Per the genetics & social science convo: 🧵
The most fascinating normative debates in my ed policy course come from reading Jencks (1988), "Who Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to Be Equal?"
He describes 5 ways of thinking about equal ed opportunity 1/
The most fascinating normative debates in my ed policy course come from reading Jencks (1988), "Who Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to Be Equal?"
He describes 5 ways of thinking about equal ed opportunity 1/
- Democratic equality: equal time/attention to all
- Moralistic justice: reward those making the most effort
- Weak human justice: compensate for disadvantages related to prior home & school environments, but not those relating to genetics
2/
- Moralistic justice: reward those making the most effort
- Weak human justice: compensate for disadvantages related to prior home & school environments, but not those relating to genetics
2/
- Strong humane justice: compensate for prior home, school, and genetic differences
- Utilitarianism: maximize avg well-being of society; focus on increasing the mean more than worrying about the variance
3/
- Utilitarianism: maximize avg well-being of society; focus on increasing the mean more than worrying about the variance
3/
Ugrads enter believing they can discern effort from circumstance, genetics from effort, & realize that it is impossible to perform this decomposition.
Most recall having tried hard & been told they are not, or having been told they lack the "raw material" needed to succeed. 4/
Most recall having tried hard & been told they are not, or having been told they lack the "raw material" needed to succeed. 4/
Now to @kph3k's book: "Genetic differences between us matter for our lives. They cause differences in things we care about. Building a commitment to egalitarianism on our genetic uniformity is building a house on sand.” 5/
newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
Acknowledging that genetics play a role in producing individual differences in achievement/attainment doesn't tell us whether we should use ability grouping, how we should organize college admission, or how to allocate spec ed $
Those are normative q's, not empirical q's. 6/
Those are normative q's, not empirical q's. 6/
Why care at all? "Gene blindness..perpetuates the myth that those of us who have ‘succeeded’ in 21st century capitalism have done so primarily bc of our own hard work and effort, & not bc we happened to be the beneficiaries of accidents of birth, both environmental and genetic” 7
Per Rawls: inherited talents are morally arbitrary - why should lucky people be rewarded substantially more for something they did not earn? In other words, no one "deserves" their talents.
Too often, young people mistake their genetic luck for their hard work. 8/
Too often, young people mistake their genetic luck for their hard work. 8/
This is all to say: education researchers & social scientists would benefit from:
➡️clarity on what we mean by equality of educational opportunity or equity
➡️acknowledging genetics as one of many determinants of people's outcomes
I'm interested to hear what others think.
/end
➡️clarity on what we mean by equality of educational opportunity or equity
➡️acknowledging genetics as one of many determinants of people's outcomes
I'm interested to hear what others think.
/end
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
