What is Equal Opportunity?
by Caroline Jung
The social class divide and the privileges attached have never stopped being an issue—the 2019 college scandal is just one of many. And it’s alarming that the gap between social classes has increased when we push for equal opportunity, even inspiring specialized programs for the lower class in an attempt to balance drawbacks from the gap faced — but it’s never enough. We claim we acknowledge the consequences of an increasing divide between social classes, but I doubt we truly know the extent of it on individuals, communities, and society.
So what exactly does “equal opportunity” mean? There are nuances in the definition. Some may think it means that in applications, it shut downs discrimination and is purely based on skill. It’s a very convincing definition. But I argue that there’s more to it than that. Of course it’s a moral must to include those mentioned criteria, but equal opportunity should also extend to an equal foundation in skills helpful for applying in the first place. Most applicants are confident and passionate, but what about those who have repeatedly been bashed for their opinion? How do they find their confidence again? It seems as if success in society is catered towards the former bunch and turn a blind eye to the latter. And this neglect is the very issue with the social gap—each social class teaches certain life lessons to their kids and raises them differently, and our society seems to favor a class’ teachings and leave others confused. In other words, it’s how the type of practical intelligence like life lessons taught by social classes plays a role in an individual’s success.
An expert on practical intelligence, sociologist Annette Lareau emphasizes “concerted cultivation.” Debunked, it’s the way of interacting through negotiation, questions, and challenges to ideas in an attempt to understand and develop opinions. She explained that while the wealthy were involved and parents acted on behalf of their kids and the poor tended to be independent and distant, the middle class taught their kids confidence and opinions through encouragement. Although there isn’t a right way to raise kids, it seems that in this current society, concerted cultivation, seen mostly in the middle to upper class, is optimal for success. She even further explains that in this society, the recipe for success has to do with large amounts of practical and analytical intelligence (e.g. measured IQ).
For example, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers book contrasts the lives of Chris Langan, part of the working class, and Robert Oppenheimer, a lead in the WWII Manhattan Project, who both had IQs nearing 200 and, by definition of equal opportunity, should’ve had similar success stories. However, while Oppenheimer negotiated his way to the top, Langan struggled to find a place for himself. Why? Oppenheimer witnessed his own father make it in the business world, confident that he too could make it to the top, balancing practical and analytical intelligence, but Langan learned to distrust authority and instead fend for himself as he saw his four fathers crumble into felonies, suicides, and failed jobs. Perhaps psychologist Lewis Terman’s famous experiment about achieving success among the gifted, the people who had an IQ range from 140-200, well above the average 100, can put this in a broader perspective. As he researched their lives, the result consisted of equal numbers of people in all three groups: the academics (A), satisfactory (B), and struggling (C). When determining the cause for this, family background was the only factor that mattered. They all had incredible analytical intelligence from the start, but he had found that once analytical intelligence crosses a certain threshold, it’s up to practical intelligence to achieve success. And practical intelligence was usually taught by their family and social class. To no surprise, group A were from the middle and upper class that stressed practical intelligence through concerted cultivation, but group C had parents who dropped out of middle school leaving group C to be independent; this observation explains where the gap between social classes come into play.
This is social privilege. This is unequal opportunity. The social class you were born into affects the amount of concerted cultivation and practical intelligence incorporated into your life. It shapes the mentality and behaviors of your way of reaching a goal, whether that be getting a job or a promotion. Society targets those with both practical and analytical intelligence. This is why the widening gap is a cause for concern: it means more discrepancies among social skills that affects success, and that is not equal opportunity.
To be clear, I’m not debating what the right setup for society is. I’m not debating that concerted cultivation is essential for success everywhere. Rather, I’m debating that in the society we find ourselves in now, we need to make sure that it sticks to its claim of equal opportunity. We need to make sure that there is a chance for social skills, usually needed for success in this society, to be learned by everyone. We need to make sure that everyone starts on chapter one, not in the table of contents. That is equal opportunity. And I’m debating that preventing social classes from distancing even more is one of many solutions. It’s a step towards the US securing its claim to be a country with equal opportunity.
For more information:
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers book explains this more in depth really well: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3228917-outliers
Types of intelligence: https://www.intelltheory.com/practicalintelligence.shtml
Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppgj4
Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods summarized: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/02/explaining-annette-lareau-or-why-parenting-style-ensures-inequality/253156/
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius full text: https://archive.org/stream/geneticstudiesof009044mbp/geneticstudiesof009044mbp_djvu.txt
Terman’s Experiments Results Summarized: http://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10176