1. Education: What Are We Learning?
Chapter 11
Education:
What Are We Learning?
Dr. Santos
Soc 100

2. State of the World’s Education: An Overview
For most “education” is an informal process
Schooling refers to learning skills like reading and math, in a building via systematic instruction by a trained professional
The UNESCO standard:
6 years of primary school
3 years of intermediate and secondary school
Formal education is schooling that takes place in a formal setting with the goal of teaching a predetermined curriculum

3. State of the World’s Education: An Overview
Measuring educational quality:
Student-teacher ratio
Literacy rates
Mass education systems, the standardization of national educational curricula is a trend spreading around the world

5. Education and Individuals: Micro-Level Theories
Social Interaction within the Classroom: Symbolic Interaction Perspective
Young people spend much time in school or school-related activities
Student therefore becomes a master status

6. Education and Individuals: Micro-Level Theories
Making Choices in Educational Settings: Rational Choice Theory
If the benefits associated with a situation outweigh the costs, the individuals is likely to make the decision to act in the specified way to continue receiving benefits; if costs outweigh benefits, the individual will seek other courses of action
Dropping out of school
Teacher retention

7. Why Societies Have Education Systems: Macro-Level Theories
The Purposes of Education: Functionalist Perspective
Socialization
Training individuals
Promoting Change
Enhancing Personal and Social Development

8. Why Societies Have Education Systems: Macro-Level Theories
Latent Functions of Education:
Unintended, unorganized, informal results of the educational process
Keeps children of the streets
Provide young people with a place to congregate
Foster a “youth culture”
Mate selection market
Weakens parental control over youths
Moves youth toward independence
Provides experience in large, impersonal secondary groups

9. Why Societies Have Education Systems: Macro-Level Theories
Stratification and Education: Conflict Perspective
Schools used by powerful and affluent groups to ensure that their own self interests are met
Schools do not provide equal educational opportunities for all children in a society
This creates the reproduction of class

10. Who Does What? Statuses and Roles in the Educational System
Students and the Peer Culture of Schools
Peer groups formed
Student peer culture develops
Gender dynamics
Sexual harassment arises
At risk students appear

11. Who Does What? Statuses and Roles in the Educational System
Teachers: The Front Line
Serve as gatekeepers
Middle of the educational hierarchy
Role strain
Fair status and rewards?
The “accountability movement”
Deprofessionalism

12. Who Does What? Statuses and Roles in the Educational System
Administrators: The Managers of the School System
Issue budget reports
Engage in staff negotiations
Hire, fire and train staff
Meet with parents
Manage public relations
Preparing reports
Keep up with new regulations
Oversee discipline
Act as buffers between parents and teachers when conflicts arise

13. The Bureaucratic School Structure
Weber’s Bureaucratic Model applies to schools:
Division of labor
Administrative hierarchy
Specific rules and procedures
Formalized relations
Rationality

14. The Informal System: What Really Happens Inside Schools?
The informal system of schooling includes the unspoken, unwritten, implicit demands that we must learn in order to master the system
The hidden curriculum refers to the implicit demands found in every learning institution that students have to learn and respond to in order to succeed within the educational system

15. Educational Climates of Schools
The School Climate
The Classroom Climate
The Value Climate of Schools

16. Power Dynamics and Coping Strategies in the Classroom
How rules are enforced and who has control are part of the power dynamics in classrooms
Teachers and students develop coping strategies

17. Power Dynamics and Coping Strategies in the Classroom
Conformists: Do the school work expected to get good grades and matriculate
Innovators: Cheat of plagiarize to pass a course or win an academic contest
Retreatists: Rebel against school establishments by not conforming or cooperating
Ambivalence (Ritualists): Get by but do not exceed at school
Rejection with replacement: Become a discipline problem or drop out of school to pursue other activities

18. Education and the Social Institution of the Family
Family background, according to many sociologists, is the single most important influence on children’s school achievement
Role of parent’s motivation
Importance of social class
Family and work structures

19. Various social groups have goals for the schools
Individuals want to enhance their status
Community leaders expect schools to produce youths who will conform and contribute to the community
Ethnic and religious groups want their values and their worldview represented in the curriculum
Societal leaders expect that education train students to be contributing members of society

20. Decision Making at the Meso Level
Local Level Influences
Reading material selection
Sex education, church-state relations, “evolution”
National Level Influences
Funding
NCLB

21. No Child Left Behind
NCLB requires schools to administer achievement tests for accountability
Schools failing to meet guidelines are penalized
Tests focus on math and reading
70 percent of schools are reducing instructional time in other subjects to teach more reading and math

22. No Child Left Behind Positive aspects of NCLB:
It sets high standards for children
It expects every child to succeed
It helps create consistency between school systems
Negative aspects of NCLB:
It overemphasizes testing
It places unrealistic time tables for schools to meet
It does not provide the necessary funding
It does not account for or address the social inequalities that affect educational performance
Rural and small schools are often disadvantaged by NCLB

23. Can Schools Bring about Equality in Society?
The goals of equal educational opportunity, according to James Coleman:
To provide a common curriculum for all children regardless of background
To provide that children from diverse backgrounds attend the same school
To provide equality within a given loyalty system

24. The Coleman Report Findings
Minority students (except Asian-Americans) scored lower on tests at each level of schooling that did what students
The majority of children studied attended segregated schools with same-race teachers
The socioeconomic makeup of the school, the home background, and the background of other students in the school made the biggest difference in students’ school achievement levels

25. The Coleman Report Findings, continued
Curriculum and facilities made little difference in student achievement
White children had somewhat greater access to physics, chemistry, language labs, textbooks, college curricula, and better qualified and higher paid teachers, but the differences were not very great
Coleman recommended that integrating schools would provide an equal climate for achievement: magnet schools

26. Jencks Study
Findings
Jencks found that schools alone cannot create equal opportunity
He found that even if schools reduce the educational attainment gap, economic inequality among adults continues to exist
Children’s school, home, community, and physical environments must all be equalized for opportunity to be equalized

27. Who Gets Ahead and Why? The Role of Education in Stratification
Education is a meritocracy, or a social group or organization where people are allocated to positions according to their ability and credentials
The fact that many children do not attend school on an equal footing, questions whether or not a meritocracy exists

28. Sources of Inequality
Testing can place students according to achievement and determining progress
Importance for tracking
IQ tests
Achievement tests
Bias in tests

30. Sources of Inequality Tracking or Streaming
Tracking or streaming refers to placing students in groups based on their ability levels, and is another way in which schools contribute to the stratification process
Begins in primary school
Tracking correlates directly with the child’s background and ethnic group, language skills, appearance, and other socioeconomic variables
The negative effects of tracking can be reduced if the system of placement is flexible

31. Sources of Inequality School Funding
In the US, unequal school spending results from reliance on local property taxes as well as state and federal funds
This perpetuates existing inequalities

32. Educational Trends and Social Policy Issues
Education of Girls
Worldwide, gender inequality in educational access is a large problem
In the US, boys are falling behind in every category

33. Educational Trends and Social Policy Issues
A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform
Strengthen high school graduation requirements
Raise college entrance requirements
Emphasize basic skills
Require a longer school day and year-round schooling
Improve the training and status of teachers
Hold educators responsible for students’ performance
Provide the funds necessary to improve the educational system
To hold families accountable

34. Global Issues in Education
Social economic values of the society are reflected in approaches to learning and in motivation of students
Educational systems also reflect the economic and political institutions of a given society and its place in the world system
Governments compare their academic test scores to other students worldwide

35. The Future of Education in the Global System
Immigration
The “Digital Divide”
The “Virtual University”
The “school-to-work” transition

37. Average SAT Scores by Family Income, 2004