Chapter 13 Vocab Flashcards
Credential Society
The use of diplomas and degrees to determine who is eligible for jobs, even though the diploma or degree may be irrelevant to the actual work
Mandatory Education Laws
Laws that require all children to attend school until a specified age or until they complete a minimum grade in school
Cultural Capital
Privileges accompanying a social location that help someone in life; included are more highly educated parents, from grade school through high school being pushed to bring home high grades, and enjoying cultural experiences that translate into higher test scores, better jobs, and higher earnings
Manifest functions
The intended beneficial consequences of people’s actions
Latent functions
Unintended beneficial consequences of people’s actions
Cultural transmission of values
The process of transmitting values from one group to another; often refers to how cultural traits are transmitted across generations; in education, the ways in which schools transmit a society’s culture, especially its core values
Inclusion
Helping people to become part of the mainstream of society; also called mainstreaming
Social placement
A function of education-funneling people into a society’s various positions
Gatekeeping
The process by which education opens and closes doors of opportunity; another term for the social placement function of education
Tracking
The sorting of students into different educational programs on the basis of real or perceived abilities
Hidden curriculum
The unwritten goals of schools, such as teaching obedience to authority and conformity to cultural norms
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Robert Merton’s term for an originally false assertion that becomes true simply because it was predicted
Grade inflation
Higher grades given for the same work; a general rise in student grades without a corresponding increase in learning
Social promotion
Passing students on to the next level even though they have not mastered basic materials
Functional illiteracy
Refers to high school graduates who have difficulty with basic reading and math
Sacred
Durkheim’s term for things set apart or forbidden that inspire fear, awe, reverence, or deep respect
Profane
Durkheim’s term for common elements of everyday life
Religion
According to Durkheim, beliefs and practices that separate the profane from the sacred and unite its adherents into a moral community
Church
According to Durkheim one of three essential elements of religion-a moral community of believers; also refers to a large highly organized religious group that has formal, sedate worship services with little emphasis on evangelism, intense religious experience, or personal conversion
Rituals
Ceremonies or repetitive practices; in religion, observances or rites often intended to evoke a sense of awe of the sacred
Cosmology
Teachings or ideas that provide a unified picture of the world
Religious experience
A sudden awareness of the supernatural or a feeling of coming in contact with God
Born again
A term describing Christians who have undergone a religious experience so life transforming that they feel they have become new persons
Modernization
The transformation of traditional societies into industrial societies
Spirit of capitalism
Weber’s term for the desire to accumulate capital- not to spend it, but as an end in itself-and to constantly reinvest it
Protestant ethic
Weber’s term to describe the ideal of a self-denying, highly moral life accompanied by thrift and hard work
Cult
A new religion with few followers, whose teachings and practices put it at odds with the dominant culture and religion
Charismatic leader
Literally, someone to whom God has given a gift; in its extended sense, someone who exerts extraordinary appeal to a group of followers
Charisma
Literally, an extraordinary gift from God; more commonly, an outstanding “magnetic” personality
Sect
A religious group larger than a cult that still feels substantial hostility from and toward society
Ecclesia
A religious group so integrated into the dominant culture that it is difficult to tell where the one begins and the other leaves off; also called state religion
