LECTURE VII

INEQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITIES
THE CONCEPT OF INEQUALITY

The concept of inequality can be

defined as the view, thought or belief
that there are difference between two
or more ethnic groups in terms of
various aspects such as facilities,
equipments, job opportunities and so
on.
 THE CONCEPT OF INEQUALITY OF
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
 Inequality of educational opportunities refers
to distribution of unequal educational
opportunity among the people of a nation.
 In Malaysian context, unequal educational
opportunity might be caused by factors such
as:
 school location
 student’s background
 socio-economical status
 academic achievement
 student’s interest
 chances of survival
 socialisation
 language difference
SOCIAL CLASS GENDER

Elements that
Create
Inequality of
Education

MINORITY SPECIAL
GROUP NEED GROUPS
 SOCIAL CLASS

 Stalcup (1968) defined social class as:

A layer in a community where

people consider themselves
equal in terms of family
background, level of education,
occupation, race and attitudes
toward social issues.
 Max Weber (2010) stated that there are five
social class:

Upper Middle Lower Middle

Upper Class
Class Class
•The rich •Highly •Graduated
•Corporate educated from high
members •Professional school
•Aristocrats •Hold a good •Holds a
•Elite group position in certificate or
an diploma
organisation
•Prestigious
 Working Class Lower Class

• Blue- collar • Has the lowest

workers educational
• Has SPM or qualification
PMR certificate • Never had
• Factory or formal education
restaurant • Poor
workers • Works below the
poverty level
The students from the upper class are
usually from rich or high-income family
who have access to a wide selection of
educational opportunities in or outside the
country.

Lower class are usually from poor family

and have less or no access to educational
opportunities
 Mostof the time poor or low-income parents
are unable to provide:
Tuition or other (music / computer)
classes

Computer and internet

School equipments (workbook, bag,

uniform)

Additional reading materials

Nutritious food
 GENDER

 In
most countries, gap between male
and female still exists significantly.

 Example: In Cambodia, the

secondary school admittance for
boys is 30% while girls is 19%.
 In countries such as Philippines, Mongolia
and Malaysia, the number of male students
that attend secondary school is less than
female students.

 One of the reasons is because the male

students need to work full time in order to
help their family.

 Gender inequality could also be seen in the

teaching profession where the number of
female teachers exceeds the number of male
teachers.
 Gender is a large part of our identity that is
often defined by our psychological
differences as men and women.
 Not surprisingly, those differences are
reflected in many gender stereotypes - men
rarely share their feelings, while women
are more emotional –
 but an Iowa State University researcher
says in reality men and women are more
alike than we may think.
 Gender stereotypes can influence beliefs and
create the impression that the differences are
large, said Zlatan Krizan, an associate professor
of psychology at ISU.
 To separate fact from fiction, Krizan and
colleagues Ethan Zell, an assistant professor at
the University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
and Sabrina Teeter, a graduate student at
Western Carolina University, conducted a meta-
synthesis of more than 100 meta-analyses
ofgender differences.
 Combined, the studies they aggregated included
more than 12 million people.
 Their report, published in American Psychologist,
found an almost 80 percent overlap for more than
75 percent of the psychological characteristics,
such as risk taking, occupational stress and
morality. Simply put, our differences are not so
profound.
 "This is important because it suggests that when
it comes to most psychological attributes, we are
relatively similar to one another as men and
women,"

 Krizan said. "This was true regardless of whether

we looked at cognitive domains, such as
intelligence; social personality domains, such as
personality traits; or at well-being, such as
satisfaction with life."
 The similarities were also consistent regardless
of age and over time. However, researchers don't
dispute that men and women have their
differences. They identified 10 attributes in
which there was a significant gap between
genders. Some of these characteristics fell in line
with stereotypes. For example, men were more
aggressive and masculine, while women had a
closer attachment to peers and were more
sensitive to pain.
 If we're so similar, why do we think we're
different?
 The purpose of the meta-synthesis was not to
identify why men and women are different, but
measure by how much. The results contradict
what many people think, and Krizan has a few
explanations as to why. One reason is the
difference in extremes. The evidence researchers
aggregated focuses on a typical range of
characteristics, but on the far end of the
spectrum the differences are often exaggerated,
Krizan said.
 "People tend to overestimate the differences
because they notice the extremes," Krizan said.
 He used aggression as one example. "If you look
at incarceration rates to compare the
aggressiveness of men and women, the fact that
men constitute the vast majority of the prison
population supports the idea that men are
extremely more aggressive.
 However, it's a misleading estimate of how much
typical men and women differ on aggressiveness,
if that's the only thing you look at for
comparison," he said.
 Additionally, people notice multiple differences
simultaneously, which can give the impression of
a larger effect. Researchers looked at the average
for each trait individually rather than a
combination of differences.
 "The difference on any one trait is pretty small,"
Krizan said. "When there are several smaller
differences, people might think there's a big
difference because the whole configuration has a
different flavor. I think they make a mistake
assuming that any given trait is very different
from typical men to women."
 MINORITY GROUP

Small group of people of the same race,

religion, culture and so on who lives in a
place where the majority is of different race,
religion and so on.

In Malaysia, Malays are the majority while

Chinese, Indians, Kadazan, Iban, Bidayuh,
Indigenous and other ethnic groups are
considered as minorities.
Minority groups from Sabah and Sarawak
face the educational inequality issue due to
their residential location in remote areas
which lacks infrastructures, basic facilities
and school equipments.
 SPECIAL NEED GROUP

Students who have dyslexia,

autism, down syndrome, cerebral
palsy and other problems.

The special needs students have the

opportunity to get education from
primary up to university level.

Special need students require special

equipments and more attention from
their parents and teachers compared
to normal students.
 EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY ISSUES
AMONG ABORIGINES, NATIVES (PERIBUMI)
AND STUDENTS FROM REMOTE AREA

 Majorityof aborigines are still marginalized

from education because of lack of
infrastructure in their residential area.

 Facilitiessuch as electricity, water and road

are still not available.
 EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY
AMONG THE ABORIGINES

 Aborigine have the highest drop out rate

because they don’t realise the importance of
education.
 Lack of infrastructures in their residential
area.
 Facilities such as electricity, water and road
are still not available.
 Aborigine students mostly stay at home
helping their parents.
 Not or less interested in studying and have
low memory power.
 Unable to follow the lesson taught based on
the curriculum.
 Do not like routine – attending school

 Parents are poor – unable to prepare

conducive learning environment
 EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY
AMONG THE INDIGENOUS

 The natives (Sabah & Sarawak) experience

inequality of education due to their nomadic
lifestyle and their location of residence
which is in a remote area.
 Unable to accept changes

 Not exposed to current changes (digital

gap)
 Two main factors that affect the indigenous
students’ achievements are lack of
motivation and lack of interest to study.
 EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY AMONG
THE PEOPLE AT REMOTE AREA

 Students from remote areas often experience

inequality in education as they lack basic
facilities such as electricity, water, telephone
line and so on.
 Lack of qualified and trained teachers
especially for Science, Mathematics and
English subjects.
 Use of different language / dialect as the
medium of conversation
 Digitalgap which exists due to the lack of
ICT facilities.
 Schools with less students (Sekolah Kurang
Murid)