Education

Question 1

distinguishes between school’s obvious role as educator, and school’s hidden role in socializing us. * Hidden role = its latent function.

Answer 1

Robert Merton (structural functionalist)

Question 2

Manifest functions

oThe obvious and intended functions.
oTraining and preparation for the job market.

Latent functions
o Hidden role of socialization, teaching us key social values, learning to interact.
o Unintended consequences.

Answer 2

The education system: Manifest and Latent functions

Question 3

• Education in recognized and accredited schools.
• Highly-institutionalized.

Answer 3

The education system: Formal

Question 4

• How we learn for ourselves outside of institutions.
• Less organized/controlled

Answer 4

The education system: informal Education

Question 5

1. Socialization of young people.
2. Selection of people into employment.
   3.Legitimation of certain types of knowledge.

Answer 5

The Roles and Functions of Education Roles and functions fall into three broad categories:

Question 6

studied how education facilitated the functioning of society in general.
argued universal education serves the needs of society in a number of ways. He argued that:
* Schools convey basic knowledge and skills that will benefit society in general.
* Individuals need skills to fill the occupational roles they will take on later in life.
* Education also socializes children into the mainstream, so society successfully reproduces itself.

Answer 6

Emile Durkheim The Roles and Functions of Education: Socialization

Question 7

a symbolic interactionist, examined The Adolescent Society (1966), exploring rules governing relations between teenagers.
He explains the different roles students were expected to play.
* Sporty, good-looking teens were favoured; The ‘nerd’ was rejected and ostracised.
* Students attempt to be popular:

examined the formation of cliques, small groups in which students engage in exclusionary practices to limit membership, and follow certain strict rules.

Answer 7

James Coleman (1926-95) The Roles and Functions of Education: Socialization

Question 8

o Small groups held together by self-defined set of norms and taboos.
o Often deliberately seek to exclude others or to set strict conditions of membership.

Answer 8

Cliques

Question 9

Education allows you to get qualifications for your future job.
The education system selects individuals by awarding badges of ability.
* It happens through “sorting, differentially rewarding, and certifying graduates of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools”

Answer 9

2. Selection of people into employment.

Question 10

argued schools are based on bureaucracies and work to confer status and prestige. Bureaucracies in education aren’t necessarily a bad thing when they produce degrees efficiently. But the red tape of bureaucracies frustrates students. The rise in bureaucracies has also meant a growing need for individuals to have certification for specific occupations. Weber highlighted how specialization leads to an increasingly complicated set of certifications and degrees that prevent certain people from entering a trade or profession.

Answer 10

Max Weber The Roles and Functions of Education: Selection

Question 11

referred to Weber’s observation as credentialing, when a qualification or competence is issued to an individual by a party with the authority to do so.

Growing numbers of jobs have such requirements. Such credentials are not necessary for most of these jobs
* Ever more qualifications needed for jobs that previously had no such requirement.

Answer 11

Randall Collins The Functions of Education: Selection

Question 12

Interest groups band together to add these requirements for jobs, to minimize the number of people who can do them and reduce competition for jobs. High-status groups maintain their privileged position by keeping others from these routes to upward mobility

o Addition of qualification requirement to take a job.

Answer 12

Credentialism

Question 13

Modern educational systems claim to focus on providing best opportunities for all.

o Social rank should depend on your ability, not on your birth or wealth.
o Equality of opportunity is emphasized – everyone should have the same chance to succeed.

Answer 13

Meritocracy

Question 14

Education legitimates certain kinds of knowledge and divisions in society.

Answer 14

3. Legitimation of certain types of knowledge

Question 15

see a different function for education: it prepares them for subordinate positions.

*School has additional latent function of keeping children off the street, under close supervision.
* Lessons subtly prepare people’s expectations about their life – in a way that makes them accept an inferior social status.
* Classes may be gendered – cooking for girls, manual classes for boys; ‘tough’ sports for boys, ‘soft’ ones for girls.

Answer 15

Critical theorists The Functions of Education: Legitimation

Question 16

believed education maintained inequality and the power of capitalists who are already in control of society.
argued that schools work to reproduce class relations and the capitalist order. The capitalist ruling class diffuses its ideas through the school curriculum

saw the education system as encouraging and fostering conformity to authority.
believed ideas supportive of the ruling class were disseminated through the official curriculum and what he referred to as the hidden curriculum.

Answer 16

Karl Marx The Functions of Education: Legitimation

Question 17

• Lessons that schools surreptitiously / place in society. unintentionally taught students, such as obedience, and expecting a certain

Answer 17

Hidden curriculum

Question 18

Parents in low-income families may have different expectations and values than high-income families.

Answer 18

Education and Social Class * Differential expectations

Question 19

Children from low-income backgrounds are less likely to have role models who were high achievers.

Answer 19

Education and Social Class* Differential association

Question 20

Students from high-income families had more opportunities tutoring, educational trips, and books and newspapers.

Answer 20

Education and Social Class Differential preparation

Question 21

o The practice of placing students with comparable skills or needs together.

o Intended to allow stronger students to attempt harder tasks, while giving weaker students extra guidance.

Answer 21

Streaming

Question 22

• It allows students to advance according to their ability, thus helping to preserve their interest and incentive to perform.
• Teachers can adapt their teaching styles and materials to the types of students in their classes.
• Bright students won’t be bored or slowed down; they’ll be motivated and engaged.

Answer 22

Streaming has several advantages:

Question 23

• The stigma of being organized into lower-performing classes might discourage the learning of students in these classes.
• This is referred to as a self-fulfilling prophecy, where students who are told they perform poorly, in turn, perform poorly.
• May have unintended effect of limiting access to social and cultural capital and preserve inequalities of upbringing Those who perform well earlier on may have had family advantages. Separating them from weaker students limits chances for transfer of social and cultural capital by peers.

Answer 23

Streaming also has several disadvantages, and sociologists may thus argue against practice of streaming:

Question 24

used the idea of capital to describe what students in deprived areas lacked: they needed the broader cultural knowledge and social connections to climb higher.

it has been suggested that a deprived group needs to be integrated with a group that has traditions of higher educational aspirations.

One reason that education can perpetuate social inequality is its relationship to social and cultural capital.

These resources can be acquired through the education system and affect one’s chance of future success.

Answer 24

Coleman Education and Social Class: Cultural and Social Capital

Question 25

• The non-economic social assets that promote social mobility.
• Comprised of the behaviours, knowledge, and values that indicate your social class.

Answer 25

Cultural capital

Question 26

• The collective value of all one’s social networks.
• Who you know and the “norms of reciprocity” that develop between people who know each other.

We acquire different forms of capital through family connections and education system.

Answer 26

Social capital

Question 27

Women gaining more control over their reproductive rights through birth control is another way to explain it.

These changes meant women could stay in education longer with fewer interruptions.

However, these educational outcomes have not translated into equality in terms of incomes after completing their degree.

Women gaining more control over their reproductive rights through birth control is another way to explain it.

These changes meant women could stay in education longer with fewer interruptions.

However, these educational outcomes have not translated into equality in terms of incomes after completing their degree.

Answer 27

Given the prevalence of patriarchy, one might assume that women experience inequality in education systems. Yet women are statistically doing better than men in the education system in Canada. How can we explain this gender reversal in educational outcomes?

Question 28

The process of using business or management techniques to transform institutions and services previously managed by government. Corporatization occurs in universities with the naming of buildings and scholarships after major donors and the signing of exclusive contracts with companies.

Answer 28

Corporatization

Question 29

Collins’s term to describe an authority, such as a university, issuing a qualification or competence to an individual. This practice is used to exclude some people from certain jobs or opportunities.

Answer 29

Credentialing

Question 30

The non-economic social assets that promote social mobility.

Answer 30

Cultural capital

Question 31

The planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives.

Answer 31

Curriculum

Question 32

The different values and outlooks that families have, based on their social class. The different education expectations of low-income and high-income families could explain why individuals from the former are less likely to perform well in schools or earn degrees than people from the latter.

Answer 32

Different expectations

Question 33

The idea that children from the lower class are less likely than other children to have role models who have achieved at school or attended university. As a result, these children lack the knowledge of how to work within the system and are less successful in it.

Answer 33

Differential association

Question 34

The various ways that individuals can be prepared for an aspect of society, depending on their social class. For example, children from families with more money probably have more access to private tutors, educational trips, educational toys, and books and newspapers than do poorer children. These resources help to prepare them for school and to do well in the educational system.

Answer 34

Differential preparation

Question 35

The trend, which seems to have stabilized, of more women than men obtaining post-secondary degrees. In the past, men were much more likely than women to attend and graduate from university or college.

Answer 35

Gender reversal in educational outcomes

Question 36

Marx’s term for lessons that are not normally considered part of the academic curriculum and that schools unintentionally or secondarily provide. These lessons teach students to be submissive, punctual, and hard-working—all the traits that make “good” workers in the capitalist system.

Answer 36

Hidden curriculum

Question 37

The unintended functions of the education system

Answer 37

Latent functions

Question 38

One of the latent functions of the education system, aimed at legitimating certain kinds of knowledge and divisions in society. This process is consistent with Marx’s conflict theory.

Answer 38

Legitimation

Question 39

The obvious and intended functions of the education system.

Answer 39

Manifest functions

Question 40

The changing role of schools in modern society.

Answer 40

Schooled society

Question 41

One of the latent functions of the education system; the sorting, differentially rewarding, and certifying graduates of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools. According to Weber, schools use this function to confer status and prestige.

Answer 41

Selection

Question 42

A term that explains how students labelled and streamed as underachieving end up underachieving in terms of academic outcomes.

Answer 42

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 43

The collective value of all one’s social network

Answer 43

Social capital

Question 44

One of the latent functions of the education system promoted by Durkheim. He argued that education plays a socializing role in society and serves various social needs. Particularly, schools convey basic knowledge and skills that will be useful for members of society. They also provide individuals with specialized training for specific roles, such as an occupation.

Answer 44

Socialization (function of education)

Question 45

The practice of placing students with comparable skills or needs together.

Answer 45

Streaming (tracking)