EDUC.

206 -SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Ritchel S. Bueno 
Presenter 

THE CONCEPT OF EQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

Coleman Study on Equality of Educational Opportunity 

The study aims to evaluate opportunities and performance of minority students compared with the
white students

Coleman Study on Equality of Educational Opportunity

Minority students scored lower on test at each level of schooling than the white students. 

Majority of the students during that time attended segregated schools.And teachers also tended to
teach children of their own race. 

White children had the greater access on physics,Chemistry ,Language laboratory,textbooks,college

curricula,and better qualified and higher paid teachers. 

Disadvantages of Minority studentsFamily 

poverty 

Parents' Education 

Environmental Factors 

Standards ,Assessment,Equality of Educational Opportunity 

(KENNETH R.HOWE) 

According to Michael Walzer ,today testing is commonly advanced as a fair means of distrubuting
opportunities because it rewards talent rather than birthright. And an efficient means because it puts
talent in service to society. 

It stipulates that so long as individuals are afforded equal opportunities to obtain an education
inequalities in educational results are morally permissible.

Achieving Educational Equality Through Curriculum Desegregation(Geneva Gay) 

The efforts to date have taught us some important lessons about how school curricula should be
reformed to equalize educational opportunitiesfor cuturally different students,(Geneva gay)

Inequities in curriculum options and instructional experiences based on differences in

race,gender,ethnicity,and class.

Equality of Educational Opportunity 

(Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy)

This study follows from two observations about education and children 

first, that education significantly influences a person’s life chances in terms of labor market success,
preparation for democratic citizenship, and general human flourishing; and second, that children’s life
chances should not be fixed by certain morally arbitrary circumstances of their birth such as their
social class, race, and gender. 
One way to improve the academic achievement of poor and minority children,would be to integrate
the schools. 

Educational attainment is an important determinant of the range of opportunities that individuals

enjoy for other social goods.

References: 

Achieving Educational Equality through Curriculum Desegregation on JSTOR. (n.d.).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20404310 

Coleman, J. S. (1975). Equal Educational Opportunity: A Definition. Oxford Review of Education, 1(1),
25–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305498750010104 

Howe, K. R. (1994). Research news and Comment: Standards, Assessment, and Equality of Educational
Opportunity. Educational Researcher, 23(8), 27–33. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x023008027

Thank you!