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Education should go beyond just vocational training and teach civic engagement to prepare students for active participation in society to reduce inequality.

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Vocational Education Reduces Inequality (Opposing Main Claim)

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Vocational Education Reduces Inequality (Opposing Main Claim)

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Vocational education is important and needed in order to reduce economic inequality by providing job skills and help reduce wage gaps.

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Limitations to just vocational education (Supporting Main Claim)

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Limitations to just vocational education (Supporting Main Claim)

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Civic education is needed to produce more equal opportunities for citizens.

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Civic Education is needed for equality in society (Supporting Main Claim)

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Civic Education is needed for equality in society (Supporting Main Claim)

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Civic Engagement helps individuals understand their role in society, and how they can help shape policies to reduce inequality.

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Educating Individuals on the Importance of Civic Engagement (Supporting Main Claim)

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Educating Individuals on the Importance of Civic Engagement (Supporting Main Claim)

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Individuals should take on the responsibility of being involved in society. Active participation and discussing issues in shaping society will help reduce inequality.

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Civic agency in Education (Supporting Main Claim)

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Civic agency in Education (Supporting Main Claim)

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Schools should provide students with subjects that teach them their role in society and how they can shape the policies to reduce inequality.

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"In Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014), French economist Thomas Piketty writes, "Historical experience suggests that the principal mechanism for convergence [of incomes and wealth] at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion
of knowledge. (Allen 10)

"President Obama, in
his 2013 State of the Union address, announced a competition to “redesign America’s high schools.” Rewards would go, he said, to schools that develop more classes “that focus on science, technology, engineering, and math—the skills today’s employers are looking for to fill jobs right now and in the future.” More recently, in his 2016 State of the Union address, the
president announced a Computer Science for All initiative that would make students “job-ready on day one."(Allen 10)

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Many economists have seen that vocational education is the primary solution to economic inequality. They believe it provides equal access to job skills, which helps to reduce income inequality.

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"It is not that civic education is incompatible with professional training, but policymakers, education specialists, and many parents—including low-income parents, whose children are most likely to see their civic
education shortchanged—have narrowed their focus exclusively to the economic field."(Allen 10)

"In the process, they have lost sight of the full range of inequalities from which our society suffers and which well-rounded education could alleviate." (Allen 10)

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Vocational education only addresses income inequality, but does not look at political inequality and how that is shaping the economic outcomes. Providing civic education helps reduce inequality, as with more civic engagement more people would benefit not just the elite due to fair opportunities.

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"Piketty agrees that the wage premium on skill can explain only part of growing U.S. income inequality: political forces shape distributive outcomes, and there are limits to how much the advantages of education can be moderated through the dissemination of technological skills. Income growth at the highest end, accruing to what he calls “supermanagers,” reflects social acceptance of sky-high executive pay."(Allen 10)

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Civic education can help individuals understand that economic inequality is shaped more by political factors than by vocational training and the job skills differences and gaps. That education alone can't fully reduce income inequality, as political factors and social norms, like high executive pay, also contribute to the gap.

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"Such civic agency involves three core tasks. First is disinterested deliberation around a public problem. Here the model derives from Athenian citizens gathered in the assembly, the town halls of colonial New Hampshire, and public representatives behaving reasonably in the halls of a legislature."(Allen 11)

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Civic agency needs individuals to engage in unbiased discussions about public issues in order to promote fair and reasoned decision-making in society. This would help reduce inequality

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"If we are to embrace an education for participatory readiness, we need to aim our pedagogic and curricular work not at any one of these three capacities but at what lies behind all of them: the idea of civic agency as the activity of co-creating a way of life."(Allen 11)

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They should focus on developing the foundational concept of civic agency, which motivates individuals to actively shape and participate in society, rather than just teaching specific skills or roles within civic engagement.

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Education should focus not only on vocational skills but also on preparing individuals for active participation in society, and address both economic and political inequalities. Civic education, which helps develop skills like activism, and political engagement, is need for reducing inequality, in society. By shifting the focus of education towards civic agency, individuals can contribute to shaping a more active and collaborative society.