Income Inequality a Conflict Theorist View

Trevor W Lawson

University of Central Florida

2000: Sociology

Professor Namur

12/04/23
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Income Inequality a Conflict Theorist View

Abstract:

Income inequality between African Americans and whites This issue is present for many

reasons. One major is the lower proportion of African-American students compared to the

population of similar age groups. The lower proportion in college happens because of seeing

college as an investment, not worth it, implicit bias, and lower test scores. The focus of this

research paper is conflict theory, focusing on two groups. Ruling group (whites) vs. working

group (African Americans) This paradigm is great for this because it fits into the ideas of one

group ruling over the other, like income inequality being primarily controlled by college

graduates who are whiter compared to those of the working class, the non-college graduates who

are more African American than white. The results show that income inequality is less focused

on whites vs. African Americans and more so on college graduates vs. non-college graduates.

Income inequality is difficult to change and is held up by many contributing factors, but the ideas

presented must be considered because the main way to fix a problem is to look at the problem

and realize this is not okay and needs to be changed.

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Income Inequality a Conflict Theorist View

Income inequality has been present throughout the U.S. and the world’s history. This can

happen between different groups, including men vs. women, majority vs. minority, or rural vs.

urban. This paper is going to focus on Majority vs. Minority, more specifically Whites vs.

African Americans in the U.S. This paper will go into detail, focusing on the impact of income,

implicit bias, and demographics on college students. By examining these issues, we can gain a

better understanding of the root causes of income inequality and work towards creating a more

equitable society.

Conflict theory relates to this topic in a way because Karl Marx believed that society was

in a constant state of conflict between the ruling class, the Bourgeoisie, and the working class,

the Proletariat. The ruling group or domain group when related to this topic is the Whites, and

the working class is the African Americans. This idea of two distinct groups is very important to

know because we are comparing two groups to see their relation to the two groups established by

Marx.

The first set of data that was investigated was focused on the proportion of different

racial groups present in today’s college population. The numbers include that the African

American population was 10% of the total, which was an increase of over 30% compared to the

white population, which had gone down by 1% over the past decade. (Perna, 2016). The main

problem with these numbers is that African Americans only represent 10% of the total college

population when the proportion of African Americans in the U.S. in this age group is over 14%.
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showing that a smaller proportion of them go to college when compared to their proportion of the

population. One difficulty with this data was that at times it felt incomplete and did not reveal

enough relevant information, like the total proportion of white college students, which would

have been a good comparison.

The next piece of data that was looked at was the idea that more college graduates would

help reduce income inequality in the states. The most important part of this data was less focused

on specifics, but the underlying goal was that “economists claim that if our society produces

more college-graduating workers, income inequality can be reduced” (Choi, 2021). The article

made some specific points, like mentioning that the addition of 20 million college graduates

would help the economy. The data presented helps relate to the idea of supply and demand in this

scenario. The workers are the supply and demand for jobs. The supply of non-college graduate

workers is too high, so with a reduction in the supply of those workers and more college

graduates, the supply of high school graduates would only decrease, leading to higher pay for

them and helping reduce income inequality. The main problem with this data was that it felt not

long enough and could have had more helpful information like showing the numbers in a graph,

not just mentioning them.

The last two data pieces examined included one focused on implicit bias and how it could

contribute to African Americans not pursuing a college degree, and the other was the impact of

growing wealth and income between college graduates and non-college graduates. The first data

point is important because implicit bias, when shown towards African American students, causes

these students to score lower on exams. (Weir, 2016). These lower scores could impact the

amount of financial aid received by these students and could impact their willingness to go to
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college due to the higher cost of these lower scores. The second data is focused on primarily

wealth and goes throughout the years and shows how not only do college graduates have higher

income, but these graduates also have significantly more wealth. The real wealth of college

graduates has tripled since 1980, whereas the real wealth of non-college graduates has stayed

around the same. (Bartscher et al., 2020) As you can see in the figure below, there are major

differences between college graduates and non-college graduates.

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The findings I discovered are that African Americans go to college less proportionally to

their population scale compared to white students. This impacts the income inequality between

races because if fewer African Americans are getting a college degree, the working class is going

to continue to be separated by income inequality, while the ruling group is going to keep income

inequality present in the future. The findings are useful because, with the acknowledgment of the

problem, we can see that the difference between our two focus groups is that the increased

difficulty of getting a college degree for those facing implicit bias is hurting their income in the

future and very negatively creating a difference in their wealth over the long-term investment.

The conflict theorist views income inequality put in place by the ruling group, the Whites, to

affect the working-class African Americans and keep them as the group below on the theoretical

ladder. This ladder would have the ruling at the top and then the working near the bottom, with

the most power being at the top of the ladder. The two best solutions to solve this issue include

an increase in the appeal of education and a reduction of discrimination. The first is an increase

in the appeal of education, which could be done by presenting that a college degree is worth this

initial investment in these areas where you have a lower proportion of college students. The

reduction of discrimination is a very difficult thing to do because these implicit biases are tough

to change in certain individuals. This would make it very difficult to convince them to change

their mental space. The suggestion for change would include being able to offer incentives for

teachers who have the highest scores or those who can get the most college applicants. These

incentives would help teachers see the importance of helping all students and be more involved

with the students. This solution would be difficult to implement because teachers are often

already trying to help all students but have difficulties for a variety of reasons. Income inequality

has been present between racial groups throughout the history of the U.S. and the world, but the
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effort put forward to influence and increase representation in the college system could help

reduce income inequality in the future.

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References

Bartscher, A. K., Kuhn, M., & Scholarism, M. (2020). The College Wealth Divide:
Education and Inequality in America, 1956-2016. Review, 102(1).
https://doi.org/10.20955/r.102.19-49
Choi, K. (2021, December 8). Income Inequality and the Earnings Gap Between
Educated and Non-Educated Workers |. UAGC | University of Arizona Global
Campus. https://www.uagc.edu/blog/income-inequality-and-the-earnings-
gap-between-educated-and-non-educated
‌Perna, L. W. (2000). Differences in the Decision to Attend College among African
Americans, Hispanics, and Whites. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(2),
117–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2000.11778831
‌Weir, K. (2016, November). Inequality at school (T. Spiner, Ed.) [Review of Inequality
at school]. American Psychological Association; APA.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school