Chapter 13 Vocab

Question 1

Credential Society

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Mandatory Education Laws

Answer 2

Laws that require all children to attend school until a specified age or until they complete a minimum grade in school

Question 3

Cultural Capital

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Manifest functions

Answer 4

The intended beneficial consequences of people’s actions

Question 5

Latent functions

Answer 5

Unintended beneficial consequences of people’s actions

Question 6

Cultural transmission of values

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Inclusion

Answer 7

Helping people to become part of the mainstream of society; also called mainstreaming

Question 8

Social placement

Answer 8

A function of education-funneling people into a society’s various positions

Question 9

Gatekeeping

Answer 9

The process by which education opens and closes doors of opportunity; another term for the social placement function of education

Question 10

Tracking

Answer 10

The sorting of students into different educational programs on the basis of real or perceived abilities

Question 11

Hidden curriculum

Answer 11

The unwritten goals of schools, such as teaching obedience to authority and conformity to cultural norms

Question 12

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 12

Robert Merton’s term for an originally false assertion that becomes true simply because it was predicted

Question 13

Grade inflation

Answer 13

Higher grades given for the same work; a general rise in student grades without a corresponding increase in learning

Question 14

Social promotion

Answer 14

Passing students on to the next level even though they have not mastered basic materials

Question 15

Functional illiteracy

Answer 15

Refers to high school graduates who have difficulty with basic reading and math

Question 16

Sacred

Answer 16

Durkheim’s term for things set apart or forbidden that inspire fear, awe, reverence, or deep respect

Question 17

Profane

Answer 17

Durkheim’s term for common elements of everyday life

Question 18

Religion

Answer 18

According to Durkheim, beliefs and practices that separate the profane from the sacred and unite its adherents into a moral community

Question 19

Church

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Rituals

Answer 20

Ceremonies or repetitive practices; in religion, observances or rites often intended to evoke a sense of awe of the sacred

Question 21

Cosmology

Answer 21

Teachings or ideas that provide a unified picture of the world

Question 22

Religious experience

Answer 22

A sudden awareness of the supernatural or a feeling of coming in contact with God

Question 23

Born again

Answer 23

A term describing Christians who have undergone a religious experience so life transforming that they feel they have become new persons

Question 24

Modernization

Answer 24

The transformation of traditional societies into industrial societies

Question 25

Spirit of capitalism

Answer 25

Weber’s term for the desire to accumulate capital- not to spend it, but as an end in itself-and to constantly reinvest it

Question 26

Protestant ethic

Answer 26

Weber’s term to describe the ideal of a self-denying, highly moral life accompanied by thrift and hard work

Question 27

Cult

Answer 27

A new religion with few followers, whose teachings and practices put it at odds with the dominant culture and religion

Question 28

Charismatic leader

Answer 28

Literally, someone to whom God has given a gift; in its extended sense, someone who exerts extraordinary appeal to a group of followers

Question 29

Charisma

Answer 29

Literally, an extraordinary gift from God; more commonly, an outstanding “magnetic” personality

Question 30

Sect

Answer 30

A religious group larger than a cult that still feels substantial hostility from and toward society

Question 31

Ecclesia

Answer 31

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