Midterm Flashcards
Primary reasons education became compulsory
1) created jobs and helped economy grow
2) created population more compatible with democracy and functioning government
3) helped reduce class differences
Structural functionalism
-Functionalism stresses that human behavior is governed by relatively stable patterns of social relations, or social structures.
-social structures maintain or undermine social stability.
-social structures are based mainly on shared values or preferences.
-Functionalism suggests that re-establishing equilibrium can best solve most social problems.
Society is made of different parts that all work in harmony to maintain balance, everything serves a purpose
Is structural functionalism a micro or macro thery
Macro
Main functions of the education system
Specialization/ssorting, specialization, job training
Conflict theory
Society is composed of different groups with different interests that compete for power and resources
Members of privileged groups try to maintain their advantages while subordinate groups struggle to increase theirs
Decreasing privilege will lower levels of conflict and increase sum of human welfare
Focuses on macro-level structures (e.g., relations between economic classes)
Functionalism on Selection/Sorting
-Various jobs have different levels of prestige and compensation
-Competition for jobs should be meritocratic (based on effort and demonstrated abilities)
-Education provides a means of ensuring meritocracy
-Manifest (intended) function of education is to sort people into open and fair competition
Functionalism on Socialization
-The ubiquity of the school systems enables it to reach members of entire population
-People are taught shared values and ideas (e.g., patriotism, eating healthy, respect, anti-bullying)
-Divisive topics are beneficial as it evokes and re-affirms collective sentiments
-Socialization as another manifest function of education system.
Functionalism on Job Training
-Final manifest function: developing skills/knowledge into people important for work and functioning of daily life
-Human Capital Theory – a well-education population can work more effectively, efficiently, and creatively
-Hence, while public education is expensive, gov’t investment will produce benefits for country
Conflict Theory on Selection/Sorting
-Meritocracy in education is overstated as it only considers equality of opportunity and not equality of condition
-Education not a fair competition as some people has advantages that others don’t
-Education reproduces social inequality by sustaining the distribution of (dis)advantages across various people (latent function)
-Disadvantages can be overt, subtle, and systemic (e.g., refer to education as race analogy)
In other words, one of the latent effects (i.e. unintended consequences) of the education system is reproducing class inequality and then justifying this inequality as fair (because if everyone gets what they deserve in meritocracy, and if education is meritocratic, then if you don’t succeed in society it’s your fault).
Bourdieu’s forms of capital
Economic capital – money, wealth, property (Whether children have adequate housing; quiet spaces to work; access to utilities like heat, light, and water)
Social capital – social networks (Whether the child can ask their parents for help with homework or with navigating education (for example, university applications).
Cultural – tastes, habits, clothes, depositions, mannerisms (Ability to interact positively with teachers (including following teacher expectations like sitting still, or the language a child uses).)
Conflict theorists argue all these forms of capital provide advantages and disadvantages to students. Hence, the notion of meritocracy and equality does not exist and projects the image of failing in school as individualistic.
Conflict Theory on Socialization
Latent effect of education system is socialization students into hidden curriculum
To be docile, obedient, and not question authority
Symbolic Interactionism
- focuses on face-to-face communication or interaction in micro-level social settings. This feature distinguishes it from both the functionalist and the conflict perspectives;
- emphasizes that an adequate explanation of social behaviour requires understanding the subjective (i.e. personal) meanings people attach to their social circumstances;
- stresses that people help to create their social circumstances and do not merely react to them;
- validates unpopular and nonofficial viewpoints by underscoring the subjective meanings that people create in small social settings, increasing our understanding and tolerance of people who may be different than us.
Labelling Theory
maintains how we label something shapes how we view, respond, and handle it (e.g., gun laws, sex and nudity in movies)
rationalization
society moving towards an instrumental rationality and away from religion
Instrumental vs Value rationality
Weber drew distinction between rationality and distinction behind social action
1. Instrumental or means-end rationality - choosing the rational, practical, effective means to reach the desired end which includes considering the conditions and other human beings that affect the ability to achieve the desired end
Politicians should make decisions according to what is best for society
2. Value rationality - making decisions based on ethical value that is seen as worth pursuing for its own sake regardless of its likelihood for success.
Politicians need to get re-elected, even if you think something isn’t best with society, you need to do it to make supporters happy - listen to campaign donors and others iny your party
Feminism
- Society is dominated by patriarchy
Patriarchy, feminists contend, is at least as important as class inequality in determining a person’s opportunities in life, and perhaps more so;
No real biological difference in men and women and male domination is determined by structures of power and social convention - Women are subordinate to men only because men enjoy more legal, economic, political, and cultural rights;
- examines the operation of patriarchy in both micro and macro settings;
- Reduction of gender inequality is good for everyone
The main sources of gender inequality include differences in the way boys and girls are raised, barriers to equal opportunity in education, paid work, and politics; as well as the unequal division of domestic responsibilities between women and men.
Feminism and education
- underrepresentation in positions of power
- gender representation in school activities
- sexual harassment
Critical race theory
- Race is a socially constructed and NOT a biologically grounded category. It is used to oppress and exploit people of colour.
- Racism is a normal, persistent, and defining characteristic of social institutions including politics, the legal system, the economy, and all other societal institutions/structures.
- Progress on racial issues occurs primarily during periods of interest convergence— i.e. when marginalized group interests are taken up by the dominant group only due to it fitting their own interests.
- Intersectionality - Individuals cannot be adequately understood by their membership in separate marginalized communities. In other words, marginalization is intersectional— i.e. membership in multiple marginalized communities compounds or intensifies the negative repercussions an individual faces as a result.
Interest convergence
Ford took steps to hire Black employees but only did so to increase the pool of workers to draw from, thus, making them less susceptible to strikes from worker unions.
Other automotive companies didnt hire Black people until labour shortage
Derek Bell - first tenured Black law prof at Harvard
Argued that supreme court decision to end “separate but equal” policies because it was worried about the US image during the cold war
Intersectionality
Coined by UCLA prof Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989
Statistical interactions - when the effect of one variable relies on another variable (variables are not additive but rather multiplicitive)
Culture
The way that non-material objects—like thoughts, action, language, and values—come together with material objects to form a way of life
two main types of culture?
material and non-material
Non-material culture
- Symbols: anything that carries a specific meaning that is recognized by people who share a culture (ex, emojis, peace sign, etc)
- Values: Cultural Standards that people use to decide what’s good or bad, what’s right or wrong, they serve as the ideals and guidelines that we live by (e.g., morality)
- Norms: The rules and expectations that guide behavior within a society. There are 3 main types of norms:
types of norms
- Folkways: unwritten, informal rules and expectations that guide behavior. Often based on tradition and customs.
For example, shaking hands, what different types of clothes mean, what language to use in what contexts (e.g., Profs don’t swear) - Mores: More official than folkways and are rooted in morality, they tend to be codified or formalized as stated rules and laws of a society but can be more informal
Not stealing, murder, being polite, not lying, not using drugs excessively, loyalty to family, etc. - Taboos: The norms that are crucial to a society’s moral center, involving behaviors that are always negatively sanctioned
Incest, Pedophilia, Cannibalism, Necrophilia, etc
Post-Modernism
A broad and somewhat intentionally difficult to define term, typically applied to the arts and philosophy that is skeptical of ‘objective’ universal explanations of how society and culture operate”
fits within and can be considered one-part of symbolic interactionism. It looks at more abstract/complex/philosophical objects of study with a focus on how things are constructed especially culturally.
Ex: Paul Baudrillards analysis on the death of princess Diana:
People were sad over Dianas death, but this wasn’t actually because they were sad because she died (they didn’t know her personally), but rather they valued her as an idea and what she symbolized to them
Hyperreality: inability to separate reality from its representation
Ubiquity of culture
culture touches and effects all of us and influences us in small ways. We have complete control over culture and it can’t exist without us
