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Our Kids By Robert Putnam Summary

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Neighborhoods and Schools In Our Kids, Robert Putnam argues that communal and educational environment serves to further separate upper and lower class children into predetermined outcomes. For the rich, schools and the local neighborhood exert positive pressure that tend to lead to academic and economic achievement, while the reverse is true for the lower class. Deteriorating social ties and a destructive school atmosphere place low-income kids at a significant disadvantage, limiting their access to the vehicles of social mobility. On the educational side, “para-school” funding and differences in school culture solidify existing class boundaries. In the economically-segregated neighborhoods, a social capital gap has opened up that has deprived …show more content…

While, on paper, lower class schools can look similar to upper class schools in terms of their state funding, demographics, and other factors, the educational outcomes of their respective students are wildly divergent. At the heart of these trends is the geographic sorting of the classes into separate residential areas. Because of the difference in environment that results, a school’s location can have tremendous effects on performance. In fact, the correlation between high school achievement and community median income is even stronger than the correlation between achievement and parental income (Putnam 165). In high-income schools, the number of AP courses, the variety and number of extracurriculars, and the availability of formal assistance available far outstrip that of lower-income schools, partly due to parental involvement and financial support. In addition, “the disorder and violence” of poorer neighborhoods serves as a further hindrance to lower class social mobility (Putnam 169). Thus, both structurally and environmentally, primary and secondary education advances those who have and restrains those who do not. To be sure, schools are not the only factor widening the opportunity gap between the classes, but rather one facet of the larger socioeconomic reality that strengthens the

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