A Formal Summary of The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis
Given the preceding information, the knowledge gap hypothesis can be expressed using the following set of related propositions:
- People in a society exhibit great psychological diversity due to their psychological makeup, learned experiences, social relationships, and social category memberships.
- Despite these differences, people with more education tend to have better developed cognitive and communication skills, broader social spheres with more and more diverse social contacts, and a greater amount of stored information than their counterparts with less education.
- People with greater education also tend express interest in, and expose themselves to, a broader range of topics, including serious topics like public affairs, science, and health news.
- Therefore, as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease.
Read more about this topic: Knowledge Gap Hypothesis
Famous quotes containing the words formal, summary, knowledge, gap and/or hypothesis:
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man’s future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual’s total development lags behind?”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)
“The confrontation between America and Europe reveals not so much a rapprochement as a distortion, an unbridgeable rift. There isn’t just a gap between us, but a whole chasm of modernity.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.”
—William James (1842–1910)