Week 4: Structures and Institutions

This topic is very prevalent for every aspect of our daily lives as human being. Due to something that was created by society, we are placed into categories and groups. How these groups from and how forms then for us is very difficult to pinpoint. When dealing with Structure and Institution, one of the main factors is money and power. The individuals who possess those attributes are the one who set the structure or institutionalize, people, groups, schools, workforce, and society. After reading the material for this week I believe that we have a huge issue with our public school structure and institutions, which is a problem that derives from our political structure and institutions. After reading Can Schools Be Fixed?, it makes you think of the public school system in a different fashion. First, I would apologies for all the teachers that get a bad wrap, especially at the high school level. Majority of the students that make to high have been poorly brought up in the school system, so to say. Not because the teachers are bad and want them to fail. In fact as most of the teachers expressed in the article they would like to see more children succeed, but the public school are under funded, the teachers aren’t paid the value of their work. Another issue is the criminal justice system, it alarming to see the rates the minorities are at risk of getting arrested and convicted for crimes that white counterparts in society commit as well. The criminal stigma of the minorities is an example of an institution that is severely damaged as well as corrupted. This also allows white individuals to develop and possess the “unearned advantages” explained in Johnson’s book. I tend to ask myself how did these structural and institutionalized forms of discrimination derive from. This when and where as Americans we have to look back on the true history and see how unequal things started off for individuals that weren’t white. You also have to ask what is “the American motive”? That would be money and power. So if you take the groups that aren’t white and don’t have power and as well, you then now have someone to blame for all the problems in the world. It’s almost the prototype for people you don’t want to be like. Then once you have placed those people at the bottom it becomes easier to keep them there by not making the “ladder resources” available to them. Examples of “Ladder Resources” would be innovative learning environments, equal justice systems, and positive reinforcements  within the communities. However, the discrimination with the institutions that are supposed to serve these people is so negative, the individuals in the situation tend to fall victim to the system.  There are drastic changes that need to be made in many different institutions in American society, we need to get away from our past and they traditions that we had. The word is changing around us, and if we continue to pretend that we don’t see discrimination on an institutionalized level, we will continue to see things like dropout rates of minority student skyrocket, incarceration levels of minorities of minorities making up more than half of the people that are locked up.