1. Chapter 16
Education

2. Chapter Outline An Overview of Education
Sociological Perspectives on Education
Problems in Elementary and Secondary Schools
School Safety and Violence at All Levels
Opportunities and Challenges in Higher Education
Future Trends in Education

3. An Overview of Education
Education is the social institution responsible for the systematic transmission of knowledge, skills, and cultural values within a formally organized structure.
Informal education is the learning that occurs in a spontaneous, unplanned way.
Formal education is learning that takes place within an academic setting such as a school, which has a planned instructional process and teachers who convey specific knowledge, skills, and thinking processes to students.
Cultural transmission is the process by which children and recent immigrants become acquainted with the dominant cultural beliefs, values, norms, and accumulated knowledge of a society.
Mass education refers to providing free, public schooling for wide segments of a nation’s population.

4. Sociological Perspectives on Education
Functionalist Perspectives
Manifest functions of education:
socialization
transmission of culture
multicultural education
social control
social placement
change and innovation
Latent functions of education:
restricting some activities
matchmaking and production of social networks
creation of a generation gap
Dysfunctions of education

5. Discussion
How does education reproduce the existing class structure?

6. Conflict Perspectives
Cultural capital refers to social assets that include values, beliefs, attitudes, and competencies in language and culture.
Tracking refers to the practice of assigning students to specific curriculum groups and courses on the basis of their test scores, previous grades, or other criteria.
The hidden curriculum is the transmission of cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority, through implied demands found in the rules, routines, and regulations of schools.
Credentialism refers to a process of social selection in which class advantage and social status are linked to the possession of academic qualifications.

7. Discussion
What are some examples of how the hidden curriculum operates?
What are some of the disadvantages of credentialism?

8. Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives
A self-fulfilling prophecy is an unsubstantiated belief or prediction resulting in behavior that makes the originally false belief come true.
Postmodernist Perspectives
Efficiency

9. Problems in Elementary and Secondary Schools
Unequal funding of public schools
School dropouts
Racial segregation
Students with disabilities
School vouchers
Charter schools
Home schooling

10. School Safety and Violence at All Levels
Efforts to reduce and eliminate violence in schools

11. Opportunities and Challenges in Higher Education
Community Colleges
increased enrollment
cost of education
Four-Year Colleges and Universities
high cost of education
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Enrollment
underrepresentation of racial minority students
prejudice and discrimination

12. Percentage Distribution of Total Public School System Revenue
Figure 16.3

13. The Lack of Faculty Diversity and Equity
underrepresentation of racial minority faculty
gender inequality
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action describes policies or procedures that are intended to promote equal opportunity for categories of people deemed to have been previously excluded from equality.

14. Future Trends in Education
Education legislation
Expanding innovations
Funding
“A Blueprint for Reform”
Globalization

15. Quick Quiz

16. According to the cultural capital model:
going to a school where a student will be taught by teachers of one's own culture is highly effective.
children with less cultural capital coming into school will have fewer opportunities for succeeding.
children with less cultural capital coming into school will catch up with the rest of the nation.
going to school provides one with the essential attributes of one's culture.
Answer: b
According to the cultural capital model children with less cultural capital coming into school will have fewer opportunities for succeeding.

17. The assignment of students to specific courses and educational programs based on their test scores, previous grades, or both is called:
positioning
assessment
placement
tracking
Answer: d
The assignment of students to specific courses and educational programs based on their test scores, previous grades, or both is called tracking.

18. According to some analysts, schools teach girls that they are less important than boys. This is an example of:
meritocracy
the hidden curriculum
credentialism
affirmative action
Answer: b
According to some analysts, schools teach girls that they are less important than boys. This is an example of the hidden curriculum.

19. _____ functions are hidden, unstated, and sometimes unintended consequences of activities within an organization or institution.
Manifest
Dormant
Latent
Covert
Answer: c
Latent functions are hidden, unstated, and sometimes unintended consequences of activities within an organization or institution.

20. According to the _____ perspective, the hidden curriculum affects working class and poverty level students more than it does students from middle and upper income families.
functionalist
conflict
symbolic-interactionist
feminist
Answers: b
According to the conflict perspective, the hidden curriculum affects working class and poverty level students more than it does students from middle and upper income families.