NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/educatio/4422

Text File | 1992-11-20 | 1.9 KB | 37 lines

Newsgroups: misc.education
Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!rsoft!mindlink!a710
From: [e-mail] (Crawford Kilian)
Subject: Re: Free Middle/High School Broadcasts
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:04:41 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet)
Lines: 26

The "underrepresentation" issue has both a serious and an absurd side. The
serious side addresses the fact that some professions, very well paid and
influential, are dominated by white males of northwest European extraction.
Other groups would prosper (or at least more of their individual members
would prosper) by gaining access to those professions. The professions in
turn would benefit from the "newcomer syndrome," a happy effect caused by
people who don't know what can't be done and therefore do it anyway. For
those reasons alone, we should encourage women, ethnic minorities and other
non-traditional suppliers of members to those professions.

On the other hand, no one complains about the underrepresentation of white
female college grads in the ranks of garbage collectors, process servers,
mall security guards, and other low-prestige positions. (Lack of such
representation in the US Senate, another low-prestige profession, has been
bewailed, however.) "Representationalism" essentially accepts the
blind-growth, get-rich attitude that ignores any thought of settling down to
a sustainable economic level; it wants a bigger slice of a poisoned pie. We
will be better off with fewer people of any race, gender or persuasion in
professions like law and automotive engineering, and more people in
productive, environmentally sustainable occupations.
--
Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College
North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
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