Lecture 6 on education & social mobility

Lecture Six

On Education & Social MobilityEducation and Social Equality

Review from last week Lecture Seven

sheffield.ac.uk/international-college 2

Last week we learned about two main discourses on gender and sexuality i.e the ‘Natural Differences’ & ‘Social Constructionist’ views.

We also looked at feminism and developed debates on three different feminist perspectives i.e Liberal Feminism, Social Feminism and Radical Feminism.

We will be covering the following themes:

Education and schooling. Functionalist and conflict theories on

education and social mobility. Cultural reproduction Education and gender Education and ethnicity

This week:

Background:


Education is one of the sociology’s founding subjects. As a significant social institution, it has strong connections with other social structures such as social class, gender, religion and ethnicity.

Durkheim who was concerned with increasing individualism in the 19th century French society viewed education: a. As a place to transmit society’s norms and values to its new

members and essential to establish social solidarity. The school for example is a society in miniature where children learn to interact with other members of the school community and to follow a set of rules and social norms/values.

b. Where children also learn skills that is needed to perform roles in increasingly specialised occupations (refer to Durkheim on organic solidarity).

Education: a social institution which enables and promotes the acquisition of skills, knowledge and the broadening of personal horizons which can take place in many social settings.

Schooling: the formal process through which certain types of skill and knowledge are delivered normally via a pre-designed curriculum in specialised setting i.e schools.

Difference between education and schooling:

What Mark Twain (1835-1910) means by his note:

‘I never let my schooling get in the way of my education’?

Question:

‘Cultural Reproduction’ is the core theme behind many sociological theories on education. The term refers to the generational transmission of cultural values, norms and experience and the mechanisms and processes through which this is achieved.

As will be discussed later, social mobility has close links with the acquisition of cultural capital which is transmitted through the processes of cultural reproduction.

Education and Cultural Reproduction:

The term refers to non financial symbolic assets such as skills, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongings, credentials, etc. that one acquires through being part of a particular social class. Sharing similar forms of cultural capital with others—the same taste in movies, for example, or a degree from a prestigious university —creates a sense of collective identity and group position.

Cultural capital is a major source of social inequality. certain forms of cultural capital are valued over others, and can help or hinder one’s social mobility just as much as income or wealth.

Source: adopted from: http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/cultural-capital

Cultural Capital (Bourdieu (1930–2002)

Which one may have a better chance in a job interview? Why?


Social Mobility is the movement—usually of individuals but sometimes of whole groups—between different positions within the system of social stratification in any society (Oxford Dictionary of Sociology ).

Social mobility rate in each society signifies the ability to move up or down the class structure. It is concerned with the chances people from different backgrounds have on attaining different social positions.

Education and Social Mobility: & Social

1. Inter-Generational – refers to the movement between generations, such as the difference between a parent and their adult child’s occupational position.

2. Intra-Generational – refers to an individual’s mobility over the course of their life, comparing the position of someone’s starting occupation with their occupation upon retirement.

Ways to measure social mobility:

Regards education as a bridge between family and the economy and a vehicle for social mobility. Children learn common norms and values through education which enables them to internalise rules that facilitate the functioning of society (Refer to Durkheim).

It is necessary for people to be allowed to move up or down the occupational social structure. This guarantees that important social positions are filled by those who are more qualified. Upward mobility is believed to be earned through individual merit and attainment of educational qualifications


Education & social mobility; Functionalist view I: view on Education

Meritocracy: Educational institutions in modern industrial societies empower individuals to demonstrate their potentials and capabilities. In school a child’s status is achieved through assessments designed to measure performance according to universal standards. Therefore, schools operate on a meritocratic basis where children achieve their status according to their merits.

The system rewards individual abilities and efforts and is competitive but competition is based on the principles of equal opportunity. In other words, everyone, regardless of social class, race/ethnicity and gender start at the same point in the education system.

Social inequality is therefore inevitable and necessary because incentive systems are required to motivate and reward the best-qualified people for occupying the most important positions within a social system.


Education & social mobility; Functionalist view II:

The Functionalist assumption that societies are homogenous and all social groups share similar values and interests is highly questionable.

Critique of Functionalist View:

Conflict theory takes the opposite approach to the Functionalist argument on meritocracy: They argue that education is not a source of social mobility in modern industrial

societies but a means for the ruling or wealthy classes to cement their privileged social position.

Social inequality persists through a system that appears to be fair but which is actually biased in the favour of those already in power. As a result , education becomes a means of reproducing the social inequalities found in capitalist societies.

Even when children of lower-class families are able to attain higher education, conflict theorists argue that as a population becomes ‘more educated’, powerful groups simply raise the entry requirements for elite occupations. Thus, while children from working or middle class backgrounds may gain more and better educational qualifications than their parents or grandparents, the economic value of these qualifications declines.


Education & social mobility; Conflict theory:

Bowles and Gintis (1976) argue that schools help to produce the right kind of workers for capitalist businesses.

‘Correspondence Principle’: The structure of social relations in education replicates the hierarchical divisions of labour e.g. strict disciplines. The school life for example corresponds to the structure of working life in terms of rewards, punishments, tasks, hierarchy… etc.

The education is not a great leveller – widening opportunities to all classes as claimed by Functionalists- but a great divider reproducing social inequality.

Conflict Theory: Schooling for Capitalism:

Through hidden curriculum, pupils learn to accept discipline, hierarchy and passivity towards the status quo.

Illich (1971) argues that schools inculcate ‘passive consumption’ – that is an uncritical acceptance of the existing social order.

These lessons are not explicitly taught but they are implicit in the heart of modern education system. It teaches young people that their role in life is ‘to know their place and to sit still in it’ (Illich 1971: 74)

Conflict Theory: The Hidden Curriculum:

Regards pupils as passive agents.

Not based on empirical research.

Critics of Conflict theory:

Throughout the 20th century girls tended to outperform boys in terms of school results – until they reached the middle years of secondary education. At that point they would begin to fall behind where boys outperformed girls from the age of 16 years through university.

A series of sociological studies discovered that school curricula and teachers were focusing more on boys’ education than girls.

However, in recent years, underachieving boys are one of the main subjects of conversation among educators and policy-makers.

Since the early 1990s girls have been outperforming boys in all levels of education and more likely to pursue higher education.


Education and Gender I:

Despite this, ‘maleness’ still carries significant economic and cultural advantages which are denied to women.

While more girls are pursuing higher education, they are still less likely than boys to choose subjects in school leading to careers in technology, science and engineering.

So while females continue to enter into higher education in greater numbers, they also continue to be disadvantaged in the job market in comparison with boys who hold the same level of qualification.


Ge Education and Gender II: & Education

The educational trajectories of ethnic minorities have been investigated in great detail. A report in 1985 from the Swann Committee in the UK found significant differences in average levels of educational success between groups from different ethnic backgrounds.

By the mid-1990’s the picture had changed suggesting that young people from all minority ethnic backgrounds were more likely than white British children continue into full-time education from the ages of 16-19 years.

Student record statistics from 1995-1996 and 2007-2008 school years demonstrated that students from minority ethnic groups in UK higher education rose by about 8.3% or one in six students.


Education and Ethnicity I: & Education

There are, however, some large differences between minority groups:

British Bangladeshi and Pakistani students were under-represented in the 1990s and remained so in 2007-2008.

Black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups found it more difficult in the labour market, with 56 percent in work within a year of graduation compared with 66 percent of white students.

Despite their greater rates of enrolment in higher education students from ethnic minority backgrounds are not benefitting as much from their education than their white peers.


Education and Ethnicity II: Ethnicity & Education

Functionalist and Conflict Theory perspectives offer contrasting views on the impact of education on social mobility.

Research suggests that:

Forms of education i.e private versus state schools, play an important role in creating and maintaining social inequality in the UK.

Despite females’ higher admission rate to higher education , they still continue to be disadvantaged in the job market in comparison with boys who hold the same level of qualification.

Children from minority ethnic backgrounds tend not to do as well in their education and/or job market as their white peers.


Summary

Bowles, S, & Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform And the Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic Books

Illich, I. D. (1971) Deschooling Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

References:

•Review lecture slides and prepare questions for seminar one.•For this week’s seminars , please review Giddens and Sutton 2015 ’ pp.868-878 [available on MOLE] and take notes.


Homework

Lecture 6 on education & social mobility

Education

Transcript of Lecture 6 on education & social mobility