Education

1. Education Schooling and Economic Development Socialization Schooling and Social Identity Problems in the Schools Recent Issues in U.S. Education

2. Education: A Global Survey • Education- the social institution through which society provides its members with important knowledge, including basic facts, job skills, and cultural norms and values. • Schooling-formal instruction under the direction of specifically trained teachers.

3. Schooling and Economic Development • Schooling in any society is closely tied to this level of economic development. • In low and middle income nations, where most of the world’s people live, boys and girls spend several years in school, but their learning is limited to practical knowledge that they will need to perform traditional tasks. • Only the wealthy are able to study literature, art and history, because they do not need to work.

4. High-income nations endorse the idea that every-one should go to school. • High-income nations require workers to read and write.

5. Schooling in India • India has outlawed child labor, many children work in factories—weaving rugs or making handicrafts—up to sixty hours per week, which greatly limits their opportunity for schooling. • Most children now receive some primary education, typically in crowded classrooms where one teacher attends to sixty children.

6. Schooling in Japan • Early grades concentrate on teaching Japanese traditions and obligation to the family. By the early teens, students encounter the rigorous of competitive examinations that resemble the SAT’s. • Schooling reflects personal ability and the government pays for much of the cost of higher education to those students with high examination scores. • Because of this pressure to excel, Japanese students out perform students in every other high-income nation including the U.S.

7. Schooling in Great Britain • Most wealthy families send their children to what the British call public schools, the equivalent of U.S. private boarding schools. • These elite schools enroll about 7 percent of British students, not only to teach academic skills but to teach children from wealthy families families the distinctive patterns of speech, mannerism, and social grace. • Graduates with an “Oxbridge” degree take their place in society, most of the top members of the British government have “Oxbridge” degrees.

8. Schooling in the United States • The U.S. was among the first countries to set a goal of mass education. By 1850 about half of all children were enrolled in schools. In 1981, the last of the states passed a mandatory education law-requiring children to attend school until age 16 of completion of the eighth grade. • In the U.S. the educational system stresses the value of practical education, knowledge that has a direct bearing on individual’s work and interests.

9. John Dewey championed progressive education, constantly updating what our schools teach to make learning relevant to people’s lives. • This is a reflection of pragmatism, today’s college students select their major area of study with an eye toward future jobs.

10. Socialization • As societies develop complex technology, schooling gradually emerges, as a distinct social institution employing specially trained personnel to convey the knowledge needed for adult roles. • In primary school children learn basic language and math skills. Secondary school builds on this foundation, and for many, college follows. • School also transmits cultural values and norms.

11. Cultural Innovation • Education creates and transmits culture. Schools stimulate intellectual inquiry and critical thinking, sparking the development of new ideas.

12. Social Placement • Formal education helps young people assume culturally approved statuses and perform roles that contribute to the ongoing life of society. • Schooling enhances meritocracy by making personal merit a foundation of future social positions.

13. Latent Functions of Schooling • 1. As the number of single parent families and two-career couples is rising, schools have become vital to relieving parents of some child-care responsibilities. • 2. Education engages thousands of young people, especially during times when jobs are not readily available. • 3. Many people form lifelong friendships and even meet future spouses in high school and college. Affiliation with a particular school also can create valuable career opportunities.

14. Social Control • Mandatory education laws ensured that schools would teach immigrants not only English but also cultural values a that support capitalism. Compliance, punctuality, and discipline—were and still are—part of what conflict theorists called hidden curriculum, subtle presentation of political or cultural ideas in the classroom.

15. Standardized Tests • Painter is to painting as ____________ is to sonnet. • a. driver c. Priest • b. poet d. carpenter

16. School Tracking • Tracking- assigning students to different types of educational programs. • Tracking is also common in other high-income nations, including Great Britain, France, and Japan.

17. Inequity • Students in private schools appear to achieve more than students in public schools. Private schools are also more academically demanding and have strict discipline policies. Graduates of private schools are more likely to attend college and enter high-paying occupations.

18. Access to Higher Education • Money is the most crucial factor affecting higher education in the U.S. College is expensive and the cost is rising rapidly. • For both men and women, some of the greater earnings that come with more schooling have to do with social background, because the people with the most schooling are likely to come from upper-class families to begin with.

19. Privilege and Personal Merit • If attending college is a rite of passage for affluent men and women, then schooling transforms social privilege into personal merit. • We see credentials as “badges of ability” rather than symbols of family affluence.

20. Discipline and Violence • Schools today are dealing with issues such as drugs and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, and—as deadly incidents in a number of schools illustrate—outright violence.

21. Student Passivity • Some schools are afflicted with passivity, this can be placed on TV, on Parents, and on the students themselves. Also our education system generates student passivity. • 1. Rigid Uniformity • Bureaucratic schools run by outsider specialists generally ignore the cultural character of local communities and the personal needs of their children.

22. 2. Numerical ratings • Schools officials define success on numerical attendance rates, drop-out rates, and achievement test scores. • 3. Rigid Expectations • Officials expect fifteen year-olds to be in the tenth grade and eleventh graders to score a certain level on a standardized verbal achievement test. • 4. Specialization • Teachers are specialized in subjects and do not know the complete student.

23. 5. Little individual responsibility • Highly bureaucratic schools do not empower students to learn on their own. Teachers do not accelerate learning for fear of disrupting the “system.”

24. Dropping Out • Dropping out-quitting school before earning a high school diploma—leaves young people ill-equipped for the world of work and at high risk for poverty.

25. Academic Standards • A Nation as Risk, was a comprehensive report in the quality of U.S. schools published in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. • Functional illiteracy- a lack of reading and writing skills needed for everyday living, is a problem for one in eight children who leave U.S. secondary schools.

26. Improvements recommended by A Nation at Risk include: • 1. All schools should require students to complete several years of English, mathematics, social studies, general studies, and computer science courses. • 2. Schools should not promote failing students from grade to grade; instead, students should remain in the classroom as long as necessary to learn basic skills. • 3. Teachers training must improve, and teachers salaries should rise to attract talent into the profession.