Lecturer in the Department of History at Lake Forest College and Scholar-in-Residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago
Cristina Groeger, Lecturer in the Department of History at Lake Forest College and Scholar-in-Residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago
The United States embodies a seeming paradox: among countries in the Global North, the U.S. tops the charts on measures of social inequality, but also ranks comparatively high on measures of educational equality, access, and attainment. How can high levels of social inequality and educational access be compatible? Cristina V. Groeger, a historian of American education, will present new historical research that documents how this seeming paradox is a consequence of the shift in American capitalism from workplace-based job-training in the nineteenth century to school-based job-training in the twentieth century. The expansion of formal education, often hailed as the primary road to opportunity in America, in fact transformed the terrain on which inequality was based, and entrenched new gender, racial, and class hierarchies.
