Chapter 12
Education
Education
• Education is closely related to the process of
socialization. Schools are the social environments
tasked with introduction children to social
structures, rules, and behavioral regulations
outside of the family environment.
• In the United States, when a child reaches 5 years
of age socialization changes from informal (family)
to formal (school).
• In the United States and other developed
countries education goes on for many years.
• Educational attainment dramatically affects life
chances.
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Thinking About Education:
Structural/Functionalist Approach
• Durkheim defined education as the
process by which the individual acquires
the physical, intellectual, and moral tools
needed to function in society. He argued
that education should provide 2 types of
training:
• Training for life in society (moral codes,
values, and norms)
• Specialized occupational training to maximize
job performance.
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Thinking About Education:
Conflict/Critical Approach
• Education serves to reproduce social
inequalities in society and reinforce the
system of social stratification. 2 dominant
views in sociology:
• Capitalist systems and education: class
relations and the capitalist order are
systematically reproduced with each new
generation of students.
• Industrialized society and education:
educational institutions and the specialized
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certifications
linked
to occupations serve to
Inc.
Thinking About Education: Inter/Actionist
Approach
• Focus microscopically on education,
specifically the interaction between teachers
and students, peer to peer interactions, and
the symbolism associated with the
educational environment.
• Students acquire labels (good, bad, smart,
slow, etc.) to reinforce experience and
expectations.
• Interaction Order which can dictate and/or
determine behavior
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Education and Consumption
• Students have always been consumers of
education.
• Education has been radically transformed in
the digital age.
• Education takes place in societies where
consumption is pervasive, and as a result
education becomes commercialized.
• Of concern is the increasing intrusion of profitmaking corporations and profit-oriented ideology
into traditional public schools.
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Inc.
Inequality in Education
• Who Succeeds in School?
• Educational achievement varies by race, gender,
socioeconomic status, and parental occupation.
• Students from the most socioeconomically advantaged
families are the most likely to attain a college degree.
• The Coleman Report: How Much Do Schools Matter?
• The most important predictors of success were teacher
quality and family background.
• Natural Inequality? Intelligence and School Success
• The idea that differences in learning are determined by
differences in intelligence, and that intelligence is largely
inherited and fixed.
• The Bell Curve (1994)
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Inequality in Education
• Class Differences in Early Childhood
• Hart and Risley (1995) found that differences in
cognitive outcomes are explained by differences in
parenting (professional, working class, and welfare).
• Several intensive preschool programs have shown
impressive results in changing children’s educational
outcomes by changing the cognitive culture they
experience
• Seasonal Learning and Class Differences in
Achievement
• Comparing learning gains during the school year to
gains when students are not in school
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Inc.
Inequality in Education
• Class Differences in Early Childhood
• Hart and Risley (1995) found that differences
in cognitive outcomes are explained by
differences in parenting (professional, working
class, and welfare).
• Seasonal Learning and Class Differences
in Achievement
• Comparing learning gains during the school
year to gains when students are not in school
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Inc.
Inequality in Education
• Tracking and Student Outcomes:
• A cumulative advantage/disadvantage
structure exists in education.
• Higher performing students receive more learning
opportunities than lower performing students
• Higher performing students are awarded more
educational opportunities over time than lower
performing students
• The effects of advantage or disadvantage
accumulate throughout a student’s educational
career
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Inc.
Inequality in Education
• Who Goes to College?
• Students from the most advantaged families
are not only more likely to graduate from high
school, they are more likely to go to college
and graduate.
• These students encounter a “college-going
habitus:
• A set of internalized preferences and dispositions
that are learned through experiences and social
interactions.
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Inc.
Globalization and Education
• PISA rankings: studies the proficiency of 15year-olds in reading, math and science
• In a comparative study of U.S., German, and
Japanese education systems, the following
was found:
• Germany has the highest levels of achievement
inequality because of its highly stratified system
• Japan has higher average achievement than
Germany, but much less inequality in outcomes
because it does not practice curricular differentiation
until very late.
• The U.S. actually
has
the
lowest average
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Publications,
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achievement and the least variability in outcomes.