In my country, Senegal, there is a strong belief in meritocracy: your class mobility depends on how hard you work for it. Don’s dad was a small business owner who worked his way up and became a millionaire, which is quite unusual. Senegal is a very low-income country, and his case was one of very few. His small business became a big one in my country and what’s interesting is, his education stopped in middle school. A structural explanation to that would be the fact that education was not too important in Senegal at that time and people believed that a workplace is a right location for a man. Also, a good education is expensive. So instead of spending money on an education for him, why not let him drop out and work so that he can be a source of income ? On the other hand, an individual explanation would be that he was surrounded by people who were always working, and that influenced him to drop out. Or, he just didn’t like school at
In my country, Senegal, there is a strong belief in meritocracy: your class mobility depends on how hard you work for it. Don’s dad was a small business owner who worked his way up and became a millionaire, which is quite unusual. Senegal is a very low-income country, and his case was one of very few. His small business became a big one in my country and what’s interesting is, his education stopped in middle school. A structural explanation to that would be the fact that education was not too important in Senegal at that time and people believed that a workplace is a right location for a man. Also, a good education is expensive. So instead of spending money on an education for him, why not let him drop out and work so that he can be a source of income ? On the other hand, an individual explanation would be that he was surrounded by people who were always working, and that influenced him to drop out. Or, he just didn’t like school at