Social
Institutions: Education
Chapter
16: Sociology, Schaefer, 1995-2012
Over
66 million attend (2010, See 2009 report)(2011 tables)-~25% of population.
Biggest
industry-20% of labor force.
Schooling
historically associated with leisure activity: available to those with the time
and money.
Increasing
relevance and importance with Industrialization: 19th century and primary education,
1930 and secondary, next few years--?
Secondary
socialization-Knowledge and Skills-Bureaucratic and Formal--introduces us to
the rest of our lives.
American Education
Mass Education
- Basic Right, necessity for democratic
society
- USA-first free schools
- ~85%
High School, 50% some college, 28% degree (Europe~20% high school, 10%
college) (Worldwide--50% illiteracy)
- Urbanism
and Education
- Urbanism and Education 2
- We pay the price--lower standards
- Also, compulsory.
- All pay--education benefits all.
Utilitarian Emphasis
- Variety of Goals:
- Democracy
- Solve social problems
- Assimilation
- Little success, especially as
problem solver
- Still, we have faith in education
as a cure all
Community Control
- Financing
- Curriculum
Functionalism
- Knowledge and skills
- Cultural transmission
- Social Control
- Agent of Structured Change: social
programs, mobility, diffusion and innovation.
Conflict
- Reproduces social order--control
of resources
- Hidden curriculum, training good
little workers.
- Intolerance
and Inequality
- Credentialism (Randall Collins)
- Status: Standardized
Testing, Tracking, Public/private, Gender,
Class, and Race.
(see also: RACIAL
DISPARITIES AND DISCRIMINATION IN EDUCATION: WHAT DO WE KNOW, HOW DO WE KNOW
IT, AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW? by George Farkas, 2002) (see http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school.html
for more details)
- Correspondence Principle (Bowles
and Gintis): Wealthiest School districts spend more than $8,000 per student,
poorest less than $3000.
- Priced
Out?
Interactionism
Schools as Formal Organizations
Bureaucratization: Specialization,
rules, hierarchies, impersonal (large classes), technical competence (publish
or perish)
- Functionalism-positive, quality
control, efficient.
- Conflict: harmful, benefits some,
standardization glosses over individual talents.
- Teachers: Role conflict, strain,
and ambiguity.
- Money and work--employee, yet
professional
- Burnout
Student Subculture-Youth subculture
- Collegiate
- Academics
- Vocational
- Non-conformists
Trends:
- Grade inflation
- Quality (Finn-reform and lack
of direction, focus on production vs. the product, impact of non-academic
pursuits, Educator education, Thinking Critically vs. Knowing Something.
- Desegregation, Mainstreaming,
and Title IX
- Adult education
- Online
Education
URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/010/eduction.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu