1 Education

3 College attendance  As family income increases, the share of children going to college goes up.

4 Education and income  A high school diploma and a college degree both raise personal income.

5 Japan vs America  Japan Entrance based on personal ability demonstrated on achievement tests  America Practical and job related Everyone can attend

6 Manifest functions  Socializing of young  Creating new culture  Integrating people into a new society

7 Latent functions  Child care  Consumes time & energy  Lasting relationships

Problems

Functional illiteracy  People leave school without learning basic skills  Major concerns Urgent problem Greater than 5 other countries 40 M adults=8th grade language skills

Educational tracking (Conflict perspective) Best schooling goes to students who are more privileged to begin with.  Segregates students into different worlds

11 Problems fostered by bureaucracy  Imposes uniformity and ignores cultural variations  Numerical performance and test scores = success  All students are expected to progress at the same rate

Teacher shortage

Solutions

14 “School choice” model  Assumes U.S. public schools perform poorly because they have no competition  Designed to increase competition

15 Magnet schools  Encourages students to specialize in specific areas of study

16 A Nation at Risk  Requires more Math, English, Social Studies, Science, and Computer science  Improve teacher training  Improve teachers’ salaries

17 Strategies for change (Summary)  “School choice” model  Magnet schools

18 Community colleges  Enroll almost 40% of college students  Greatly expand the opportunity to attend college  Enroll ½ of African American and Hispanic undergraduates