Intro To Sociology/ education Flashcards
Values
Widely held beliefs that particular ways of behaving deserve special status and are worth aspiring to
Norms
The social rules that govern everyday behaviour
Norms also govern social behaviour in particular social situations
Primary socialisation
The family provide it
Parents or caters are positive role models who strongly encourage their children to imitate their own examples of good behaviour
Secondary socialisation- education
Children spend at least 10yrs in schools learning the knowledge and skills required for passing exams and acquire qualifications through the formal curriculum
The hidden curriculum- secondary socialisation
Teaches the attitudes and behaviour that will enable children to ‘progress in society’
Toxic childhood, Sue Palmer 2007
Sociologist Sue Palmer argues that parents use electronic technologies such as television, computer games and the internet (secondary agents of socialisation) as alternatives to traditional parenting practices( primary agents).
Ascribed status
An involuntary status assigned at birth and usually unchangeable
Achieved status
Mainly earned by merit. It reflects personal skills, talent, ability, effort and hard work. It is also chose, for example gaining qualifications and marriage can be described as achieved status
Consensus theories
Suggest that some societies work well because they are based on shared agreement or consensus and cooperation
Conflict theory
Marxism and feminism
Consensus is a myth
Marxists see this conflict as caused by social inequalities
Feminists see conflict as resulting from gender inequalities
Structuralist approach
Macro approach
Interested in how large scale structures such as the economy and social institutions(the education system , political system, criminal justice system) interact with individuals and with each other
Structural approach
Tend to believe is more important than the individual. They tend to believe people’s behaviour is mainly shaped or determined by social structure
Functionalism
A consensus theory that aims to explain why the social structures of modern societies like the Uk are relatively will ordered
Functionalism functions
-They function to bring about value consensus
-members of society are socialised into broad agreement or consensus, on values, morality and norms of behaviour
-they function to bring about social integration
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The ERA and its measures
Education reform act
Endorsed marketisation, competition, parental choice and selection
The ERA selection meaning
Selection- schools were allowed to select a proportion of their students
The ERA measures
Testing, league tables, Ofsted, national curriculum, selection, diversification, city technology colleges(try to improve educational standards)
New vocationalism
New right politicians argue that youth unemployment was caused by a skills crisis. To overcome this new vocationalism brought in:
YTS: a one year training scheme combined work experience with education for unemployed school leavers
GNVQ- taught in schools aiming to teach more on the job, specific skills needed for their profession. They can take these skills into work experience
Two important changes to administration used by the ERA help schools market themselves and compete
- open enrolment- which allowed successful schools to expand to the limit of their physical capacity
- Formula funding- money given to schools was based on the number of students they attracted
Evaluation of the ERA
- concerns were expressed over the damaging effects of frequently testing children
- the validity of such testing was undermined by schools ‘teaching the tests’
Evaluation of new vocationalism
Marxists such as Finn argue that:
- it was a lack of jobs rather than a skills shortage
- the hidden function of YTS was to produce a pool of low-skilled cheap labour
- such schemes legitimated class inequality inequality as middle class youths were at a uni standard while working trained in manual labour
