Week 16 Lectures 1 and 2 PowerPoint (Education)

Question 1

What is Education?

Answer 1

Formal process of learning where some people consciously teach and others adopt the role of the learner
*Huge part of our lives in societies now

Question 2

Schooled society BECAUSE… (3)
Davies and Gobboes

Answer 2

1. growth in modern schooling
   *mass post-secondary enrolment in Canada
   - Over half after high school go post-secondary
2. Very important to a better life
   *Better career opportunities
   - produce innovation
   - isolate people from poverty
   - more skilled labour force
3. Forms and functions of education are increasing and diversifying
   - used to be reading, writing, basic math
   *NOW: Physical education, media literacy, drug/alcohol awareness, environment, environmental responsibility, sex education.

Question 3

Education Trends in Canada

Answer 3

Elementary

Secondary

Post Secondary

*Expansion - more people accessing education
32.9% of Canadians have Bachelors or higher

Canada has the highest portion of educated adults of the G7 countries at 57%

Question 4

Residential Schools

Answer 4

Watch video in email

Question 5

Egerton Ryerson

Answer 5

FATHER OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

• “Architect” of the residential school system
• Christian Missionary - wrote lots about indigenous people and wanted to convert them. Pushed for Missionary education, to convert.

*Praised for democratizing education, making it accessible for people outside white Christians

*Indigenous communities critical of praising Ryerson given the history

Question 6

Educational (in)equality

Equality of Opportunity
vs.
Equality of Outcome

Answer 6

*Everyone had the right (opportunity) to attend post-secondary school in Canada

*However, everyone does not have equal access to attend or resources required to be successful if attending (outcome)

*higher education is increasing significantly for indigenous communities
*However, Bachelors or higher only 10% compared to 32%.
*Indigenous people are less likely to have higher forms of education in Canada compared to the broader population.
*More likely to only have a highschool education or lower

Question 7

Functionalist & Education

Answer 7

Education maintains social order by…
1. transmitting culture
2. Promoting social integration

Other functions
- Students learning skills & values essential for the labour force
- transitional agent of social control between parents and employers. (Keeping tabs on kids, regulating their ehaviour)
- Stimulates cultural innovation

Question 8

Conflict Theories & Education

Answer 8

*Education creates unequal opportunity
*Schools tend to preserve social class inequalities in each new generation

STUDENT DEPT

• Student debt for around 50% of attendees

STREAMING/TRACKING

• The practice of putting people in certain curriculum ‘streams’ based on test scores
• IN PRACTICE, Lower income/racialized students tend to be put in lower streams

CREDENTIALISM
* An increase in the lowest level of education required to enter a particular field of employment
* A bachelor’s degree is the new diploma
* Education commodified through the labour force
*Ex. Overqualification rates

Question 9

Interactionists on education

Answer 9

*interested in interpersonal relationships in education
*Micro- teacher expectancy
*Impact of teachers expectation on student performance effect student achievement

Question 10

Growth Spurters study
by Rosenthal & Jacobson

Answer 10

Experiment telling teachers that certain students with expected to be intellectual growth spurters.
*Based on standardized test (That didn’t exist)
**Children were actually chosen at random

Result:
- teachers started to treat those students differently
- led to students to perform better in academics because students saw themselves differently

Question 11

Pygmalion Effect

Answer 11

1. Other people’s expectations about us influence their behaviour towards us.
2. Their behaviour towards us influences how we see ourselves.
3. How we see ourselves impact our own behaviour
4. Our behaviour towards others influences their beliefs, reinforcing their expectations

Question 12

Feminists on education

Answer 12

*Interested in gender and education
*Argued education as an institution had been characterized by discriminatory treatment of women

*New Brunswick, Mount Allison University – first Canadian university to admit female students in the late 1800s.
- Representation does not equal equal treatment

Increased representation does not equate to equal treatment
*E.g., sexism in education –
- stereotyping
- pressure to prepare for “women’s work”
- unequal funding for athletic programming

*Women now outpacing men in acquiring post-secondary degrees

Question 13

Intersectionality
by BHOPAL 2020

Answer 13

MAIN ARGUMENTS:

• Sociologists of education lack intersectional perspectives on inequality
• While gender inequality has received significant attention, racial inequality has largely been ignored
• The exclusive focus on gender inequality is perpetuated by White privilege
• E.g., ASC vs. REC institutional support and funding
• The lack of intersectional approaches greatly impacts Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) staff who continue to face institutional inequality