Chapter 16. Education

Education - a social institution through which a society’s children are taught basic academic knowledge, learning skills, and cultural norms

Education system - socializes us to our society - we learn cultural expectations and norms

Two main socializing tasks of education - homogenization and social sorting

Homogenization - diverse backgrounds learn a standardized curriculum that effectively transforms diversity into homogeneity

Social sorting - common knowledge base, a common culture, and a common sense of society’s official priorities, and perhaps more importantly, they learn to locate their place within it

The major factors affecting education systems - resources, money, value placed on education, social factors

Education in Afghanistan

• Fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan - spike in demand for education - over 6.2 million students - severe shortage of teachers

• Education of women - additional challenges since cultural norms say they should be taught by female teachers

Female education for Afghanistan’s future - an educated mother to have educated children - positive cycle of education for generations to come

The World Bank - assisting the people of Afghanistan in improving educational quality and access

The Education Quality Improvement Program - provides training for teachers and grants to communities

Strengthening Higher Education - focuses on six universities in Afghanistan and four regional colleges - focus on fostering relationships with universities in other countries

Two types of learning - referred to as formal education and informal education

Formal education - the learning of academic facts and concepts through a formal curriculum

Informal education - learning about cultural values, norms, and expected behaviours by participating in a society

Cultural transmission - refers to the way people come to learn the values, beliefs, and social norms of their culture - both formal and informal

Universal access - This term refers to people’s equal ability to participate in an education system

Ontario - Bill 82 -1980 - established five principles for special education programs and services for special needs students

• Universal access

• Education at public expense

• An appeal process

• Ongoing identification and continuous assessment

• Appropriate programming

“Inclusion” - a method that involves complete immersion in a standard classroom

“Mainstreaming” - balances time in a special-needs classroom with standard classroom participation

Functionalists believe that education equips people to perform different functional roles in society

• Manifest functions - socializations, cultural norms, social placement

• Latent functions - courtship, social networks, working in groups

Critical sociologists - view education as a means of widening the gap in social inequality - social class, bias of IQ tests

Feminist theorists - sexism in education continues to prevent women from achieving a full measure of social equality

Symbolic interactionism - sees education as one way that the labelling theory can be demonstrated in action - labelling - direct correlation to those who are in power and labelled

Social placement - Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility

Individualism - the valuing of the individual over the value of groups or society as a whole

Cultural capital - accumulation of cultural knowledge that helps one navigate a culture

Hidden curriculum - refers to the type of nonacademic knowledge that one learns through informal learning and cultural transmission

Tracking - formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuate inequalities

Grade inflation - a term used to describe that letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing over time

Credentialism - emphasis on certificates or degrees to show that a person has a certain skill, attained a certain level of education, met certain job qualifications