Understanding Institutions: Education - CH12

What Is Education as an Institution?

• Sociologists recognize that many Americans end up in the same socioeconomic status as their parents due to the U.S. educational system.
• Education is the process through which a society:
  • Transmits its culture and history.
  • Teaches social, intellectual, and specific work skills.
  • Aims to produce productive workers and citizens.
• Education has been institutionalized, meaning it is:
  • Encoded in laws and policies.
  • Embedded in common practices that organize schools and support systems.
  • Important for stability.
• Compulsory public education emerged to meet the needs of the industrial era.

Education and Modes of Production

• Preindustrial Societies
  • Schools did not exist.
  • Wealthy and religious leaders focused on philosophy, sacred texts, and the arts.
  • Children learned work skills, life lessons, and values from their parents through child labor.
  • Education was not required, as the aristocracy held land and peasants worked on it with simple tools.
• Industrial Manufacturing and Large-Scale Agriculture
  • Altered the division of labor.
  • Mass migration to industrial centers and changes to education occurred.
  • Created a need for a variety of skilled laborers.
  • Foundation for an educational system was laid due to the demand for reading, writing, and calculating.
• Postindustrial Knowledge and Service Economy
  • Companies moved factories to places with cheaper labor.
  • The baby boom generation was highly educated.
  • Professional and service jobs are on the rise.
  • Higher-paid work needs more education and technical training.
• Public Education and The Postindustrial Economy
  • The education system in the United States today:
    • Reflects the industrial age.
    • Does not adequately develop the skills students need in today’s white-collar professions.
  • Current manufacturing jobs need advanced technical knowledge and training.

Theorizing Education

• Functionalist Perspective: Compulsory education leads to socialization and economic development.
• Conflict Theory Perspective: Compulsory education works to create and justify inequality.
• Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: Examines the explicit and implicit curriculum of values and behaviors transmitted through interactions in schools.
• Social Functions of Education
  • Functionalists believe education teaches students our shared culture and socializes workers and citizens.
  • Trains and sorts workers by strengths and interests.
  • Provides access to various parts of the labor market.
  • Protects democracy by creating an educated electorate capable of electing good leaders.
• Socialization: Cohesion, and Control
  • Secondary socialization: schools teach us to behave appropriately in small groups and structured situations.
  • Schools teach discipline and rules.
  • We follow the basics even today that we learned in schools.
  • Hidden curriculum: reinforces elements of social status and order.
• Labor Force Preparation
  • Public schools benefit both individuals and society.
  • Education:
    1. Helps children develop essential skills.
    2. Sorts future workers into appropriate positions in the labor market.
  • Success in the classroom leads to higher-level courses and acceptance into highly competitive and elite colleges and graduate schools.
• Conflict, Power, and Education
  • Functionalists believe education promotes social cohesion and a willingness to work together for the common good.
  • Conflict theorists believe the power dynamics of society shape schools and lead to unequal educational experiences.
  • Differences in school experiences range from teacher quality and the physical state of school facilities to classroom interactions and school discipline.
• Class, Gender, Race, and School Experiences
  • Poor versus wealthy schools in the United States: poor schools get inadequate facilities and burned-out teachers, while wealthy schools get adequate resources and good teachers.
  • Different experiences based on race, class, and gender inside classrooms.
  • Self-fulfilling prophecies: Black students are more likely to face criminal consequences for disciplinary infractions.
• The Curriculum, Ideology, and Inequality
  • Conflict theorists believe schools reinforce dominant ideologies and the status quo of power.
  • Curriculum tends to:
    1. Minimize or ignore inequality based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other social characteristics.
    2. Focus on individuals rather than the power of organized people in social movements and unions.
  • Marx argued that the curriculum creates a false consciousness among students.
• Tracking and Inequality
  • Conflict theorists believe schools reproduce social stratification.
  • Tracking involves placing students in classes based on “ability” for efficient teaching and learning.
    1. Privileges the education of some students.
    2. Determines career paths from an early age.
  • Students’ home environments and neighborhoods shape their interactions.
  • Teachers often track students who arrive at school better attuned to social rules into higher-level groups.
  • Tracking affects every aspect of students’ educational experience.
• Symbolic Interaction, Socialization, and Cultural Production in Schools
  • Symbolic interactionists study how social interactions create and reproduce school experiences and educational success or failure.
  • Learnings from peer interactions, as well as interactions with teachers and administrators, are important.
  • A close relationship with a teacher provides mentoring for a successful life.
• Socialization, Socioeconomic Status, and School Success
  • Children of parents with higher levels of education have greater exposure to reading materials and are “coached for the classroom.”
  • They are more likely to participate in structured leisure activities.
  • Other children may have less experience with a structured environment and can end up in lower educational tracks, face disciplinary action, and gain the label of the troublemaker.

Education and Social Inequality in the United States

• Human capital is defined as the knowledge, skills, habits, and attributes necessary to succeed in work and in life.
• Class and Family Background
  • Educational institutions reproduce relations of power and social inequality.
  • The strongest predictors of educational success are parents’ education and income.
  • Middle-class parents ensure their children access attention, assistance, accommodations, and key opportunities.
• Leveling the Playing Field with Early Education
  • Quality care and education from birth to age five reduce child poverty.
  • Quality preschool programs improve nutrition and stimulate brain development.
  • Early education and care in the United States are the responsibility of individual families.
  • Low and middle-income families struggle to access affordable, quality programs.
  • COVID-19 made the divide between childcare and education access more stark.
• Separate and Unequal: Racial and Economic Segregation in Schools
  • Residential segregation impacts the quality of education.
  • The U.S. spends a comparatively small amount of its GDP on education.
  • Public schools are funded by local, state, and federal funds.
  • School funding formulas vary by state, with local funding tied to property tax revenues.
  • Resources affect students’ and teachers’ experiences in schools.
  • Parental engagement, through volunteer work and fundraising, matters.
• Reproducing Inequality within Schools
  • Tracking causes race and class segregation to exist even within schools.
  • Educated parents are more likely to understand what is needed for college applications and success.
  • Education is linked to income and unemployment.
• Higher Education
  • The GI Bill democratized higher education, allowing students from across the social structure to access the success and rewards of higher education (excluding Black soldiers).
  • Lower socioeconomic status students face nonacademic barriers to completion.
  • Drop out: Role strain, a conflict between job and coursework for low-income students.
• Types of Colleges, Student Success, and Tracking
  • The college or university attended directly impacts adult position in social structure.
  • AP and honors students who go to public universities are likely to go to one of the flagship institutions and find research assistantships and enrichment opportunities that give them an edge.
  • Students in lower tracks who go on to college usually matriculate into either a non-flagship state university or a community college that provides fewer opportunities.
• Affirmative Action in College Admissions
  • Affirmative action considers the value of diversity and barriers faced by racial minority students.
  • Affirmative action practices use a holistic way to identify and admit promising students from underrepresented minority groups.
  • These policies produced more minority college graduates.
• Gender and Education
  • More women began entering higher education in the 1960s/70s.
  • Today, more women than men attain a college degree.
  • At all levels of education, men earn higher salaries.

Global Education and Inequality

• Educational institutions adapt to changing economic forces.
• Education should teach students to interact effectively with people from other countries and cultures.
• Educational inequality exists both within and among nations.
• Giving U.S. Students a Global Perspective
  • The global economy requires international knowledge and experience.
  • Few study-abroad experiences are available for college students.
  • Employers prefer candidates who have international experience.
• Global Educational and Inequality
  • Global inequality affects and is affected by educational attainment.
  • Education and health are essential precursors to economic development.
  • The World Education Forum increased school attendance and gender parity.
  • COVID and school closures made the situation worse.

Leveling the Playing Field: Public Policy and Education in the United States

• Pre-K Education
  • Proponents advocate for quality early education and universal access from birth to age five.
  • Public investments in quality pre-K education reduce public spending on special education, juvenile justice, criminal justice, and social welfare programs.
  • A rise in employment reduces child poverty and increases tax revenue.
• The Abecedarian Project
  • A study on the effects of pre-K education conducted in the 1970s found that children enrolled in the program were four times more likely to attend college than children in the control group.
• K-12 Education
  • The No Child Left Behind Act led to:
    • A dramatic increase in class time spent on standardized test prep.
    • An increase in school choice options by location.
    • Rapid growth of charter schools.
    • The use of vouchers to subsidize attendance at a private school.
• Charter Schools and Vouchers
  • Consumer-citizens opt for higher-quality options, generating a virtuous cycle of improvement.
  • Two primary mechanisms to create a market in public primary and secondary education are charter schools and vouchers.
  • Charter schools are publicly funded and established under a charter, governed by parents, educators, community groups, or private organizations. They are free from some legal and bureaucratic constraints, but results show that students perform about the same as other public school students.
  • Vouchers are certificates of government funding that make each pupil’s state funds portable, allowing them to pay for private education. Increased use of vouchers segregates schools by class and exacerbate existing problems in the public school system.
• Community Schools
  • Community schools surround children and communities with support that helps them thrive in and out of the classroom.
  • There is strong evidence that they can reduce educational inequality.
  • Four evidence-based pillars of community schools:
    • Integrated student support.
    • Expanded and enriched learning time through opportunities.
    • Active family and community engagement.
    • Collaborative leadership and practices.
  • While they cost more than typical schools, they yield more social benefits.

The Future of Public Education and Democracy

• Public education must produce critical thinkers and problem solvers for democracy to survive.
• Education lays the foundation for progress, economic success, democracy, and quality of life.