age five, conditional on being observationally similar on other variables. And we're talking serious hardship here; the data includes people whose parents went through the Khmer Rouge camps.

I'm a big fan of tracking school data and outcomes etc, but sadly the education system can't compensate particularly well for disadvantages that are due to parenting (or lack thereof) and the social environment in general, neither by teaching nor by giving special consideration to the background of disadvantaged people. But it should certainly not make things worse by putting stones in the way of already-disadvantaged kids, which the systems in the UK and the US are wont to do.

Those who have achieved success and overcome 'bad' obstacles should be given some points on standardized tests to provide them with a more equal opportunity for entrance into a university or job. The affirmative action system in the U.S. is based on a different logic than HonyakuJoshua suggests. The U.S. system simply gives points or preference to those based on race. A system just based on race, is flawed in many respects, especially when someone from a wealthy background may gain preference for a job over someone who was born in poverty, for instance.

IceCream Wrote:@dizmox: affirmative action isn't for people who are lazy and not doing their homework. I don't think you've grasped the concept at all.

I have grasped the concept. It's providing extra help to certain groups which are perceived to require more help, regardless of the fact whether the individual in question actually does. ANYONE who is struggling with school needs extra support, the reasons are irrelevant. A kid getting poor grades from a normal family shouldn't get any less support than one from a "deprived" family.

Quote:Good luck getting A's in biology when[...]

I don't understand what you're arguing against. Do you want to make it easier for certain groups of people to enter very challenging courses of higher education, just to find out that they can't keep up there either? Similarly, I'd argue that the bare minimum of reading, writing and mathematical ability aren't just demanded out of whim by most employers.

For any tests before GCSE level, they're just measures of how pupils are getting along, so would become meaningless and lose their entire purpose if you weighted grades.

yudantaiteki Wrote:There is a definite problem with people from disadvantaged backgrounds when they enter school, and we need to get away from the stigma associated with that and stop pretending that if everyone just works hard they can succeed.

Well, isn't that true, unless they have a learning disability?

The problem is that they haven't been brought up in an environment that encourages studying much/in the right manner, surely. This is where the education system needs to step in.

dizmox Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:@dizmox: affirmative action isn't for people who are lazy and not doing their homework. I don't think you've grasped the concept at all.

I have grasped the concept. It's providing extra help to certain groups which are perceived to require more help, regardless of the fact whether the individual in question actually does. ANYONE who is struggling with school needs extra support, the reasons are irrelevant. A kid getting poor grades from a normal family shouldn't get any less support than one from a "deprived" family.

You haven't grasped the concept. Affirmative action isn't about people struggling with school. It's not about bringing those kids with E's up to A's. It's about bringing those kids with E's up to D's, and the kids with B's up to A's, to discount some of the differences they've had in upbringing and education.

Someone attending private school who coasts through and gets A's won't have had to work anywhere near as hard as someone from a deprived background does to get those same A's, teaching themselves, or putting in extra hours along with their jobs and other responsibilities. The point is to make the system fairer. If a private school student only has to work as hard to get an A as a comprehensive student has to work to get a C, they are essentially equivalent.

Quote:

Quote:Good luck getting A's in biology when[...]

Do you want to let them coast through medical school as well? Eventually people have to enter the real world and school needs to prepare them for that.

On the contrary, it is the advantaged kids who coast through life, getting every opportunity. Do you think that getting a B at A level defines what you are capable of acheiving?? There should definitely be extra help available at university level too if students from disadvantaged backgrounds feel like they are falling behind.

Quote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:There is a definite problem with people from disadvantaged backgrounds when they enter school, and we need to get away from the stigma associated with that and stop pretending that if everyone just works hard they can succeed.

Well, isn't that true, unless they have a learning disability?

Even if this was true, i don't see how it is you think it's fair that one person should have to work 10 times as hard as another just to achieve the same thing.

I don't know why you keep saying I haven't grasped the concept... I understand it but don't agree with it. I agree with helping struggling kids equally regardless of their backgrounds.

It's just utopian fantasy to suggest that an A private school student is "equivalent" to a C comprehensive school student. The actual skills one possesses aren't completely irrelevant. School isn't just a filter for employers to see who "worked hard".

Hyperborea Wrote:as my parents come from perhaps the most dangerous city in the UK and I still have plenty of family there..

Whereabouts?Glasgow? I agree with your points about catching them young.

I think snobbishness is alive and well in the UK. The attitudes of some of the people i am friends with on facebook disgusts me but in their circles they can get away with it...


One of the reasons i am for affirmative action IN EDUCATION is because of the great unfairness in education. Education is not like a chess game where there is no outside help, middle - upper class students have massive advantages over people from deprived backgrounds and it pains me when this is not recognized.

dizmox Wrote:I don't know why you keep saying I haven't grasped the concept... I understand it but don't agree with it. I agree with helping struggling kids equally regardless of their backgrounds.

I explained why you hadn't grasped the concept in the first paragraph of my last post. Affirmative action isn't about individually helping those struggling with their homework, it's about correcting for some of the differences in the quality of education people receive, and understanding that achieving the same things from different backgrounds isn't necessarily the same thing. The point is to help social mobility.

Of course, this doesn't preclude helping people who are struggling with their work, regardless of their background. That is a teacher's job, no? However, again, the reality of the situation is, those kids who are struggling in a private school are going to be receiving a lot more help and attention than those from a deprived area.

dizmox Wrote:It's just utopian fantasy to suggest that an A private school student is "equivalent" to a C comprehensive school student. The actual skills one possesses aren't completely irrelevant. School isn't just a filter for employers to see who "worked hard".

Right, it's not completely irrelevent. But nobody's suggested sending someone who can't read a book to Oxford. The actual differences between an A and a B at A level are fairly minor, and by the time you've finished a degree are pretty irrelevent. Supposing someone from a deprived area has worked goddamn hard to get those B's, i don't see any good reason to think they are somehow incapable of learning at the same level as those who get A's from a private school.

IceCream Wrote:Affirmative action isn't about individually helping those struggling with their homework, it's about correcting for some of the differences in the quality of education people receive, and understanding that achieving the same things from different backgrounds isn't necessarily the same thing. The point is to help social mobility.

I keep saying I understand that... helping those struggling is what I agree with, not what I think affirmative action is.

the two aren't mutually exclusive though, and are done for different purposes.

Chinese children from poor backgrounds in Canada and America seem to do quite well, outperforming "privileged" white children, even.

AA in America is just a pathetic attempt at trying to make the less skilled feel better, and the end result is that jobs (and college admissions) are given to these less skilled people instead of people more qualified for the job (or college). The vast majority of AA recipients in America are not "less intelligent" simply because they come from a poor background, THEY JUST ARE! The environment as a factor of intelligence for 18-year-olds and adults is only about 20 percent, the rest is completely genetic (of course there are exceptions; the brain is still a mystery to us). Not everyone is born equally intelligent; some are born smarter and some dumber. Harsh reality, but nature was never fair or "equal." The number of children that truly do worse off than their peers because, for example, their parents cannot afford books and the like is minuscule in comparison, and should be dealt with differently, not with AA.

Release the Kraken on me!

toshiromiballza Wrote:The vast majority of AA recipients in America are not "less intelligent" simply because they come from a poor background, THEY JUST ARE!

I don't think anyone disagrees with that, but you would have to be incredibly naive to think that intelligence is the only (or even the major) factor in life success. Your social class at birth, the school you go to, and your home environment are a much bigger factor.

I'm not necessarily in favor of AA, but I have *never* heard anyone make the argument that AA is needed because people from poorer backgrounds are less intelligent. In fact, that's really the *opposite* of the intent of AA, which says that you need AA to get the people who are just as intelligent but face discrimination because of race or class background.

AA isn't even really relevant to this discussion because AA isn't supposed to be about making up huge gaps, but (in theory) is supposed to say that if you have a big pool of nearly equal candidates, you should not just take all the whites. Maybe that's not how it always comes out in practice, but I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that you should use AA to take a vastly underqualified minority in favor of a very qualified white person.

I think most people would say that to improve the lot of the poorer class you need things like better funded schools, kindergarten programs, crime reduction, etc. not AA. Unfortunately a significant portion of the population still clings to this obviously false idea that it's just about hard work, and that if you don't succeed, it's purely your fault.

toshiromiballza Wrote:Chinese children from poor backgrounds in Canada and America seem to do quite well, outperforming "privileged" white children, even.

Chinese children from poor backgrounds in Canada and America also do better than Chinese children from rich backgrounds, all else equal.

"Poor" isn't the same as "disadvantaged." I come from a family that lost all material possessions in WWII (twice, actually, thanks to the Nazis and the Soviets). But my grandparents and parents valued education more than anything else almost, we had books at home, and my Mom checked that I was doing my homework. They may have been poor, but I was privileged. I'm pretty sure that's true for many immigrant children, and especially so among Chinese immigrants whose parents are obsessed about their children's education. Or think of the Korean greengrocer where the grandparents in their eighties still pack the vegetables onto the shelves so that the grandchild can go to university.

Should people from disadvantaged backgrounds be given a leg up? Yes, though not by giving extra points but by giving extra support.

By the way, much of our education system is not designed to teach people. It's designed to identify and select people with innate ability and who were lucky in the draw of parents and upbringing, and channel them towards high-paying careers.

Well, I would say that being from a poor background still makes you disadvantaged -- your grandparents (and parents) were able to overcome the disadvantage, but they still would have been in a better position if they started out rich.

I think we all overestimate just how little of a disadvantage in upbringing can turn a bright well motivated person into an apathetic coaster... content to have a part-time job and live off government benefits.

there are plenty of people who had substance abusing parents/physically abusive parents etc... but simply having a single parent who is tired at the end of the day and does not READ TO THEIR CHILD is enough. literally that is enough.

when you have successive generations of entrenched poverty, people lose these essential parenting skills that inevitably lead to their children's failure - lack of internal motivation towards self-actualization. this lost skill is the root of the permanent underclass.

that in turn leads to unempathetic people with no experience of how difficult it is for the impoverished to say callous things like Dizmox... essentially that if you took all the money away and distributed it equally, all the rich people would be rich again in 10 years because they're genetically smarter.

they know how to / have more time to raise their children is really the main difference. AA can't deal with that, and what it does do comes off as blatantly unfair if you are unempathetic... which are the actual and perceived problems of AA.

dizmox Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:There is a definite problem with people from disadvantaged backgrounds when they enter school, and we need to get away from the stigma associated with that and stop pretending that if everyone just works hard they can succeed.

Well, isn't that true, unless they have a learning disability?

It depends somewhat on your definition of "succeed", but absolutely not. It's the great American conservative/Republican fantasy, and the rich like to parrot it to avoid accepting the truth of their own massive advantages.

Of course some people from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds will succeed. But the odds are stacked against them. Hard work can only fight so much against crushing poverty, failing school systems, dangerous living conditions, racism/classism, and other factors.

AA is really a red herring here -- as I said earlier, AA was never intended to deal with these deep-seated issues, and even people in favor of AA wouldn't claim that it does. AA was a patch to deal with situations where equally qualified people are being turned away from jobs or schools because they're not white. (Also, it's wrong to say that the definition of AA is accepting a less qualified candidate because of their skin color. That's the Republican straw man attack on it, but racial quotas are only one part of AA.)

Colleges can use race as a factor in admissions, but that's not automatically a "racial quota" and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Although this may be different elsewhere in the world, no competitive college in the US bases their acceptance solely on grades and test scores. There are all kinds of additional factors that may not be under the applicant's direct control (like geographical location). It would be hard to eliminate that.

Just to forestall anything in that direction: Neither IQ as measured by IQ tests nor determination to keep studying (or for that matter, keep at any difficult task) are heritable. That old view has long since been debunked as a spurious correlation based on testing of selected groups of nearly exclusively white, middle-class undergraduate students in the US in the labs of psychology departments. The only significant variation you can observe there is the degree of hangover from drinking snakebite at the frat house, to paraphrase a paper I read on this.

I'll refrain from doing a Nest0r and posting dozens of papers until someone asks me to do so.