Abstract

Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 1, No. 1,1975 ARTHUR R. JENSEN Publicly supported universal education has been both the hope and the despair of egalitarians. No other institution comes near to rivalling the school system as the major focus of concern with equality and inequality. And with good reason. Universal education is seen as the chief instrumentality for realizing the ideal of equality, and yet, in practice it proves to be the prime mechanism for revealing (some would say creating) inequality. By in fact coming closer than any other societal institution to the cherished ideal of equality of opportunity for everyone, the educational system most forcefully highlights inequalities in performance. That is our dilemma. A system of rather equal treatment, accompanied by close assessments of individual performance on which is eventually based the selection of individuals for different educational paths leading ultimately to unequal social and economic rewards—such a system is attended by crucial problems, moral and philosophical, political and practical. Many who do not view the system and its outcomes as inevitable, now are questioning it in a rising tide of discussion in countless articles, books, forums, analyses and editorials. Various critics, of course, point up different aspects