The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston - Hardcover

Groeger, Cristina Viviana

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9780674249110: The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0674249119 ISBN 13: 9780674249110
Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2021

Synopsis

Why―contrary to much expert and popular opinion―more education may not be the answer to skyrocketing inequality.

For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality.

The Education Trap returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger’s test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences―both intended and unintended―for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality.

The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace.

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About the Author

Cristina Viviana Groeger is Assistant Professor of History at Lake Forest College. Her research has been funded by the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.

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Publisher
Harvard University Press
Publication date
2021
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0674249119
ISBN 13 
9780674249110
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
384
Rating
  • 3.96 out of 5 stars
    23 ratings by Goodreads