Jencks Ideas Of Equal Opportunity

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Equal opportunity is a requirement that all people should be treated similarly. It’s the right to be treated without discrimination, especially on the grounds of one's sex, race, or age. In the case study presented to us. Jencks talks about a teacher within a 3rd grade reading class. The teacher is Ms. Higgins who believes in equal opportunity. However there are five different types of ideas of equal opportunity. These are democratic equality, moralistic justice, weak humane justice, strong humane justice and utilitarianism. Each title has a different meaning. Democratic- equal time and attention. Moralistic- reward virtue and punish vice. Weak humane- extra attention to disadvantaged students who could succeed on their own. Strong humane- …show more content…
Evidently, this is one of the most realistic that is used in the present day within business or specifically education. Jencks says that “when students make an effort to do what Ms. Higgins asks of them, moralistic justice allows her to respond not only with praise but with extra attention as well” and “when students make no effort to do what she asks of them, moralistic justice tells her she need not ‘waste her time on them.” The quote outlines one of the key points that Jencks is trying to put across, which is that this method of equality is the most appropriate in this type of industry. It is essential to define virtue in terms of effort and not achievement . Many will agree with this statement that if we do not put in the effort into the required task, we cannot expect full response from that senior figure. I was particularly drawn to democratic equality at the start of reading this case study however, upon adapting this method of teaching; a problem develops when one student shows more interest than another. We cannot ask teachers to adopt a certain method of equality when we know that in the long term it will not work. Moralistic theory of justice allows the teacher to reward hard workers with praise and extra attention but we still have the problem of what happens to the children who do not show interest, does the teacher not pay attention to those children or how does she share the equality? There is an unwritten contract that exists that states “I’ll do my best if you do

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