Sociology, Tenth Edition Education. Sociology, Tenth Edition Education vs. Schooling Education...

Sociology, Tenth Edition

Education


Education vs. Schooling

•Education– The social institution through which

society provides its members with important knowledge, including basic facts, job skills, and cultural norms and values

•Schooling– Formal instruction under the direction of

specially trained teachers


Functions of Schooling• Socialization

– Primary schooling• Basic language and mathematical skills

– Secondary schooling• Expansion of basic skills to include the

transmission of cultural values and norms

• Cultural innovation– Educational systems create as well as

transmit culture

• Social integration– Brings a diverse nation together

• Social placement– The enhancement of meritocracy


Latent Functions of Schooling

• Schools as child-care providers• Schools consume considerable time

& energy- activity thus fostering conformity

• Engages young people at a time in their lives when jobs are not plentiful

• Sets the stage for establishing relationships & networks

• Link between particular schools and career opportunities


Critical Analysis

• Functionalist approach overlooks that the quality of schooling is far greater for some than for others.

• U. S. Educational system reproduces the class structure in each generation

• System transforms privilege into personal worthiness and social disadvantage into personal deficiency


Schooling and Social Inequality

• Social control– Mandatory education laws encouraged compliance,

following directions, and discipline– Hidden curriculum – subtle presentations of political or

cultural ideas in the classroom• Standardized testing

– Is it biased based on race, ethnicity, or class• School tracking

– Assigning students to different types of education programs

• Does it segregate students into winners and losers?• Inequality between schools

– Public vs. Private schools• Parochial schools – operated by Roman Catholic Church

– Suburban vs. Urban districts


Critical Analysis

• Social conflict approach minimizes the extent to which schooling upward social mobility for talented men and women from all backgrounds

• Today’s college curricula (including sociology courses) challenges social inequity on many fronts


Access to Higher Education

• Money is largest stumbling block to higher education– Even for state-sponsored schools

• Family income is still best predictor for college attendance– Families making at least $75,000 send 64% of

their children to college– Families making under $10,000 send 21.1% of

their children to college• On average, a person with a college degree will add

almost $500,000 to his or her earnings over a lifetime

• A woman with a bachelor’s degree will earn two-and-a-half times as much as a woman with eight or fewer years of schooling


National Map 20-1 Average Annual Teacher Salaries


Credentialism

• Evaluating a person on the basis of educational degrees

• Diplomas and degrees are viewed as evidence of ability

• Over-education is often the case when people are overqualified for the job at hand


Problems in SchoolsMany Believe That a So Called “State of

Emergency” Best Characterizes Our System of

Education These Days • School discipline

– Many believe schools need to teach discipline because it isn’t addressed within the home setting

• Violence in schools– Students and teachers are assaulted– Weapons are brought to school– Society’s problems spill into schools

• Answer– Adjust attitudes so learning is the focus– Skillful and committed teaching– Firm disciplinary standards enforced

– Administrative and parental support


Figure 20-3 Educational

Achievement for Various Categories of People Aged 25 Years

and Over, 2002


“Cooling Out” the Poor Transforming Disadvantages Into

Deficiency• Just as schools can transform social privilege into

personal merit, they can transform social disadvantages into personal deficiency

• Cooling out– The self-fulfilling prophecy by which poor students end up

settling for no more than society offered them when they were first born

– Some believe that community colleges play an important part in the cooling out process

– Allowing students to fail in community college allows society to point the finger at them and ask them to accept personal responsibility for “blowing their opportunities”

– Are the students at fault here, or is the educational system guilty of not caring enough?


Theodore Sizer’s Ways in Which Bureaucratic Schools Undermine

Education• Rigid uniformity

– Insensitive to cultural character of community• Numerical ratings

– Success defined in terms of numbers on test scores• Rigid expectations

– Age and grade level expectations• Specialization

– Many courses, many teachers– No one teacher knows a student

• Little individual responsibility– Little empowerment to learn on one’s own– Don’t upset or accelerate learning for fear of

disrupting system


The “Silent” Classroom

the Norm Is to Not Talk in Class, andStudents Can Get Upset at Others Who Talk “Too Much”• No matter what the class size

– Only a handful of students speak

• Passivity is the norm– It is deviant to speak up in class

• What makes a difference– Female instructors tend to call on men and

women equally, whereas male instructors tend to call on men

• Reasons– Students are conditioned to listen– Instructors come to class with lectures prepared

and students do not wish to get sidetracked


Many Students Expect Learning to Be Delivered and Don’t Realize They Are Part of the Process• Apathy is high among students• Reasons:

– Television– Parents– Schools– Other students

• High tech may hold one key for sparking interest– Bringing multimedia into the classroom


Academic Standards• A Nation at Risk - a 1983, governmental commission

– Troublesome findings concerning what students are and are not learning in school

• 40% of those screened could not draw inferences from written materials

• 33% of those screened could complete multi-step mathematical problems

• Other insights– Functional illiteracy – a lack of reading and writing skills

needed for everyday living– Lack of interest in the importance of education

apathetic attitudes toward classes, course materials, doing assignments, and attendance

– Belief that good grades need not be “earned,” but rather just rewarded (as if they had a right to them)


Academic Standards• Global performance

– U.S. Eighth graders still placed 17th in the world in science and 28th in mathematics!

Recommendations from A Nation at Risk - a 1983, governmental commission

1. All schools should require several years of English, math, social studies, general science & computer science

2. No more “social promotion” of failing students from grade to grade

3. Teacher training and salaries should improve


Figure 20-4 Functional Illiteracy in

Global Perspective


School Choice

• Introduction of competition to public schools and giving parents options might force all schools to do a better job

• Critics charge that these programs erode our nation’s commitment to public education especially in inner city schools– Magnet schools – schools that offer special facilities and

programs to promote educational excellence in a particular area, i.e. Arts, computers,foreign language, etc

– Charter schools – public schools that are given more freedom to try out new policies and programs

– Schooling for profit – school systems operated by private profit-making companies (including public schools)


MainstreamingIntegrating Students With Special Needs

Into the Overall Educational Program

• Five million students are classified as mentally or physically disabled

• Many of the five million receive marginal classroom experiences

• Inclusive education maintains that it is good to integrate all children

• Mainstreaming needs to be approached with a measure of common sense– In cases in which one has to serve the severe

and profound populations, a segregated classroom may be best


21st Century Schooling

• Computers and other high-tech tools will become increasingly important– The amount and quality of high-tech equipment may

become one of the new marketing tools for schools to out-perform one another

– Computers, however, only hold part of the answer. We need humans to put into place a program that aims at providing high quality education

– Will the education system play a role in dividing people into two groups in the future

– Those literate and illiterate in computer skills– Will we become a country of have’s and have not’s

divided along lines of high-tech competencies

Sociology, Tenth Edition Education. Sociology, Tenth Edition Education vs. Schooling Education...

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