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This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it was the rich kids who were the cause of corruption, why should the poor kids suffer for that?
The most likely culprit, it emerged, was that the "collective" and "petty" forms of corruption, as witnessed by Dr Borcan herself, had a curious effect: they might be paid for chiefly by well-off students bribing invigilators, but everyone benefited. It gave the poorer students "a free ride" to higher marks. It's poorly worded but they seem to hypothesise that poorer students were sort of piggy backing off of those w…
More interestingly, the teachers (which were the invigilators) rationalized this as "everybody is cheating, if you don't than the stupid kids from the country side would have bigger grades than you, so you should cheat too" (I was in an elite school).
The bribe was not huge (around $50 total sum per class per exam), so I don't think it wasn't the primary motivator for the teachers. Way more money was made by private untaxed tutoring.
> one of the consequences is precisely the reverse of its aims So... was the aim to reduce cheating, or was it just to disadvantage the richer kids? Because if the aim was really to reduce cheating, then I can't see how any of the consequences were precisely the reverse of the aims.
The aim was to show that in the absence of academic cheating, a meritocracy would emerge. What the researcher realized was that the deck was stacked against poorer students and in favor of richer students...in essence, the cheating/rigging was happening before the kids walked into school...and the academic cheating was a response to level the playing field.
They aimed to help poor and disenfranchised groups get into their specialized public schools, by forcing a meritocracy, as disproportionately wealthy and white families were accepted because admittance was previously too discretionary and lots of excuses were made about why (hm sounds familiar).
After the meritocracy was established it became disproportionately asian by a huuuuuge margin (stuyvesant high school being ~75% asian with the city having a ~10% asian population) while poor and disenfranchised groups are still poor and disenfranchised. Just even more apparently now.
This is no comment about meritocracies, it is about illuminating how far off base a governing body will be at promoting a particular outcome.
It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be more true here I guess. This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.
It seems to me that the basis of the author's misunderstanding that leads to their surprise is the narrative of wealthy people being more likely to be corrupt on a per capita basis, which clearly runs counter to the statistics which demonstrate those of less economic means committing more crimes per capita.
It also runs counter to the fact that those of greater means have greater scores due to greater means, and thus less likely to need to cheat to have good scores.
It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be more true here I guess. This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.
Worth thinking about what a level playing field really looks like.
Alternate/additional explanation for the findings: cheating continued after the campaign, but wealthier students were less afraid of the consequences than poor students.
I know people which were a constant 5 at math through high school but which got 9.85 in the exam (1-10 grades at the time).
Teachers preferred corruption to happen in the exam room, since it was the students cheating, than in the grading stage where they were liable.
Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped? Those of lower socio-economic status. Because those of such status generally engage in higher rates of criminal behavior [1], why is this presumed to be surprising? It seems to me that the basis of the author's misunderstanding that leads to their surprise is the narrative of wealthy people being more likely to be corrupt on a per capita basis, which clearly runs cou…
It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be more true here I guess. This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.
Social status doesn't make you get bad grades on exams. Being stupid does. You can expect kids with poorer parents to do worse on exams in any place where smart people are better at making money.
Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped? Those of lower socio-economic status. Because those of such status generally engage in higher rates of criminal behavior [1], why is this presumed to be surprising? It seems to me that the basis of the author's misunderstanding that leads to their surprise is the narrative of wealthy people being more likely to be corrupt on a per capita basis, which clearly runs cou…
The most likely culprit, it emerged, was that the "collective" and "petty" forms of corruption, as witnessed by Dr Borcan herself, had a curious effect: they might be paid for chiefly by well-off students bribing invigilators, but everyone benefited. It gave the poorer students "a free ride" to higher marks.
It also meant that when cheating was removed, the academic advantages of wealthier students became even more apparent. Cheating it seemed had provided a kind of levelling effect.
I'm not sure from where you're deriving these narratives and counter narratives from.