Watch and learn! Carefully selected videos will help bring key concepts and theories to life, preparing you for your studies and exams.

Click on the following links which will open in a new window.

1. Education in the U.S.

What are recent trends in educational attainment? View the Census Bureau’s reports on education to see how education varies by state, region, race/ethnicity, etc., and how these trends have varied across time.

Educational Attainment in the 2009 Census

School Enrollment in the 2011 Census

2. The Education Gap

The reports above indicate that U.S. educational levels are higher than ever before. However, many people still have low educational attainment, and therefore, there is an increasing education gap (see this 2008 article from the New York Times). What are the implications of this education gap? Does it mean that education is making social mobility more or less accessible?

One of the ideas related to admission to selective institutions discussed in Chapter 7 is “legacies” or preferential admission to the children of alumni. In 2004, National Public Radio broadcast a report on Texas A&M’s end to this past practice. If you click on this link, you can listen to that story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1599791.