Notes to Education

• I. AN OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION

  A. Education and religion are powerful and influential

  socializing institutions:

  • Family, education, and religion are social institutions that influence who we are, what we believe in, and life chances, thus important to sociologists.
  • Both impart values, beliefs, and knowledge considered essential to the social reproduction of individuals and culture.
  • Education and religion are socializing institutions: early socialization primarily takes place in families and friendship networks; later socialization occurs in more formalized organizations created for the purposes of education and religion.

   

  II. EDUCATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

  A. Education:

  • Education is the social institution responsible for the systematic transmission of knowledge, skills, and cultural values within a formally organized structure.

   

   

  B. Less-developed versus developed nations:

  • In less-developed nations, children have a limited opportunity to acquire a formal education, and illiteracy is a pressing social problem. In developed societies, knowledge and skills are often related to the requirements of a highly competitive job market, and the concept of universal education is encouraged by leaders.

   

  III. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION

  A. Functionalists:Education is one of the most

  important components of society (Durkheim).

   

  1. five manifest functions: open, stated, and intended goals or consequences of activities within an organization or institution:

  a. socialization:  student role, academic subjects, political socialization, taught specific subject matter appropriate to age, skill level, previous experience, college looks at more detail of certain subject matter studied before.

   

  b. transmission of culture :  schools transmit cultural norms and values and play a part in assimilation to help recent immigrants become productive members of society.

   

  c. social control :  schools responsible for teaching values such as discipline, respect, obedience, punctuality, perseverance. 

  Conformity is encouraged in terms of being a good students, etc.

   

  d. social placement :  Schools responsible for identifying most qualified people to fill available positions in society.  Students are channeled intro programs based in individual ability and academic achievement.  Graduates receive appropriate credentials for entry into the paid labor force.

   

  e. change and innovation :  As student populations change over time, new programs are introduced to meet student needs (women’s studies, HIV in health classes,  computer courses, multicultural studies, sociology.)

   

  2. three latent functions: hidden, unstated, and sometimes unintended consequences of activities within an organization or institution:

  a. restricting some activities :  mandatory education laws keep students off streets and out of the full-time job market thus leaving room for others (lower unemployment rate).

   

  b. matchmaking and production of social

  networks :  Brings people together with similar interests, from similar groups, age, social class, ethnicity, may meet marriage partner, and/or develop social networks that may last forever.

   

  c. creation of a generation gap :  Info learned may contradict what parents or church taught you.  Generation gap means attitudes and beliefs clash.

   

  • Education has certain dysfunctions:  Maybe US educational system isn’t promoting the high-level skills in reading, writing, and mathematics that are needed in the workplace and the global economy. (Ex: Math here compared to other industrialized countries.)

   

  B. Conflict theorists: Schools perpetuate class and gender inequalities:

  1. reproduction of class:

  a. cultural capital (Pierre Bourdieu) :

  • According to Pierre Bourdieu, children have less chance of academic success when they lack cultural capital-social assets that include values, beliefs, attitudes, and competencies in language and culture.
  • Children from middle and upper-­income families are endowed with more cultural capital than children from working-­class and poverty-­level families.
  • Thus those with less cultural capital tend to not do as well on standardized tests (which may measure cultural capital.)

   

  b. class reproduction also occurs through  ability grouping and tracking:  the assignment of students to specific courses and educational programs based on their test scores, previous grades, or both.

  • Ability grouping and tracking affect students’ academic achievements and career choices.
  • African American males more likely to be labeled as mentally retarded, more so than any other group, especially when they are in schools with mostly white students.

   

   

   

  2. hidden curriculum: the transmission of cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority, through implied demands found in rules, routines, and regulations of schools.  

  • May affect students differently based on race, class, gender…
  • Part of the reproduction of the class structure …

   

  a. lower­-class students and credentialism

  • Schools for working class students emphasize procedures and rote memorization without much decision making, choice, and explanation of why something is done in a particular way.
  • Middle class stress the process (like decision making) involved in getting the right answer
  • Affluent schools focus on creative activities in which students express their own ideas and apply them to the subject under consideration
  • Schools for students from elite families work to develop students’ analytical powers and critical thinking skills for problem solving…

   

  b. meritocracy:  persons who acquire the appropriate credentials for a job are assumed to have gained the position through what they know.

   

  • Lower-­class students may be disqualified from higher education and the credentials needed in a society that emphasizes credentialism-a process of social selection in which class advantage and social status are linked to the possession of academic qualification.

   

  Gender bias found in both formal and hidden curricula :

  Reading materials, classroom activities, treatment by teachers and peers, females students learn that they are less important than male students. 

  • Undermines self-esteem, discourages them from taking certain courses, like math and science, dominated by male teachers/students

   

  --The situation for women in developing nations is much worse, where the belief is often that women don’t need educations, or to possess knowledge to better their nation’s social and economic development

   

  3. unequal funding is a source of inequality in

  education.

  • Most educational funds are derived from local property taxes and state legislative appropriations.
  • Children living in affluent suburbs often attend relatively new schools and have access to the latest equipment which students in central city schools and poverty-­ridden rural areas do not have (computers, new texts, state of the art stuff…)
  • voucher system :
  • A voucher system would allow students and their families to spend a specified sum of government money to purchase education at the school of their choice.
  • But will this mean the end of public education?
  • Parents may just want to subsidize kids’ education.

   

  4. segregated and resegregated schools

  a. Racially segregated schools often have low retention rates, students with below ­grade level reading skills, high teacher­student ratios, less ­qualified teachers, and low teacher expectations

  b. Racial segregation is increasing in some U.S. schools, and efforts to bring about desegregation or integration have failed in many school districts.

  • Even in supposedly integrated schools, tracking and ability grouping may produce resegregation at the classroom level
  • Special ed classes and lower-level courses disproportionately enroll children of color, specially African Americans and Latinos/as.
  • High-achievement courses tend to be dominated by white and Asian American students.

  c. African American and white achievement differences increase with every year of schooling; thus, schools may reinforce, rather than eliminate, the disadvantages of race and class

  d. dropout rates remain very high in low income, segregated, central city and rural schools..

  5. class, race, and social reproduction in

  higher education

  a.  Access to colleges and universities is determined not only by a person's prior academic record but also by the ability to pay.

  • cost has increased a lot over the past 10 years
  • Affluent families kids’ don’t have to worry about it…

  b. Enrollment of low-income students in higher education has dropped since the 1980s as a result of declining scholarship funds and of many students having to hold a full- or part-time job to finance their education.

   

  C. Interactionist Perspective on Education

  1. education and the self­-fulfilling prophecy:

  a. self-fulfilling prophecy

  • an unsubstantiated belief or prediction that results in behavior which makes the originally false belief come true.
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  • If a teacher (as a result of stereotypes based on the relationship between IQ and race) believes that some students of color are less capable of learning, that teacher (sometimes without even realizing it) may treat them as if they were incapable of learning.
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  •  Some analysts suggest that girls receive subtle cues from adults that lead them to attribute success to effort while boys learn to attribute success to their intelligence and ability. Conversely, girls attribute failure to lack of ability while boys attribute failure to lack of effort.
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  • IQ testing has resulted in labeling of students (e.g., African American and Mexican American children have been placed in special education classes on the basis of IQ scores when they could not understand the tests).
  • A self-­fulfilling prophecy also can result from labeling students as gifted. When some students are labeled as better than others, they may achieve at a higher level because of the label, or they may face discrimination from others (e.g., Asian Americans as super-intelligent).
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  • anti-intellectualism:  hostility or opposition toward persons assumed to have great mental ability or toward subject matter believed to necessitate significant intellectual ability or knowledge for its comprehension.