Explanation: First-generation college students benefit from social capital when they form networks with other students to help them navigate college life, thus disrupting low-retention rates that have reinforced inequality in college settings. Social capital helps first-generation students can succeed on a more equitable level.

Description: I’ll use this claim to show how schools often contribute to the reproduction of inequality by labeling and disciplining Black and Brown students with disabilities in ways that reflect deeper systems of racism and ableism. At the same time, I want to highlight how change is possible when educators create spaces that are culturally affirming and grounded in care; students can then feel seen, supported, and empowered. By drawing on DisCrit and humanizing pedagogy, I’ll argue that schools don’t have to uphold inequality; they can actively work against it.

This claim will serve as a foundational point in my argument that schooling functions as a mechanism of social reproduction rather than transformation. I will build on this by examining specific educational practices such as curriculum bias, disciplinary disparities, and the underrepresentation of culturally sustaining pedagogies that reflect and perpetuate structural inequality. This will allow me to argue that meaningful transformation requires systemic shifts informed by CRT, including policy changes and the amplification of marginalized students’ voices.

Schools reproduce social inequality by determining student “worthiness” using white, middle-class norms, which results in Black and low-income students being placed in lower-level courses. These placements are compounded by assignment to less experienced teachers and access to rote, compliance-focused classroom experiences (Anyon, 1980; Hagopian and Weinstein, 2023; Kalogrides and Loeb, 2013). Together, these practices reinforce racial and class hierarchies and exemplify how schooling can serve as a system of social reproduction.

Explanation:

Educators often misinterpret the cultural practices and strengths of African American families through a deficit perspective. The strengths of African American families were often invisible to school personnel who interpreted family behaviors through a deficit lens. This misinterpretation can result in over referral to special education inclusive classroom, limiting access to general education, and reinforcing structural disparities.

Explanation:

Concerted cultivation is a parenting style where children participate in organized extracurricular activities and negotiations are encouraged within their household. Converted cultivation parenting style promotes language development and empowers children to express their thoughts clearly and rationally. This parenting style impacts the way students interact with teachers and school assignments because they are willing to challenge ideas and think critically. In comparison, working-class families typically employ the natural growth parenting style, where children “experience long stretches of leisure time, child-initiated play, clear boundaries between adults and children, and daily interactions with kin” (Lareau, 2003, p. 3). Thus, children are rarely questioning or challenging adults and simply accepting their orders. The difference in parenting styles puts students of working-class families at a disadvantage linguistically because they do not have as many interactions with adults outside of their household. Furthermore, students of working-class families are unfamiliar with an equal dynamic between adults and children, making the students less likely to assert their opinions or thoughts in a classroom. Therefore, if a student of a working-class family falls behind in class, they will be less likely to express their concerns or confusion as compared to a student of an upper-class family. This reproduces inequality in schools because students are not equipped with the communicative skills to advocate for themselves by articulating their needs.

Explanation: Current K-12, high-stakes standardized assessments are not culturally relevant and do not accurately depict the learning capabilities and potential of Indigenous students.

Explanation: Hunger insecurity often reproduced at the expense of low-income and deprived individuals- even those enrolled in higher education (Wood & Harris, 2017). These concerns are starting to be examined as food reproductions are studied and reflected in higher education. Empirical research continues to expand, contract, and divest stigmatic attachment of hunger insecurity

Explanation: The application of these ethical themes in effect will ensure US schools are free from political influence thereby promoting social equality irrespective of the location or district of US schools.

I will use this information to explore how resource pedagogies (CRP, CSP) can be a transformative force in education.

Explanation: The hegemonic practices in schools influence even the inclusive programs designed to combat systemic injustice. Because many of these programs are have a foundation in deficit beliefs, the result is a form of unintended symbolic violence upon the very students the programs hope to support. By participating in these programs, these students can internalize deficit thinking and form identities grounded in whether they are a part of the "problem" or succeed in spite of it.

While traditional schooling often reproduces social inequality by reinforcing deficit-based assumptions about disabilities through the hidden curriculum, inclusive transition programs such as ClemsonLIFE and Career and CCS demonstrate that schooling can transform these inequalities by actively reshaping unspoken norms and expectations to affirm the value and potential of students with disabilities.

• Reproduction of Inequality: The hidden curriculum in most K–12 settings teaches students with disabilities that they are separate, dependent, or less capable, which discourages college aspirations and reinforces marginalization (Bourdieu’s cultural capital/habitus).

• Transformation of Inequality: Programs like ClemsonLIFE and CCS reframe the hidden curriculum by promoting independence, inclusion, and belonging—thus transforming the educational field to affirm diverse ways of learning and being.

o   “ClemsonLife has become one of the leading interdisciplinary research programs in postsecondary education for individuals with intellectual disabilities” (Clemson College of Education, n.d.)

Explanation: The public school system has seen an increase in the number of students who require special education and related services. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, approximately 15% of all public school students were receiving special education services during the 2022-2023 school year. In that same year, the percentage of students in special education in New Jersey was higher than the national average at 18%. With the increased need for special education services, school districts face challenges in accommodating the individual needs of students, resulting in students who may face a lower quality of education compared to their able-bodied peers.

Explanation:
This claim supports my argument by showing how even well-meaning science classrooms may unintentionally marginalize students whose linguistic and cultural practices differ from dominant norms. This aligns with MacLeod’s (2009) theory that schools socialize students into roles that reproduce existing social hierarchies. Rather than transforming inequality, science classrooms often reproduce it by privileging certain ways of speaking, reasoning, and knowing.

Description: How this puts marginalized students who transfer to a 4-year institution at a greater disadvantage without using their navigational capital instead of having resources provided by the university.

Explanation: As Khan explains, "St. Paul's symbolic rites of initiation-from learning to eat to the first night service to the taking one's seat service a few days later-make 'new' students" (2021, p. 93). Private schools have a hidden curriculum of rituals, rites, and traditions that make the navigational capital of certain students - legacies, socioeconomic elites, domestic students - a privilege that generates a sense of belonging and ease that other students cannot access.

Explanation: The hidden curriculum is arbitrarily implemented in order for the ruling bloc to maintain social dominance. The ruling bloc in this context is the white, high-class elitists at the top of American capitalist society. An example of this process is in Martina Eileen Espinosa's empirical study on fourth grade history textbooks with Eurocentric themes. These textbooks “include partial lessons or spotlights on various minority groups [...], they are based on the foundation of a Eurocentric curriculum” (Espinosa, 2004, p. 38). This “[results] in an educational community that gets to pat its collective back for its multicultural efforts and for fostering an appearance of broad consensus (another manifestation of hegemony) for maintaining a place of prominence for multicultural education in the schools as an important goal” (Jay, 2003, p. 6).

explanation: This sentence illustrates how schooling contributes to social inequality by channeling students from different social classes into schools that are “designed” to prepare them for predetermined roles. However, with advances in technology, the rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) has made it possible for students from various schools to access the same educational resources. I will use this point to argue that contemporary schooling has the potential to promote greater educational equality.

Explanation

1.) Bowles and Gintis emphasize that inequality is not accidental; schools are structured to maintain the class order under the appearance of neutrality.

2.) Rescigno links micro-level institutional practices to broader structural inequality, aligning with both Carter’s insights on cultural misrecognition and Bowles & Gintis’ class-based framework. 

Explanation: Communities with strong educational norms are able to positively develop both the aspirations and the behaviors of African American youth. Conversely, the absence of education as a priority in community norms leads to increased educational disparities, lower retention and educational completion rates.

Explanation: Schools could continue to promote upper socioeconomic cultural values when implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in the classroom. Teachers might assume all students will use the AI tools in the same way to further their learning. However, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds could be at a disadvantage based on their cultural capital and parental guidance with engagement of AI tools.

One educational issue that interests me is the marginalization of Asian immigrant teachers in U.S. public schools.

Using Hsieh and Kim’s (2020) and Kim and Hsieh’s (2022) findings, I make the following evidence-based claim: schooling functions as a force of social reproduction by maintaining racial hierarchies that marginalize Asian immigrant teachers and diminish their contributions to school culture and equity efforts. This reproduces inequality not only for students but also for teachers whose voices and experiences are crucial for truly inclusive schooling.

Explanation: I am focusing on first-gen students. First-generation students of color have an array of knowledge that they bring with them into their college experience that aids in their ability to navigate dominant culture deeply engrained in the educational system.

Explanation: Writing instruction often highlights the disparities in writing and literacy pedagogies as well as the differences in social capital that students bring to the classroom. AI has the ability, when used ethically, to act as a mentor providing guidance through the writing process.

Explanation: Multilingual students are not accepted as Americans because they do not know English or do not speak it well. Multilingual students negotiate between losing their native language and assimilating.

Theory planning to use: Latina and Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit)

Theorists: Yosso, Valdes, Anzaldúa

This claim supports my argument that schooling often functions as a mechanism for the reproduction of inequality, particularly through special education systems. Drawing on DisCrit (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013), I will use this point to highlight how racism and ableism operate together to marginalize Black students. By showing how educator perceptions and institutional practices pathologize Black students, I will argue that special education placements are not neutral but reflect systemic biases. This reinforces existing hierarchies rather than transforming them.

Explanation: The American university system, developed during the colonial and slave eras, inherently favors and prioritizes masculine, hierarchical structures and ways of knowing. The implementation of transformative pedagogies attempts to disrupt this relationship, but is in conflict with the structure itself, and therefore challenging.

Explanation: Without proper training, teachers may unintentionally contribute to the social reproduction of inequality by favoring students whose cultural capital aligns with dominant norms. If preservice teacher education does not prepare educators to recognize and value diverse forms of cultural capital, teachers may misinterpret students’ abilities, limit their opportunities for success, and reinforce existing disparities.

Explanation:

By sustaining students’ cultural and emotional needs through responsive relationships, schools can disrupt the reproduction of inequality and instead act as transformative spaces that promote belonging and equitable academic outcomes (Paris, 2012).