Education, Success and Inequality

The following analysis is based on work of proffesor Louise Archer from Britain and it's extension to India.

It is generally believed that a personal success is determined by a person's sheer ability and talent , we have been fed to believe that it is the individual's own strengths which makes a successful person out of him. In this blog I try to explain how factors other than individual abilities play a role in a person's success.

Observations

1. It is believed that the upper class and the upper castes in Indian context are successful only because of their ability. There is also an acceptance amongst working class and the lower castes in Indian context that their economic situation is where they belong.

2. The business class disproportionately comes from a very limited section of people.

3. There are disproportionately very low number of females in STEM , especially Physics.

4. Even though Asians are considered to be very studious they are relatively less successful than Caucasian white males of similar economic and educational background.

Possible Explanations

1. Class Caste and Education : 

A person's class plays a major role in the educational attainment of a student as it determines the quality of education one gets.

The upper classes also have a huge cultural and social capital which ensures that even the , 'not so bright students' get more opportunities than their lower class companions.

Here cultural capital refers to the culture of success , education and accesss to out of school knowledge which gets accumulated over generations.

Social Capital is the network of already successful people to whom the upper class has disproportionate access , which ensures more number of opportunities for similar educational attainment.

Illustration from Indian context.

An upper caste indian is more likely to also belong to upper class because -

Cultural capital in the form of focus given to a child's education  ,development and the knowledge about various disciplines which can be pursued ,which may not be available to a lower caste person who's cultural capital mostly is restricted to manual labour.

Social capital in the form of better network of connections with people ( who generally belong to the same caste ) which ensures better opportunities in the form of getting admission to better colleges , more opportunities for internship and training etc.

Hence better social and cultural capital leads to better economic capital.

2. Caste Class and Entrepreneurship

Very high social capital of a few families gives them advantage over other similarly placed individuals from other families.

Illustration

In Indian context the 'jains / Agarwals' and 'Parsis' are disproportionately represented in the capitalist class because -

Raising Capital : Cultural and Social capital makes it easier for them to raise money to start a business. They generally get funding from their extended families.

Travel : It is observed that most of these families live as joint families. Hence it makes it easier for the person to travel without much worry of  leaving his minor children behind as they are taken care of by the extended family.

Also a good network among these caste/ethnic  groups allows for mutual help in understanding the business.

Entrepreneurship : Families are involved as a whole in business and the cases of heriditory division of property are not much prevalent in such families. Hence emerged the concept of 'Hindu Undivided Family'

 3. Gender and Education

Education has also been coloured as masculine or feminine with Physics and Engineering associated with masculinity and Biology and life sciences associated with femininity.

Socialization of stereotypes ensures that the image of a Physicist is that of a nerdy white/ asian male represented as 'Sheldon Cooper' in the TV series Big Bang Theory.

The more the person is in this field, the more stronger this stereotype becomes, ultimately leading to the teachers to also believe in them.

This makes even the girls who like the subject to question themselves about their ability to pursue such disciplines. The girls who take up such disciplines after that are termed as 'Tomboys'.

It is also manifested in a classrooms where it is observed generally that boys correct girls terminologies in the subject and look at them from a position of superiority.

4.Race and Education

We have developed several stereotypes on various races about their performance in studies like Asians are considered good at mathematics , Indians good in spell-bee competitions etc.

However even then these ' studious ' Asians generally have to work disproportionately harder than their white caucasian peers to reach similar success due to prevalent racism. Several studies have observed that a white caucasian is more likely to be selected for a job offer than any other applicant from any other race with the same credentials.

This also explains in Indian context there has only been 1  Chief Justice of India , No Prime Minister and No Cabinet Secretary from the lower castes even after 75 years of independence

Note : OBCs are Other Backward 'Class' not castes. I mean it in reference to scheduled castes and scheduled Tribes.

Thus we can observe that other than the ability and economic capital available there are a lot of other factors which influence the level of success we are expected to achieve in our lifetimes.

These factors are more of social than individual.

Kindly comment if you find any difference of opinion.