Domina Thurston, Penner Andrew, Penner Emily
School of Education, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599.
Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, California 92697.
Annu Rev Sociol. 2017 Jul;43:311-330. doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053354. Epub 2017 May 5.
Despite their egalitarian ethos, schools are social sorting machines, creating categories that serve as the foundation of later life inequalities. In this review, we apply the theory of categorical inequality to education, focusing particularly on contemporary American schools. We discuss the range of categories that schools create, adopt, and reinforce, as well as the mechanisms through which these categories contribute to production of inequalities within schools and beyond. We argue that this categorical inequality frame helps to resolve a fundamental tension in the sociology of education and inequality, shedding light on how schools can-at once-be egalitarian institutions and agents of inequality. By applying the notion of categorical inequality to schools, we provide a set of conceptual tools that can help researchers understand, measure, and evaluate the ways in which schools structure social inequality.
尽管学校秉持平等主义理念，但它们却是社会分类机器，创造出各种类别，而这些类别构成了日后生活不平等的基础。在本综述中，我们将分类不平等理论应用于教育领域，尤其关注当代美国学校。我们讨论了学校创造、采用和强化的各类别，以及这些类别在学校内外造成不平等的机制。我们认为，这种分类不平等框架有助于解决教育社会学和不平等研究中的一个基本矛盾，阐明学校如何既能成为平等主义机构，又能成为不平等的推动者。通过将分类不平等概念应用于学校，我们提供了一套概念工具，可帮助研究人员理解、衡量和评估学校构建社会不平等的方式。
