Corridor of Shame

In the United States, the South Carolina education system is a shameful institution that is in dire need of rehabilitation. The rural schools in our state are suffering from the devastations of overcrowding, low quality teaching, high turnover rates, poor building conditions, and ultimately, neglect. The fallacies within South Carolina’s education system are dramatically illustrated in the documentary Corridor of Shame.

            Throughout the film there are various instances in which sociological perspectives are prevalent.  In the movie, the most notable example of such was the symbolic interactionist view. One of the teachers makes a statement that essentially says “Even at a very young age students already realize that there are factors working against them”. If we lived in a utopian society all of South Carolina’s students would attend a well cared for school, but unfortunately, we do not and students are plagued with a negative self-fulfilling prophesy at a very young age. These students are victims of the labeling theory and a self fulfilling prophesy. At a young age, these students are directly and indirectly informed that they will not receive the many opportunities other kids will receive in order to blossom in society. Because they see and experience the defective institutions that surround them, they convince themselves that they have no ability or right to succeed. Because these students have been labeled as underprivileged and lack the resources to achieve success, they subsequently conform to the majority of the impoverished and/or disadvantaged community. This problem is a sad truth that must be fixed and can only be done so via the sociological understandings of the South Carolina education system.