Academic discrimination, Diploma

Academic discrimination, Diploma

3:21 AM

Academic discrimination, destined from "born"

Today, when the president of the Palace Museum, Sui Xiangxiang, delivered a keynote speech in Beijing, he casually mentioned that "more than 40,000 people have signed up for the Forbidden City. After raising the threshold, they can apply for a master's degree or above in a prestigious university." The discussion of netizens.

Some netizens believe that only the master's degree of a famous university is a kind of academic discrimination, and there are different voices. "In the end, it is the sourness of the scum, and the qualification is a standard for the ability to identify."
The first criterion for the employer to screen resumes is the level of education, which has become an invisible rule in many industries.

Today, the school qualifications not only mean scores and abilities, we often overlook that family origin can affect the quality of a person's diploma, and the class is gradually solidifying through education. In the United States, education and diplomas are becoming a path for wealthy families to self-replicate and reproduce.

Giving non-prestigious students a chance also gives our children a chance to break down class barriers. Promoting more inclusive academic standards is not an abandonment and embarrassment of the prestigious school education, but a disenchantment of the label of "prestigious school".

1. Education does not allow you to get a high-paying position, but the diploma can


Traditional modernization theory holds that education and acquired efforts are the ladders of social mobility, but with the development of the times and society, this view is suffering the most violent impact.

According to American sociologist Collins, the ladder of education is a myth that is carefully crafted, but it solidifies class differences.

In his observations of Western society, he found that in the mid-19th century, the rapid expansion of education did not increase the opportunities for mobility. People from different social classes had the same chance of survival as their fathers.

The reason for this is that with the expansion of education, cultural certificates that are regarded as qualifications in the education system are also depreciating.
When the high school diploma that was once regarded as an elite became commonplace, undergraduate training was replaced by postgraduate and doctoral education, and the consequent work required the level of education to rise.

For example, in the recruitment requirements of management positions, only 12% of employers in 1937-1938 required a university degree, and after 7 years, this figure rose to 68%. By the late 20th century, university education had become an indispensable certificate.

As a result, the specific content of education has become insignificant, and it is increasingly important to obtain a specific degree and a formal diploma.

Today, the work of many graduates is not related to the majors they are studying. They often complete training or proficiency in skills within two or three months after they officially take up their jobs. The standard "religious diplomacy".

Driven by this diplomacy, the recruiter will transfer the power of recruitment to the admissions committee of the prestigious school: only concerned with the students entering the prestigious school, but indifferent to the non-prestigious students.

Lauren A. Rivera, a professor at Northwestern University in the United States, reveals the cruel fact that she found that in many companies, especially the most famous in the industry, she studied the recruitment process of top US financial companies. Those companies, non-prestigious students' resumes will be discarded directly, regardless of the glance, unless the applicant receives a private recommendation so that the resume from the "back door" into the review process. Investment bank hiring manager Stephanie describes her method of screening resumes:

"It's like this. I have a special day to see... Brown University's resume, Yale's resume. I have no reason to go to the 'best of the rest' resume unless I have nothing to do... Unfortunately, this is not very beneficial for some students. If you are not a target school student, there is no easy way to enter the company."

For non-prestigious students, their resumes are like falling into a black hole, and there is no response. Because people generally think that "first-class people enter first-class schools," that is, the best and brightest people are concentrated in the top schools in the country.

Students who graduated from non-prestigious schools were labeled as “he is not the first class” and were directly given up in the resume screening, losing the opportunity to prove themselves.

In fact, in the expression of this sentence, education is synonymous with diplomas – not that education can change the class, but that a better diploma can get a high-paying position, thus changing the class. Education itself is a process, and in such a context it becomes a result, which also reflects the status of the diploma.

Although many sciences and engineering education are currently becoming more and more closely related to production practice, it is difficult to conclude that students are only studying for a paper certificate, but it is undeniable that education certificates are being recruited and selected in comparison with education itself. Play a bigger role.

2. Intergenerational transmission of education: an important reason for affecting admission


In the face of the diploma society we are moving towards, the influence of family on educational isolation and intergenerational transmission is evident.

In general, the family background is directly proportional to the tuition fees and additional educational resources available, which in turn determines whether a person receives a diploma or a quality diploma.

In 2013, the documentary "Zi Fei Yu" followed the life of a poor child in a special primary school in Hong Kong - "Fresh Fish School".

The school is hosted by the local fresh fish line association. Most of the students received are from the bottom families in Hong Kong. Some of them come from single-parent families. Some of them rely on their parents’ meager income to work hard. Most of their parents are manual workers. It is difficult to provide good family education.

Learning from the subjects of English that are essential for further studies in Hong Kong, you can see the incompetence of these children and parents: Yan Weihao, who has excellent grades in the class, has not been good enough in English, but it is difficult for mothers to come up with money for tutoring English. Let this problem continue.

The parent of another student, Huang Jiaqi, was asked how to spell English "expensive" when she was accompanying her daughter to write homework. She thought about it again and again and gave the wrong answer.

Under the premise that the school's educational resources are very limited, the children born at the bottom are often at a disadvantage in the education competition. The influence of the family on extracurricular learning and extracurricular activities is manifested between the children's gestures.

Children from wealthy families can easily get the education of famous teachers and examination training institutions. Their extracurricular activities are also more colorful. The soft powers exercised through extracurricular activities will be favored by the admissions committee.

Under the condition that American elite schools generally favor personal qualities, the transfer of family cultural capital has become an important way to successfully enter universities and obtain diplomas.

In a study of the São Paulo elite high school in the United States, Professor Seamus Khan of the Department of Sociology in Colombia found that children from wealthy families are comfortable with any social occasion. They can think of the ancient English narrative poem "Bei in the eighth century." Owusu can also explore the storyline in the popular movie Jaws.

As the French sociologist Bourdieu said: "For some people, learning elite culture is a great success, and for others, it is just an inheritance."

Today, culture has become a kind of “capital” that can have value like money, used to obtain social advantages and cultural credentials. The commitment to achieve the "American Dream" by individual efforts has become a fantasy in the premise of social inequality.

Whether or not it is in good faith, ignoring the influence of family economy and cultural capital, and advocating personal efforts will cover up the lingering social closure and class barriers in our society, thus exacerbating social inequalities.

The process behind the illegal trade to get a diploma is also shocking: in March 2019, the famous American school Stanford broke the enrollment scandal, and a Chinese billionaire paid bribes of $6.5 million to get his daughter into Stanford. For the sake of falsifying the identity of a sailing athlete for her daughter, she is eligible for special enrollment.

Under the circumstance of power and money, the diploma becomes a commodity that can be purchased.

Also, in the actual recruitment, the cultural choice of the individual's personal qualities makes the children who are admitted to the prestigious schools and poor families equally difficult.

Even though hard work, I tried my best to win the starting line and I was admitted to the ideal university. Students who came from the cold door may also lose to the finish line. Recruitment is an unequal selection.

3. Cultural choices in the application: the game of capital and ability

               
In the eyes of recruiters, a personal experience that demonstrates a person’s true overall development and achievement is often reflected in volunteering or social activities, often with paid club activities or multinational volunteering. hook up.

Even some students from famous American schools ridiculed: "Either famous enterprises or the Caribbean" - If there is no glamorous and famous internship experience in the summer vacation, then it is best to go to overseas to participate in volunteer service activities. The experience of value.

In mock recruitment, banker Christopher as an interviewer also clarified this: "I will ask him about volunteering... He is driving a meal with his mother, or going to Costa Rica and the Habitat for Humanity. (Habitat for Humanity) Building a house together?"

The personal hobbies and activities in the resume are also full of demand for low- and middle-income people. Lance, a recruitment consultant who has been in the recruitment industry for many years, describes:

"People can list a variety of things in the activity column, such as I will ski, I will look at the palm, I like the car rally, or something else. But if that is just a list of things or interests, then they are I am just a meaningless word... I want to know...have this person found some interest or enthusiasm, not only did it, but decided to take it seriously...so very good, you like skiing, but please tell I have to go 20 times a year to explain the problem."

Although these abilities or movements are often considered to represent an individual's life interests, people have selectively ignored: the ability to participate in these sports in a long-term, in-depth manner, often not in personal hobbies or abilities, but in whether funds support the cost of the venue. Or equipment expenses.

The cultural possession of extracurricular activities is included in the resume as an objective requirement and becomes an important indicator for evaluating a person's ability. The ability to be assessed is more recognized by the recruitment system, and the capital used to boost this ability has more room to function.

Also, recruiters are more inclined to engage in activities related to the upper-middle and upper-middle-class cultures of whites, and also set a barrier for children from low- and middle-income families to enter the workplace.

Football, basketball and other more common sports are rejected. Grass hockey, squash, rowing and other activities that require a certain amount of capital investment are more popular with recruiters.
In the face of the impact of family capital, personal efforts appear to be minimal.

However, many people have begun to believe that this is the difference in personal ability, and ignore the huge gap brought by capital, and gradually internalize it into their creed, and begin to believe that they are the best people, themselves The position obtained is due to his ability, and his elite position deserves it.

Lauren A. Rivera, a professor at Northwestern University in the United States, pointed out in the book "The Origin" that when the labor market is more selective, it will increase discrimination rather than reduce it. When the number of candidates increases relative to the number of jobs, recruiters can be more critical and pay more attention to the “personal abilities” created by capital.

Faced with the invasion of capital and the intrusion of elite reproduction into the employment process, many companies are also changing their strategies to increase racial and class diversity and reduce discrimination, but with little success.

After the publication of "The Origin", some top companies found Professor Lauren A. Rivera, hoping to listen to suggestions and increase equality in recruitment, but in the face of "don't just consider a small number of core schools, cover students. The proposal to form a university with more diversity is hard-pressed because “we want diversity, but we cannot sacrifice quality for it.”

In short, the process and standards of recruitment are changing, but at least for now, the way it changes maintains the status quo. When it comes to birth, it seems that the more changes, the more the status quo is unchanged.

Employment, like education, is becoming a path for self-replication and reproduction of American elites. Under the current situation of China's attempt to achieve educational equity through the college entrance examination, how to ensure equality in the process of education and employment is still a topic worthy of discussion and reflection.


 Source: (Katja News)

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