Kinship and Education as a method of Social Stratification (Essay Sample)

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Kinship and Education as a method of Social Stratification
Introduction
Kinship is that relationship that exists between any of the entities that are sharing a genealogical origin that is cultural, biological, or historical descent. Moreover, the lineages or descent groups are often treated in their personal subsections. In the context of anthropology, the kinship system is reported to include people who are related both by marriage and descent while on the other hand the usage in biology is inclusive of mating and descent. The kinship relationship that will be discussed in this paper is a simple one that consists of me (student), mother, and father as well as both maternal and paternal grandfather and grandmother. This is illustrated at the Appendix bellow. This paper will focus on me as the ego in respect to the education that I am pursuing, that has the ability of changing the economic status of this kinship. Indeed, as a student am looking forward to using my education to change the socio-economic status of this kinship. Education has been the heart of all methods of social stratification globally. For instance, the Registrar General has been ranking occupations on the basis of their level of qualification or skill. This is an indication that good education is likely to be the key to several desirable aspects of the society today and is affected by an individual’s life chances (Morris, p 32).
Kinship and Education as a method of Social Stratification
Education has the ability of changing the socio-economic status of the family and am looking forward to using the education that am pursing to help change my family. Indeed, the kinship that l come from as indicated at the appendix is not advantaged economically and with the education I am pursing, I am certain all these will eventually change. In early learning theories, main focus was on behavioral psychology. For children to be able to learn and remember new things, some things are considered to take place in the learning process. According to Billie & Bette & Wolfe (2006), some of these things are explained by behavioral and constructivism theories which focus their attentions on acquired factors that help the learner acquire knowledge. These two theories use idea of external factors that affects one’s capacity to acquire and store the new knowledge. To these two theories, mental representations are the real images that individuals see around them. The storage and interpretation of those images would not be possible without mental representations. The mental representations are the ones that help individuals learn, store, and remember the information.
In the late nineteenth century, the study of learning was articulated by some theorists such as Ivan Pavlov who studied humans could be taught to remember what they are taught (Billie, Bette & Wolfe, p 48). In his study Pavlov found out that there was a relationship between a stimulus and a response known as classical conditioning. He asserted that, classical conditioning occurs when a natural reflex responds to a stimulus. However, Pavlov’s work was continued by John Watson and B.F. Skinner who argued that environment shapes behavior (Billie, Bette & Wolfe, p 49). They focused on students’ behavior that occurs due to learning. In this theory, mental processes including how people think, perceive, remember and learn things are involved. The main focus of behavioral psychology is on how people acquire, process, and stores the information. Behavioral theory application is done in several ways such as how to improve memory, how to facilitate decision making, and how to enhance learning by structuring education systems. Indeed, education changes the behaviors of individuals as well as increases their life chances. The individuals with higher education are likely to occupy the higher status within the society unlike those with little education.
In the context of constructivism theory, education as an aspect of social class in most cases determines the level of occupation an individual may rise to. As is always anticipated within the social class, better occupations are always populated with individuals with university degrees. Furthermore, a child’s social class is often defined by the parents’ occupation, and consequently the social class the child is likely to be placed within the career path. This proves the effects of social class on a child’s education. In the contemporary society, the possession of low levels of education has also been a determinant of the conditions an individual is likely to work in. Individuals with low levels of education qualifications are in most cases forced to work in conditions that are unacceptable to higher classes as a result of their financial conditions. Similarly, individuals from lower social classes with disadvantaged social backgrounds and fewer qualifications are likely to be unemployed. Lack of qualifications renders an individual less valuable than those with specialized skills to the employer; as a result of this they are more likely to become redundant due to the increasing demand for their jobs. Moreover, in the capitalist society, occupation has the ability of providing the money that...