Chapter 9: Sociology and Social Justice: Prospects for Educational Leaders in the United States

Sociologists have always had an eye towards issues of social justice. In the study of the social structures and processes that influence individuals and groups, sociologists have long focused on inequalities and injustices within and across societies. For instance, sociologists who focus on education have pointed to international comparisons of student achievement in the U.S. compared to other nations, which reveal that our students lag behind countries such as South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and Australia (Fleischman, Hopstock, Pelczar, & Shelley, 2010).¹ However, these international scores obscure the test score inequalities in the U.S. For example, if we examine the wealthiest schools or districts, the U.S. ranks near the top of the international comparisons (Carnoy & Rothstein, 2013; Gamoran, 2011). Moreover, the gap within the U.S. between students from wealthy and poor families appears to be getting worse over time. As Reardon (2011) shows, the academic achievement gaps between children from high-income and low-income families has been growing over the past 50 years. For cohorts with more reliable data, the wealthy-poor achievement gap was 30–40% larger in 2001 compared with students born in the 1970s. Finally, the racial-ethnic gaps in student achievement between students of color and majority white students reveal persistent inequalities over time (Berends & Penaloza, 2010).