1. Chapter 12: Education
Sociology
Mrs. McVey

2. THE RULE!
YOU CAN TALK ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES BUT DO NOT NAME TEACHERS OR ADMINISTRATORS OR OTHER STUDENTS!! WE ARE NOT PLAYING A BLAME GAME OR BASHING PEOPLE.

3. Why do we have education?
Society’s future depends on the successful socialization of new members.
Children must acquire the knowledge, skills, behavior patterns, and values necessary to become functioning members of society.
To accomplish this goal, every society has developed a system of EDUCATION!

4. Why does Education exist?
Education arose as a response to the need to provide children with knowledge they need to inherit the world
How people choose to educate their children varies widely from culture to culture and may be as simple as tribal elders passing on ancient stories or complex bureaucratic system as found in the united states
Education: roles & norms that ensure the transmission of knowledge, values, and patterns of behavior from one generation to the next

5. Illiteracy
Illiteracy in U.S. usually means less than 4th grade level reading/writing ability
Chart on page 397
Most American school-aged children have access to public education—less than 10% illiterate
30% of the population of developing countries is illiterate
Estimated 250 million (more than U.S. population) is illiterate in India

6. Psychology Today Article
When Will We Learn?

7. Bureaucracy in Education
Based on specialization, rules, procedures, and impersonality?
Should schools be standardized?
Schools part of bigger bureaucratic system—the federal government
Formal schooling: education provided & regulated by society
Against say that doesn’t meet emotional/creative needs of all students

8. Democratic Reforms
Good education is American priority since Puritans in Massachusetts in 1647
Progressive Movement
Humanistic Movement
Democratic
Student-focused

9. Year-Round?
The United States educational system was established around agriculture. Having 3 months off in the summer allowed students to help with planting and harvesting crops—which most students no longer do
Does year-round school make sense?

10. Open Classroom
Non-bureaucratic approach to education based on democracy, flexibility, and non-competitiveness
Not standardized curriculum
Competition not good motivator (no report cards comparing students)

11. Cooperative learning
Instructional method that relies on cooperation among students
Part of open classroom
Group work/cooperative learning
Reduces student stress
Increases academic performance
Students have positive attitudes toward school
Creates tolerance of race, culture, etc.
Self-esteem increases

12. Cooperative Learning
Attempts to teach students interpersonal skills in the classroom so they are able to implement (use) them in job setting
Skills include:
Work on a team
Teach others
Lead
Serve customers
Work well w/people from other backgrounds

13. Integrative curriculum
Approach to education based on student-teacher collaboration
Students participate in developing curriculum and content
Hands-on
Multiple Intelligences

15. Multiple Intelligences
Artistic
Musical
Verbal-linguistic
Spatial
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalistic
Math/science
kinesthetic

16. Back-to-basics
Push for return to traditional curriculum—reading, writing, arithmetic
A Nation At Risk (1983)
America at risk of being overtaken by other countries because of deficiencies in the educational system
Strict graduation requirements
Standardized tests

17. Back to basics?
Some critics say that the American educational system is in decline...do you agree? Why or why not?

18. Alternatives to public school
Voucher school
Public school funds may be used to support public, private, or religious schools
Charter school
Public schools that are operated like private schools by public school teachers and administrators
Magnet school
Schools that focus on particular discipline or area, such as fine arts or science
For-profit school
Schools run by private companies on government funds

19. Functionalist perspective
Educational institution is a response to society’s need
Graphic Organizers!
Manifest
An action that produces an intended and recognized result
Latent
An action that produces an unintended and unrecognized result
Cooperate and share

20. Functionalist Perspective
Manifest Functions of education
Transmit culture
Create common identity
Select and screen students
Tracking: placement of students in programs according to academic ability levels
Promote personal growth and development

21. Functionalist Perspective
Latent Functions of Education
Daycare
Dating/marriage
Prevent delinquency
Train athletes
Some are negative, such as tracking
Unequal

22. Conflict Perspective
America is a meritocracy, a society where social status is based on ability and achievement
Conflict perspective theorists point to inequalities in the educational system to support their theory
Competition: system where rewards are based on relative performance

23. Is American really a Meritocracy?
Meritocracy really means that everyone has an equal chance to succeed
P. 401 chart
Gender and race play a role in the success or lack of success of Americans

24. Equality & Inequality in Education
Ed. Equality: condition in which schooling produces the same results for lower-class and minority children as it does for other children
Conflict theorists would argue ascribed status and social class set the tone for education in American and lead to educational inequality

25. Cognitive Ability Capacity for thinking abstractly
Contributes to educational inequality
Is intelligence inherited? Social Darwinism
Environmental factors
Cultural bias: unfair measurement of the cognitive abilities of people in some social categories
Q. A symphony is to a composer as a book is to what?

26. A. a. paper
b. a musician
c. a sculptor
d. a man
e. an author

27. Promoting Educational Equality
School desegregation
Achievement of a racial balance in the classroom
Multicultural education
An educational curriculum that emphasizes difference among gender, ethnic, and racial categories
Compensatory education
Specific curricular programs designed to overcome a deficiency

28. Symbolic Interactionism
Emphasize the socialization at school—teaching people to participate in society
Help make transition from home to “real world” (or the larger society)
Hidden curriculum
The nonacademic agenda that teaches discipline, order cooperativeness, and conformity

29. Textbooks
Our textbooks present view of the history/society that favors United States
Textbooks present stereotypes
Been a recent push to present a more balanced picture of society to students (multicultural education)…that not all students are white, or middle class, or Christian and not all women are homemakers/nurses, etc.

30. Teachers and socialization
1st authority figures outside the home
Self-fulfilling prophecy: prediction that results in behavior that makes the prediction come true….basically treating students according to societal stereotypes
Teachers transmit unconscious sexism. Boys are:
5x more likely to receive attention from teacher
3x more likely to be praised
8x more likely to call out in class
3x more talkative
2x to demand help/attention
2x more likely to be called on in class