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> the State of North Carolina actually gave me free tuition and paid me a stipend to get my Master's degree (free/cheap government education is a benefit which

> the State of North Carolina actually gave me free tuition and paid me a stipend to get my Master's degree (free/cheap government education is a benefit which you don't have to be privileged to get, at least not as privileged). If having your advanced education paid for doesn't make you "privileged" you might as well stop using the word since it no longer has any meaning. I mean, seriously.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
Is a kid who studies and gets all A's in class privileged with getting the reward for all A's? Generally the idea of privilege is dealing with something you didn't work for. Having your parents pay for college? Privilege. Earning a scholarship anyone can earn? Not privilege. The issue is with privilege that impacts what you can earn, but compared to someone born with a mental disability due to lack of nutrition while developing (or maternal drug abuse in pregnancy, etc.), everyone born healthy is privileged by a great deal.
- JKCalhoun 8y ago
  I would say going to school at a time when free tuition was a thing is the privilege. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that still happens.
- Loulybob 8y ago
  A kid getting good results can be a result of privilege. If their parents can afford to live in a good area with good schools then they're going to get a better education. Additionally, I know this is UK and not US, but it does bring up other factors that economic factors can have on kid's performance: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/socio-economic-influences-on-childrens-life-chances https://www.gov.uk/government/news/socio-economic-influences...
- justin66 8y ago
  > Generally the idea of privilege is dealing with something you didn't work for. I'd rather depend on the dictionary definition which is more subtle and less judgmental, but I'm aware that it's become a rather loaded term recently. (A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.) > Is a kid who studies and gets all A's in class privileged with getting the reward for all A's? Overwhelmingly the answer is yes. Children who come from a privileged background tend to make better grades as a rule, and the privilege continues from there. There is no need to get defensive about it or guilt-ridden, either, if you're one of the people in that position. (what, I'm supposed to perform badly so others can catch up?) It is just useful to recognize what is happening. If nothing else this kind of awareness prevents people from having to ask questions like "Do I just live in that much of a bubble?" Well, yes. > Earning a scholarship anyone can earn? Not privilege. It wouldn't be a scholarship if anyone could earn it. No organization that awards scholarships awards them to all applicants performing above a certain objective threshold, as far as I know. It's a contest with winners, and the winners enjoy a certain privilege. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. (although it might be a big-picture problem if there aren't enough scholarships to go around, if increased credentialism requires too many people to win that particular lottery, etc. etc.)
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    So is everything everyone who's parents didn't act like complete deadbeats just the result of "privilege" and any effect of individual achievement, merit, hard work, etc. is marginal at best? You can't hand wave and cite some difficult to quantify "privilege" in early childhood to explain all the differences in individual achievement among a group of people who share a common trait. At what point does privilege stop and taking advantage of opportunity begin? I'm not denying the role of luck in determining the course of one's life but to treat it as the global predictor of what one will achieve is basically denying the ability of people who do not have good luck in one way or another (e.g. who you were born to) to move up the ladder in spite of that. Yes, it's better to be lucky than be good but being good can still get the job done.
    - pdovy 8y ago
      Running a race is a good analogy here. Privilege is the equivalent of starting the 100 meter dash 20 meters past the starting line, while someone else starts at zero. You can both work equally hard and achieve vastly different results. If you make the advantage large enough, no "extra effort" can overcome that advantage. Hard work and personal achievement is not all that matters. I believe I worked plenty hard to get where I am today but I had the fortune to be born to stable parents who could always put food on the table, took an interest in my education and could afford to send me to college without massive loans. Take away any of those things and my same effort would likely not have yielded the same results - I was set up for success. I don't feel guilty about that, but I do try to recognize that people who are struggling can't just "work harder" to fix their problems.
    - justin66 8y ago
      I'm not sure what leads to defensive questions loaded down with so many false dichotomies and strawmen, but I would not ask anyone to feel bad about winning what Warren Buffett calls the "birth lottery." What I'm saying is that it's useful to recognize its existence. The other thing that's useful to recognize is that while where we start is not destiny, you really can study what happens to entire populations of people. It is absolutely not difficult or "hand wavy" to quantify early childhood privilege to a meaningful extent. Nobody is saying the correlation between privilege, academic performance, economic performance, even crime and so on explain "all" of anything or treating them as "the global predictor of what one will achieve." I assume people are defensive about this stuff because they're sick of feeling like they're being accused of having something they haven't virtuously earned, or perhaps more thoughtfully, because being studied sociologically as part of a population makes people feel like ants instead of beautiful, unique snowflakes. Well.
- notabee 8y ago
  Privilege begets privilege. There are many students with the mental potential to get all A's in school that do not, often due largely to family discord and stress from poverty. Coming from a privileged background of a stable family with educated parents makes the achievement of straight A's mean much less than someone coming from a less privileged background. There are not objective measures of ability that you can cleanly separate out from their environmental dependencies. Being born poor is one of the worst things you can do to your health: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/01/401251/poor-health https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/01/401251/poor-health
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > There are many students with the mental potential to get all A's in school that do not, often due largely to family discord and stress from poverty. There are also many students that do not have the mental (either intellectual or psychological) potential to get all A's in school because of a history of family discord and stress and physical environmental effects associated with poverty. (That is, even if you took away any effects of current poverty holding them back from what they intellectually and psychologically could do under ideal circumstances, they still would not do well because of past circumstances.)
    - notabee 8y ago
      Yes, that's unfortunately true as well. Poor people tend to find housing in hazardous areas, and the developmental damage from some things, like lead poisoning, are permanent. Chronic stress also hampers physical development. To see how extreme just the psychosocial effects can be, I encourage everyone to read up on these two concepts: http://www.driscollchildrens.org/patient-education/food-nutrition/failure-to-thrive http://www.driscollchildrens.org/patient-education/food-nutr... Children with severe enough emotional stressors can cease to grow despite adequate nutrition and no physical ailment. https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/winter/adverse-childhood-experiences-trauma/ https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/winter/adverse-childhood-e... Adverse childhood experiences appear to set people up for increased likelihood of chronic illness for life.
dbatten 8y ago
The point is that anybody from any background could have gotten into the same advanced degree program and done the same work/study arrangement that I did. In fact, the program was super diverse in terms of race, gender, and socio-economic background... very intentionally so.
- frockington 8y ago
  Many people give the label "privileged" in order to justify success. That way, they are not unsuccessful, other people were jut priveledged
- justin66 8y ago
  > anybody from any background could have gotten into the same advanced degree program Well, I assume there were some residency and academic requirements. (a taxpayer funded program that only benefits those of us smart enough to get into grad school constitutes a "privilege," but I digress) > In fact, the program was super diverse in terms of race, gender, and socio-economic background... very intentionally so. It sounds pretty great. I think, circling back to the "am I living in a bubble?" question, you need to realize how unusual that really is. It sounds like the kind of thing people who are concerned about this stuff would really like to expand and make available to more people.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago

Is a kid who studies and gets all A's in class privileged with getting the reward for all A's? Generally the idea of privilege is dealing with something you didn't work for. Having your parents pay for college? Privilege. Earning a scholarship anyone can earn? Not privilege. The issue is with privilege that impacts what you can earn, but compared to someone born with a mental disability due to lack of nutrition while developing (or maternal drug abuse in pregnancy, etc.), everyone born healthy is privileged by a great deal.

JKCalhoun 8y ago
I would say going to school at a time when free tuition was a thing is the privilege. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that still happens.
Loulybob 8y ago
A kid getting good results can be a result of privilege. If their parents can afford to live in a good area with good schools then they're going to get a better education. Additionally, I know this is UK and not US, but it does bring up other factors that economic factors can have on kid's performance: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/socio-economic-influences-on-childrens-life-chances https://www.gov.uk/government/news/socio-economic-influences...
justin66 8y ago
> Generally the idea of privilege is dealing with something you didn't work for. I'd rather depend on the dictionary definition which is more subtle and less judgmental, but I'm aware that it's become a rather loaded term recently. (A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.) > Is a kid who studies and gets all A's in class privileged with getting the reward for all A's? Overwhelmingly the answer is yes. Children who come from a privileged background tend to make better grades as a rule, and the privilege continues from there. There is no need to get defensive about it or guilt-ridden, either, if you're one of the people in that position. (what, I'm supposed to perform badly so others can catch up?) It is just useful to recognize what is happening. If nothing else this kind of awareness prevents people from having to ask questions like "Do I just live in that much of a bubble?" Well, yes. > Earning a scholarship anyone can earn? Not privilege. It wouldn't be a scholarship if anyone could earn it. No organization that awards scholarships awards them to all applicants performing above a certain objective threshold, as far as I know. It's a contest with winners, and the winners enjoy a certain privilege. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. (although it might be a big-picture problem if there aren't enough scholarships to go around, if increased credentialism requires too many people to win that particular lottery, etc. etc.)
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  So is everything everyone who's parents didn't act like complete deadbeats just the result of "privilege" and any effect of individual achievement, merit, hard work, etc. is marginal at best? You can't hand wave and cite some difficult to quantify "privilege" in early childhood to explain all the differences in individual achievement among a group of people who share a common trait. At what point does privilege stop and taking advantage of opportunity begin? I'm not denying the role of luck in determining the course of one's life but to treat it as the global predictor of what one will achieve is basically denying the ability of people who do not have good luck in one way or another (e.g. who you were born to) to move up the ladder in spite of that. Yes, it's better to be lucky than be good but being good can still get the job done.
  - pdovy 8y ago
    Running a race is a good analogy here. Privilege is the equivalent of starting the 100 meter dash 20 meters past the starting line, while someone else starts at zero. You can both work equally hard and achieve vastly different results. If you make the advantage large enough, no "extra effort" can overcome that advantage. Hard work and personal achievement is not all that matters. I believe I worked plenty hard to get where I am today but I had the fortune to be born to stable parents who could always put food on the table, took an interest in my education and could afford to send me to college without massive loans. Take away any of those things and my same effort would likely not have yielded the same results - I was set up for success. I don't feel guilty about that, but I do try to recognize that people who are struggling can't just "work harder" to fix their problems.
  - justin66 8y ago
    I'm not sure what leads to defensive questions loaded down with so many false dichotomies and strawmen, but I would not ask anyone to feel bad about winning what Warren Buffett calls the "birth lottery." What I'm saying is that it's useful to recognize its existence. The other thing that's useful to recognize is that while where we start is not destiny, you really can study what happens to entire populations of people. It is absolutely not difficult or "hand wavy" to quantify early childhood privilege to a meaningful extent. Nobody is saying the correlation between privilege, academic performance, economic performance, even crime and so on explain "all" of anything or treating them as "the global predictor of what one will achieve." I assume people are defensive about this stuff because they're sick of feeling like they're being accused of having something they haven't virtuously earned, or perhaps more thoughtfully, because being studied sociologically as part of a population makes people feel like ants instead of beautiful, unique snowflakes. Well.
notabee 8y ago
Privilege begets privilege. There are many students with the mental potential to get all A's in school that do not, often due largely to family discord and stress from poverty. Coming from a privileged background of a stable family with educated parents makes the achievement of straight A's mean much less than someone coming from a less privileged background. There are not objective measures of ability that you can cleanly separate out from their environmental dependencies. Being born poor is one of the worst things you can do to your health: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/01/401251/poor-health https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/01/401251/poor-health
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > There are many students with the mental potential to get all A's in school that do not, often due largely to family discord and stress from poverty. There are also many students that do not have the mental (either intellectual or psychological) potential to get all A's in school because of a history of family discord and stress and physical environmental effects associated with poverty. (That is, even if you took away any effects of current poverty holding them back from what they intellectually and psychologically could do under ideal circumstances, they still would not do well because of past circumstances.)
  - notabee 8y ago
    Yes, that's unfortunately true as well. Poor people tend to find housing in hazardous areas, and the developmental damage from some things, like lead poisoning, are permanent. Chronic stress also hampers physical development. To see how extreme just the psychosocial effects can be, I encourage everyone to read up on these two concepts: http://www.driscollchildrens.org/patient-education/food-nutrition/failure-to-thrive http://www.driscollchildrens.org/patient-education/food-nutr... Children with severe enough emotional stressors can cease to grow despite adequate nutrition and no physical ailment. https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/winter/adverse-childhood-experiences-trauma/ https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/winter/adverse-childhood-e... Adverse childhood experiences appear to set people up for increased likelihood of chronic illness for life.

dbatten 8y ago

The point is that anybody from any background could have gotten into the same advanced degree program and done the same work/study arrangement that I did. In fact, the program was super diverse in terms of race, gender, and socio-economic background... very intentionally so.

frockington 8y ago
Many people give the label "privileged" in order to justify success. That way, they are not unsuccessful, other people were jut priveledged
justin66 8y ago
> anybody from any background could have gotten into the same advanced degree program Well, I assume there were some residency and academic requirements. (a taxpayer funded program that only benefits those of us smart enough to get into grad school constitutes a "privilege," but I digress) > In fact, the program was super diverse in terms of race, gender, and socio-economic background... very intentionally so. It sounds pretty great. I think, circling back to the "am I living in a bubble?" question, you need to realize how unusual that really is. It sounds like the kind of thing people who are concerned about this stuff would really like to expand and make available to more people.