James S. Coleman Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“The present structure of rewards in high schools produces a response on the part of an adolescent social system which effectively impedes the process of education.”

“Schools are successful only insofar as they reduce the dependence of a child's opportunities upon his social origins.”

“The results indicate that heterogeneity of race and heterogeneity of family educational background can increase the achievement of children from weak educational backgrounds with no adverse effect on children from strong educational backgrounds.”

“Children from a given family background, when put in schools of different social compositions, will achieve at quite different levels.”

“In every school, more boys wanted to be remembered as a star athlete than as a brilliant student.”

“There are many examples in high schools which show something about the effects such competition might have.”

“Cultural dominance of middle-class norms prevail in middle-class schools with a teacher teaching toward those standards and with students striving to maintain those standards.”

“It is one thing to take as a given that approximately 70 percent of an entering high school freshman class will not attend college, but to assign a particular child to a curriculum designed for that 70 percent closes off for that child the opportunity to attend college.”

“As an example, one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports, but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests.”