Why Exclusion Leads to Oppression

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal, Dec 2014

By Kareha Agesa, Published on 08/18/17

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Why Exclusion Leads to Oppression

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal W hy Exclusion Leads to Oppression - Why Exclusion Leads to Oppression By Kareha Agesa Early intellectuals such as Thomas Jefferson and Catherine Beecher placed an importance on education because they believed it would strengthen the new nation and engender happiness throughout its people. Though these intellectuals argued for education, they oftentimes argued solely for the education of middle class white men and rarely, if ever, middle class white women. The choice to leave out women and people of color was a detrimental flaw in the plans of the early intellectuals. The ideas of Jefferson and Beecher matter as we consider the history of US education because flaws in the ideas of these thinkers have developed into stereotypes and hardships prevalent today. Their ideas for education have been molded into our current education system, and modern day problems such as lower graduation rates and income levels among people of color and a gender wage gap favoring men originate from the education plans of the early intellectuals privileging solely white men. The philosophies of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson centered on happiness. Jefferson believed that education was an imperative means for the pursuit of happiness and placed high value on the pursuit of knowledge. One of Jefferson’s goals was to remove the “artificial aristocracy” made up of those placed in power solely because of their wealth and birth status and allow for a natural aristocracy, consisting of those with the virtue and talent to lead the new nation.1 Jefferson created a plan for education that widened the pool from which the nation’s leaders could be chosen. In his plan, Jefferson divided the schooling system into four distinct tiers that would ultimately give rise to men with the merit and skill level to lead the nation.2                                                                                                                 1 Guy Senese, Steve Tozer, and Paul C. Violas, School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2013) , 33-36.   2 Ibid., 40. Jefferson’s plan called for a republic based on meritocracy, in which only those who demonstrated the appropriate amount of merit could occupy influential positions in the nation.3 Though Jefferson’s plan for education and building the new nation was ideal for middle class white men of his time, it proved disadvantageous for women and people of color. In his plan, Jefferson accounted for a woman’s education only up until elementary school (the first tier in his four tier plan) and viewed a woman solely as a “homemaker, bearer of children, and delight to her husband.”4 Jefferson saw no purpose for a woman’s education past elementary school and reduced her potential for success to that of the household economy. Along with his disregard for the educational advancement of women, Jefferson failed to include slaves in his plan for education. Though Jefferson’s views on the humanity of slaves are ambiguous, refusing to include them in his legislative proposals on education shows his dehumanizing sentiments toward them.5 Remnants of Jefferson’s misguided exclusion of women and slaves in the entirety of his education plan can be traced throughout US education history. Traditionally, people of color have been subjected to mediocre education compared to that of white people, which has resulted in both lower graduation rates and lower income levels among people of color. Further, though women currently have the potential to reach levels of economic success equal to those of men, there exists a gender wage gap favoring men and a societal expectation that a woman’s long-term goal should be to get married and start a family. Oppressive issues such as these show modern day society’s internalization of Jefferson’s ideas. Though there are current examples of affluent people of color and women who have acquired influential positions in society, most women and people of color must work considerably harder than white men to achieve these roles. Jefferson’s                                                                                                                 3 Ibid., 40. 4 Ibid., 43. 5 Ibid., 42-44.   exclusion of women and people of color from his plan for education has created a barrier that favors white men to reach academic and socioeconomic success. Similar to Thomas Jefferson, Catherine Beecher valued happiness and recognized that education prepares men to assume the important duties of society. Additionally, Beecher believed that collegiate and professional institutions must be established in order to give a proper education to these influential men. From this education, men will have “well-disciplined and well-informed minds,” better allowing them to successfully hold their positions and strengthen the nation.6 According to Beecher, the absence of education would result in “desultory, deficient” men un (...truncated)


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Kareha Agesa. Why Exclusion Leads to Oppression, Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal, 2014, Volume 6, Issue 1,