Chapter 13

Question 1

Education as a Social
Institution

Answer 1

• The social institution of education is important
because of the multiple influences it has on
socialization, status formation, social order, and
economic productivity

– Institution of education is an enduring set of ideas about education and how it can be used to accomplish those that are deemed important to society

– Education is a powerful tool for promoting ideas among impressionable youth, provide skills, modify behaviours,
and where social interaction and conflict are negotiated

– Schools determine children potential social acceptability
and social mobility

Question 2

The Rise of Public Education in Canada

Industrial Revolution

Answer 2

• Before the Industrial Revolution, there was little
interest in educating the masses

• The Industrial Revolution demanded a more
disciplined, trainable, and literate workforce

• Consequently, industrialization and public education became interdependent

Question 3

The Rise of Public Education in Canada

Ergerton Ryerson and Stephen Schecter

Answer 3

As early as 1846, education was seen as a way of achieving economic modernization

• Education reformer Egerton Ryerson promoted the idea of a school system that would be universal, free, and compulsory

• Canadian sociologist Stephen Schecter (1977) stated that Ryerson’s education model produced social order and ensured
social control by subverting potential social conflict among immigrants (Irish labours)

• Education as tool of assimilation

Question 4

The Rise of Public Education in Canada

Stephen Schecter argued

Answer 4

• Schecter argued that compulsory, state-run public education is based on centralization and uniformity
– Legitimizes and supports social inequality
– Instrument of social control of the emerging working class

Question 5

The Rise of Public Education in Canada

Provincial school board

Answer 5

• Provincial school boards established to act as
executive bodies to set up and maintain large systems
of “normal schools”

– Enforced codes of discipline
– Enacted hierarchical authority relations

Question 6

The Rise of Public Education in Canada

Compulsorily education and the sorting of children

Answer 6

• Compulsory education is used as an instrument social subordination

• Education ranks and sorts children to the detriment of those considered inferior

Question 7

The Rise of Public Education in Canada

Malacrida (2015) identified three ways in which
children of different intellectual abilities were sorted out of the mainstream:

Answer 7

– Truancy laws, punishing those who did not come to class

– Tests and curriculums that standardize expectations of
educational success

– “Health” testing conducted via medical and psychological examinations

Question 8

Post-war Expansion and
the Human Capital Thesis

Answer 8

• Economic expansion after WWII required an
increasingly educated workforce

• Expansion of post-secondary education institutions

• Human capital thesis: Industrial societies invest in schools to enhance the knowledge and skills of their workers

– Used to justify low income among marginalized groups,
which is attributed to low human capital

• Since the 1970s, decreases in the taxes charged to corporations have contributed to cuts in governmental funding for postsecondary institutions

Question 9

Models of Public Education in Canada

Answer 9

• The Assimilation Model
• Multicultural Education
• Anti-racism and Anti-oppression Education

Question 10

The Assimilation Model

Answer 10

• Education in Canada has historically been based on a monocultural model that emphasizes assimilation
into the dominant culture

• English Canada was perceived as a white Protestant nation and newcomers were expected to assimilate to fit in

– Example: focus on English literature

• This model fails to recognize racial bias and discrimination inside and outside the school system

Question 11

Multicultural Education

Answer 11

• Canada’s federal government implemented its official
policy of multiculturalism in 1971

– Preserve and promote cultural diversity
– Remove the barriers that denied certain groups full
participation within Canadian society

• Study and celebration of lifestyles, traditions, and
histories of diverse cultures

Question 12

Multicultural Education

• Three fundamental assumptions of multicultural education

Answer 12

Learning about one’s culture would improve educational achievement

Learning about one’s culture would promote equality of opportunity

Learning about other cultures would reduce prejudice and discrimination

• Classroom focus tended to favour a museum approach that overlooked
the complexity and vitality of these different cultures
• E.g., exotic aspect of different cultures - food, festivals, and folklore

Question 13

Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Education

Answer 13

• Emerged in the 1980s

• Recognizes that racial inequality exists and that racism is systemic in Canada

• Seeks to change institutional policies and practices

• Seeks to change individual attitudes and behaviour reproducing inequalities

• Seeks to expose and eliminate the institutional and individual barriers to equity

Question 14

Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Education

• It is intended to create a classroom environment where

Answer 14

– Stereotypes and racist ideas can be exposed

– Sources of information can be critically examined

– Alternative and missing information can be provided

– Students can become equipped to look critically at the accuracy of
the information they receive

– The reasons for the continued unequal social status of different
group can be explored

Question 15

Topics in the Sociology of Education:
The Hidden Curriculum

Answer 15

• The hidden curriculum consists of the unstated or
unofficial goals of the education system

– From the structural functionalist point of view, Robert Merton helps us understand the hidden curriculum as performing the latent function by teaching the norms of
society

• Examples: the value of work, the need to respect authority, the
efficient use of one’s time

Question 16

Topics in the Sociology of Education:
The Hidden Curriculum

Critiqued

Answer 16

– Conflict sociologists might argue that the hidden curriculum is performing a latent dysfunction

• Example: reproduces the class system by hindering social mobility

Question 17

Discipline, Punishment, and Evaluation

Answer 17

• Discipline is a key part of the hidden curriculum

– Refers to controlled behaviour
i.e In primary school, discipline is focused on the body,restricting movement, impeding interaction, and normalizing
confinement, use “inside voices,” to sit quietly in their seats, to line up, and to be punctual.

• Common at all levels of education is the external and internal “routinization” of the individual
– Punishment is enacted if the rules are not followed
• i.e “time-out,” trip to the principal’s office, detention

Question 18

Discipline, Punishment, and Evaluation

• Public education creates what Michel Foucault
termed the docile body

Answer 18

– Individuals that has been conditioned, through a specific set of procedures and practices, to behave precisely the way administrators want it to

Question 19

Discipline, Punishment, and Evaluations

– Docile bodies are conditioned through three forms of disciplinary control:

Answer 19

1. Hierarchical observation
   • People are controlled through observation and surveillance
2. Normalizing judgment
   • Individuals are judged on how their actions rank when compared with the performance of others
3. The examination
   - a normalizing gaze that establishes over individuals, a visibility through which one differentiates them and judges them

Question 20

Cultural Reproduction Theory
• Jeannie Oakes and the Hidden Curriculum of Tracking

Answer 20

– Oakes (2005) defined tracking as “the process whereby students are divided into categories so that they can be assigned in groups to various kinds of classes”

– Classes and students are ranked according to different levels of aptitude and projected outcomes

– Overrepresentation of lower-class and non-white students does not reflect student aptitude, but cultural biases of tests and educators

– Inferior quality of lower-track education came partly from the reduced expectations for students in the lower track

Question 21

Cultural Reproduction Theory
• An important element of cultural reproduction is the
reproduction of social structure

Answer 21

• Anyon’s work Social Class and the Hidden
Curriculum of Work (1980) discusses four different
types of schools:

1. Working-class schools (semi-skilled or unskilled jobs)
2. Middle-class schools
3. Affluent professional schools
4. Executive elite schools

Question 22

Cultural Reproduction Theory in Five
New Jersey Schools
• Working-class schools

Answer 22

– Students’ fathers held semi-skilled or unskilled jobs; some were
unemployed

– Schoolwork primarily entailed

• Following the steps of a procedure

• Mechanical adherence to rules

• Very little decision making or choice

Question 23

Cultural Reproduction Theory in Five
New Jersey Schools

• Middle-class schools

Answer 23

– Students’ parents worked in skilled, well-paid trades, professional jobs or owned small businesses

– Schoolwork focused on “getting the right answers”

• Follow directions in order to get right answers, but required some choice and decision making

• Answers are found in books and by asking the teacher

Question 24

Cultural Reproduction Theory in Five
New Jersey Schools

• Affluent professional schools

Answer 24

– Students’ parents were employed as corporate lawyers, engineers,
executives

– The schoolwork entailed

• Creative activity carried out independently
• Students are continually asked to express and apply ideas and concepts
• Work involves individual thought, expressiveness, expansion, illustration,
and choice of method
• Work should show individuality

Question 25

Cultural Reproduction Theory in Five
New Jersey Schools

Executive elite schools

Answer 25

• Students’ fathers held jobs as vice-presidents or presidents of
major corporations

• Work required

– Developing one’s analytical intellectual powers

– Reasoning through a problem, producing intellectual products that are both logically sound and of top academic quality

– Conceptualizing rules and applying those rules to solving a problem

Question 26

Homework and
Its Sociological Effects

Sociologists study homework to gauge the extent to which homework helps to reproduce class structure:

Answer 26

• Children raised by educated middle- and upper-middle-class parents have a number of advantages with respect to homework (i.e knowledge and understanding, software skills, dedicated study spaces)

Question 27

Homework and
Its Sociological Effects

• Cameron and Bartel (2008) studied the connection between homework and family
life

Answer 27

(i.e reduces family time, affects family relationships)

Question 28

Issues in Indigenous Education

The Politics of Representation in Textbooks

Answer 28

• Textbooks form an important and influential part of education

• Textbook representations

– Indigenous peoples are underrepresented in Canadian textbooks

– Indigenous writers were not represented as a significant source of information on
their own people

– Foucault (1980) uses the term disqualified knowledges
• Knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task

Question 29

Issues in Indigenous Education
• Credentialism:

Answer 29

• Credentialism: practice of valuing credentials (degrees, diplomas,
certificates) over actual knowledge and ability in the hiring and
promotion of staff

• In Indigenous communities, elders are essential to children’s education->Teachers coming from non-Indigenous communities are not familiar
with elders

• Qualification comes from recognition and valuing of their knowledge, not paper credentials

• Archibald’s “racism of low expectations”

Question 30

Issues in Indigenous Education

Best Practices in British Columbia

• Five best practices to ensure Indigenous students’ success

Answer 30

1. collaboration between school district personnel and local Indigenous communities
2. commitment by administrators and teachers to incorporating Indigenous content into the curriculum
3. creation of influential positions dedicated to Indigenous education
4. relationship-building between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in the district
5. willingness of school district authorities to share responsibility for making decisions with Indigenous communities

Question 31

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Answer 31

• Long-Term Adjunct Instructors: An Educational
Underclass

• Online Teaching

• McJobs

• Plagiarism

Question 32

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Long-Term Adjunct Instructors

Answer 32

• The number of low paid, long-term adjunct
professors (also sessional, contract, part-time) has
been growing due to economic and social factors

– Increasing number of post-secondary students

– Reduction of government investment in post-secondary education

– Increasing levels of private corporate funding

– Rising influence of corporate culture that regards education
as a business

Question 33

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Long-Term Adjunct Instructors major challenges

Answer 33

• Major challenges
– High levels of job competition

– Low pay

– Poor work conditions

– Strained relationships with full-time faculty

– Dependence on positive student evaluations

Question 34

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Online Teaching: A Critical Sociological Approach driven by

Answer 34

• Commodification of education: online teaching is driven by

– Technological improvements

– Desire to make education more accessible

– Cuts to post-secondary education funding

– Private organization specializing in delivering educational packages over the internet

Question 35

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Online Teaching: A Critical Sociological Approach major challenges

Answer 35

• the main motivation is political and financial (introduction of the idea of mandatory online high school courses in Ontario by Premier Ford in 2019)
• access without mobility ( reproduces the class system while seeming to improve the lot of more marginalized groups)

Question 36

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Online Teaching: A Critical Sociological Approach major challenges continued

Answer 36

– Alienation
• Separation between people and the work they are paid to do due to
administrative monitoring and control
• Instructors become disconnected from their intellectual property

– Significant drop-out rates

– Instrumental education relying on limited, narrowly
defined tasks versus critical education, which involves
analysis of ideas and discussion

– One-directional information flow controlled by the curriculum

– Class reproduction through a two-tiered system

Question 37

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

McJobs

Answer 37

• Underemployment
– Involuntary part-time work for people seeking full-time employment

– Low-wage, low-skill employment for people with valuable
skills, experience, or academic credentials

– Causes
• The rate of unemployment

• Regional disparities ((lack of employment opportunities and
resources like training and childcare in economically depressed communities)

• Discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, disability, or lack of appropriate credentials

Question 38

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

McJobs

1990s

Answer 38

• During the 1990s, universities produced 1.2 million graduates, but only 600,000 jobs required university- level credentials

• If job creation remains the same as in the 1990s,
several hundred thousand graduates each year will be
pursuing fewer than 100,000 job openings

• The population of unemployed Canadians was largely overqualified for the job vacancies

Question 39

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

The Sociology of Plagiarism
• Plagiarism

Answer 39

• Plagiarism is the act of copying another person’s
work or of piecing together work from several
sources into an academic pastiche

• Passing off someone else’s ideas or work as your own

• Carol Thompson (2006) outlines key reasons why
plagiarism occurs (role models, free enterprise, and social distance)

Question 40

Issues in Post-Secondary
Education

Plagiarism
• Factors that account for the increase in plagiarism

Answer 40

– Role models
• Influence of people such as professors, school administers, famous
writers, academics, and parents
• Advise students not to plagiarize, but indulge in plagiarism themselves

– Plagiarism as free enterprise
• Essay industry
• Graduate students who sell their writing services
• Companies that sell services to catch plagiarizers

– Social distance
• Students who know their professors are less likely to plagiarize

Question 41

Cultures of Education

Answer 41

• Western culture tends to emphasize individual’s competition with others
-Indigenous cultures on the other hand put greater emphasis on the group

• Western culture emphasizes putting what you say “in your own words”
-In other cultures, “repeating the words of the master” might be valued, which can disadvantage
international students

• Increasing corporate nature of post-secondary institutions
- Students are viewed as customers and might feel entitled to certain outcomes

• Competition for students might dilute rules

Question 42

Social Inequality and
Education
• Participation Rates

Answer 42

– In 2014, 19-year-olds in the highest income quintile have the highest rate of college and university enrolment (80%)
when compared to 19-year-olds in the lowest quintile (47%)

– Enrolment rate grew for each quintile, but grew the most among 19-year-olds in the lowest income groups

Question 43

Social Inequality and
Education

• Tuition Fees and University Education

Answer 43

– Tuition fees for university education rose significantly
during the 1990s, and have continued to climb, albeit less dramatically, since the start of the twenty-first century

– There are significant regional differences in tuition costs for both undergraduate and graduate students

Ontario’s being the highest, and Quebec being the lowest