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Chapter 13: Education
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Editor's Notes
What are some possible explanations for the success (or failure) of students in schools?
Say to your students, “You have all been through the educational system in some extent. What kinds of things did you learn?”
Ask your students to talk about their experiences in the educational system. Hopefully they will be able to discuss examples of manifest and latent functions of education.
Schools are a very important agent of socialization; they are generally the first agent of socialization that children encounter outside the family.
The transmission of knowledge is a manifest function, which means it is an obvious function of education. Obviously, you learn to read, write, do math, and so on. Other functions are not so obvious; they are called latent functions. Examples of latent functions include learning to follow society’s rules and to respect authority and being socialized to develop other qualities that will eventually make us efficient and obedient workers. These goals aren’t on the class syllabus, but students learn them through interactions with teachers and others within the system.
It is clear that while education does benefit everyone, it unfortunately does not benefit everyone equally. Sociologists have long been interested in the hidden curriculum, which is related to the latent functions of education we just discussed. This includes things such as obedience to authority and strict adherence to norms. Many critics argue that the hidden curriculum reinforces and reproduces conditions of social inequality in society.
It might be interesting to talk to your students and hear their thoughts on these issues. Do they think that their background influenced their success in school? In college, have they learned better in big classes or small classes?
Ask your students why private school students might fare better than public schools students. Is it because they are better students? Because they go to better schools? Because they are more motivated? Some scholars argue that most private school students would also do well at public schools, so the education they are receiving may not, in and of itself, be the explanation for their better academic performance.
Tracking is intended to tailor a student’s educational experience more directly to his or her particular goals.
Tracks include divisions like “low performing,” “dropout prevention,” “regular or traditional students,” “honors students,” “advanced placement students,” “International Baccalaureate.” Once a student is placed in one of these tracks, it is difficult, if not impossible, to change tracks.
It has been shown that teachers can influence student performance through the expectations they set and their choice of instructional methods, which may include best practices.
Studies show that low-achieving students placed in a classroom with mostly high-achieving students tend to improve rather than fall behind.
In a similar vein, a class with more problem students (in terms of behavior) tends to have more disciplinary problems overall and lower test scores.
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s symbolic interactionist study of education suggested that teachers’ attitudes about their students unintentionally influenced their academic performance. When teachers expected students to succeed, the students indeed tended to improve.
Functionalists have argued that the rise in education rates over the past 100 years is a response to the demands of the marketplace, though there are many critics of this theory.
Conflict theorists claim that the educational boom is due to the expansion of the educational system and the general view held by Americans that education is a mark of elite status.
Figure 13.1 A Century of Higher Education Rates
In The Credential Society, Randall Collins argues that reproducing society’s existing class structure is the true function of education.
Many suggest that standardized tests include cultural biases which influence the outcomes. For instance, if the test is written by members of the dominant culture, then others who do not come into the test with the same cultural capital might not be able to perform equally well.
Although IQ tests have been updated to be more fair and accurate, they still measure only one kind of intelligence, they still face concerns about being culturally biased, and they still can’t truly measure innate intelligence.
Affirmative action has been used in an attempt to try to balance some of these structural inequalities.
The term refers to a set of policies that grant preferential treatment to a number of particular subgroups within the population.
It has come under attack as constituting preferential treatment and taking opportunities away from more deserving students/candidates.
However, research findings dispute these and other arguments.
Much of the black–white achievement gap can be attributed to class. However, some elements that cause other theories to endure include:
inversion of dominant values
internalization of negative stereotypes
arguments about intelligence being genetic
In the past 30 years, girls have caught up with and even surpassed boys in many measures of academic performance to such a degree that some scholars talk of a “boy crisis.” However, on average women still earn less than men with the same educational level.
Money can buy advantages for a middle-class student, including tutoring, test preparation courses, and access to private schools or better public school districts.
Students who come from families with more cultural capital, which can include greater parental involvement, more informal educational opportunities outside of school, and more confidence in dealing with school bureaucracies, also tend to have educational advantages
Figure 13.2 Education Attainment Based on Race, 2007
