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A Letter To The Editor Based On Response To Cedric Jennings Education Journey

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A Letter to the Editor Based on Response to Cedric Jennings' Education Journey The Pulitzer-winning story of Ron Suskind about Cedric Jennings, a son of the drug dealer and the Agriculture Department worker, has been a source of inspiration for many students who struggle to change their lives by getting prestigious education. Cedric has lived in Southeast Washington, and the school he has attended (Ballou High School) consists mostly of black teens connected with gangs and drugs: the circumstances are not friendly for an aspiring learner. Cedric Jennings has made his educational and career path successful due to the social capital he has received in his family; structural and expressive racism have influenced his character and led him to his …show more content…

The reason becomes obvious close to the end of the first article when Philip’s family fails to attend his dancing performance: it upsets him, and reveals the level of the family’s interest in his learning and progress. The family does not pay a lot of attention to his future, therefore he is an easy target for the outside environment, which also proves irrelevance of social capital in the community in this particular case. Thus, the example of Philip shows that social capital in the family is pivotal in forming human capital, and its lack affects children drastically. The concept of racism in education is presented by John U. Ogbu and Herbert D. Simons; the authors outline two types of barriers base on race: structural and expressive, or symbolic, barriers (p. 159). Structural barriers consist of such material actions as violence or segregation; contrariwise, expressive barriers are related to beliefs and stereotypes (p. 158). According to Ogbu and Simmons, the barriers affect school performance, yet the abused minorities are not helpless victims (p. 158); the story of Cedric’s success clearly proves the

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