Social Status, Acculturation And School Attendance in 1850 Boston

The long and widely held belief in the ability of public education to redress social and economic inequality and provide an avenue of absorption into the mainstream of American life has come under serious question. New skepticism has in turn led to a reassessment of the role of schools in the social mobility of various racial and ethnic minority groups. The traditional assumption held that the schools served well the majority of white immigrants arriving at the turn of the century, as evidenced by the social and economic mobility experienced by these groups. ¹ The critics, however, argue that the schools were designed not only to reflect but also to perpetuate the social and ethnic structure that erected them. ² Foreign nationality was a severe handicap in educational attainment, ³ and the legend of the schools’ role in the social mobility of immigrants groups not only ignored the large number who remained poor, but also erroneously attributed to the schools whatever success immigrants achieved. ⁴