A school day in the life of 14-year-old student Maria Arias, who lives in the slums of Caracas, Venezuela, will not be a full day of coursework. Due to worsening economic conditions in this once oil-rich country, classrooms now don’t employ teachers for a full day, and classrooms are dark from poor infrastructure conditions. School lunches are rarely provided, so students may go hungry. An increase in violence has led to crimes against teachers—one being killed on the playground during a gun battle.
As we see Maria in the video, her education is being impacted by structural factors like Venezuela’s economy and escalating violence. The term sociologists use to refer to social conditions in which rewards, privileges, and opportunities (like education), are given to some people but denied to others is called ______.
global capitalism
inequality
global and local insecurity
conflict systems theory
Education has often been described by sociologists as one of the key ways that one can change social class status compared to one's parents. This change in social class status across generations is called:
child mobility
parental decline
intergenerational mobility
intragenerational mobility
