1. Sociological Perspectives
1.1. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
1.1.1. Knowledge and attitudes
1.1.1.1. More years of schooling leads to greater knowledge and social participation
1.1.2. Mobility
1.1.2.1. The number of years of education is one measure of educational attainment, but where people go to school also affects their mobility
1.1.2.2. Private and public school students may receive the same amount of education, but a private school diploma may act as a "mobility escalator" because it represents a more prestigious educational route.
1.1.3. Employment
2. Philosophy of Education
2.1. Pragmatism/Progressivism
2.1.1. George Sanders Pierce, William James, John Dewey, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
2.1.2. Encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired ends.
2.1.2.1. "What will work to achieve my desired goal?"
2.1.3. Action oriented, experientially grounded.
2.1.4. Goal of Education
2.1.4.1. Provide students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order.
2.1.4.2. prepare for life in a democratic society
2.1.4.3. Balance society and community on one hand with the needs of the individual on the other.
2.1.4.4. Growth
2.1.4.4.1. Central institution for societal and personal improvement.
2.1.5. Role of the Teacher
2.1.5.1. Assume the peripheral position of facilitator.
2.1.5.2. Encourage, offer suggestions, question, and help plan/implement courses of study.
2.1.5.3. Seen as an expert
2.1.6. Methods of Instruction
2.1.6.1. Individually and in groups
2.1.6.2. Students should start their mode of inquiry by posing questions about what they want to know.
2.1.6.3. Allowed freedom in the classroom
2.1.6.3.1. abandoned formal instruction
2.1.6.4. Go about learning in a nontraditional but natural way
2.1.7. Curriculum
2.1.7.1. Not wedded to a fixed curriculum, rather, it changes as the social order changes and as the children's interests and needs change.
2.1.7.2. Uses all the academic and vocational disciplines in an integrated and interconnected way.
3. Schools as Organizations
3.1. Alabama State Superintendant
3.1.1. Tommy Bice
3.2. State Board of Education President
3.2.1. Governor Robert J. Bentley
3.3. State Board of Education Vice President
3.3.1. Jeff Newman
3.4. Madison County Superintendant
3.4.1. Matt Massey
3.5. Madison County Board of Education Representative
3.5.1. John Lackey
3.6. Other countries separate the "academically elite"
3.6.1. The US is fundamentally inclusive while others are not as inclusive.
4. Curriculum and Pedigogy
4.1. Developmentalist Curriculum
4.1.1. Related to the needs and interests of the student rather than the needs of society.
4.1.2. Dewey. Piaget.
4.1.3. Student centered
4.1.3.1. Stressed flexibility in both what was taught and how it was taught.
4.1.3.2. emphasized the development of each student's individual capacities.
4.1.4. Relates school to life experiences of each child in a way that makes education come alive in a meaningful manner.
4.1.5. Teacher becomes a facilitator of student growth.
4.2. Transformative Pedagogic Practice
4.2.1. Believe that the purpose of education is to change the student in some meaningful way.
4.2.1.1. Intellectually, creatively, spiritually, and/or emotionally.
4.2.2. Do not see the transmission of knowledge as the only component of education.
4.2.2.1. provide a more multidimensional theory of teaching
4.2.3. Not just the didactic transfer of information but the conversation between teacher and student in such a way that the student becomes an integral part of the learning process.
5. Equality of Opportunity
5.1. Students with special needs
5.1.1. 1975 passed the education of All Handicapped Children Law
5.1.2. Law reauthorized in 1996 as the individuals with disabilities educational act
5.1.3. by the mid-1980's the efficacy of the law became a critical issue for policy makers and advocates of the disabled.
5.2. Coleman Study: Response to Coleman Round One
5.2.1. where an individual goes to school has little effect on his/her cognitive growth or educational mobility
5.2.2. This assumption was the foundation that justifies busing students between schools and between school districts.
6. Educational Inequality
6.1. Functionalists: they believe that the role of the school is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals regardless of their family background.
6.2. Functionalists expect that the schooling process will produce unequal results
6.3. Functionalists focus on the attempts to provide equality of opportunity and results.
6.4. Genetic Differences: the most controversial student-centered explanation
6.5. Biological explanations of human behavior are viewed as limited because of social scientists believe that environmental and social factors are largely responsible for human behavior.
6.6. Question remains: is there evidence to support the argument that differences in school performance among groups of students are due to genetic differences among these groups, particularly in intelligence.
7. Educational Reform
7.1. Privatization: Public vs. Private Schools
7.2. private education companies increasingly becoming involved in public education in a variety of ways.
7.3. Companies taking over failing schools and districts.
7.4. Full Service and Community Schools: Attacking education inequality
7.5. Examining and planning to educate not only the whole child, but also the whole community
7.6. Full service schools focus on meeting students and their families educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in a coordinated and collaborative fashion between schools and community services.
8. Sociological Perspectives
8.1. Interactional Theories
8.1.1. Interactional theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives.
8.1.2. Attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads everyday taken-for-granted behaviors and interactions between students and students and students and teachers.
8.1.2.1. What one does not question that is most problematic.
8.1.3. Try to provide an interpretable snapshot of what schools are like on an everyday level.
8.2. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
8.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes
8.2.1.1. More years of schooling leads to a greater knowledge and social participation
8.2.2. Mobility
8.2.2.1. The number of years of education is one measure of educational attainment, but where people go to school also affects their mobility
8.2.2.2. Private and public school students may receive the same amount of education, but a private school diploma may act as a "mobility escalator" because it represents a more prestigious educational route.
8.2.3. Employment
8.2.3.1. Most students correctly believe that graduating from college will lead to greater employment opportunities.
9. Politics of Education
9.1. The Conservative Perspective
9.1.1. Origins based in 19th Century social Darwinist thought.
9.1.2. Developed originally by the sociologist William Graham Sumner.
9.1.3. Looks at social evolution as a process that enables the strongest individuals and/or groups to survive.
9.1.3.1. You must work to put yourself in a position to succeed.
9.1.4. Looks at social evolution as adaptation to changes in the environment.
9.1.4.1. How well can you go with the flow and still succeed?
9.1.5. Human progress is dependent on individual initiative and drive.
9.1.5.1. an intuitive desire to excel.
9.1.6. Free market capitalism allows for the maximization of economic growth and individual liberty with competition ensuring that potential abuses can be minimized.
9.1.6.1. Individuals have the capacity to earn or not earn their place within a market economy
9.1.6.1.1. solutions to problems should be addressed at the individual level.
9.2. The Traditional Vision of Education
9.2.1. View the schools as necessary to the transmission of the traditional values of U.S. society
9.2.1.1. hard work, family unity, individual initiative, and so on.
9.2.2. Schools should pass on the best of what was and what is.
10. History of U.S. Education
10.1. Equality of Opportunity
10.1.1. Americans have expected their schools to solve social, political, and economic problems, and have placed on the schools "all kinds of millennial hopes and expectations."
10.1.2. In the late 1940s and 1950s the relationships between race and education, and the question of school segregation brought national attention.
10.1.2.1. Plessy v Ferguson
10.1.2.1.1. "Separate but Equal"
10.1.2.1.2. In the 1930s, The NAACP initiated a campaign to overthrow the law.
10.1.2.2. Advocates for civil rights won their major victory on May 17, 1954
10.1.2.2.1. Brown v Topeaka Board of Education
10.1.3. This conflict was not only in the South, but the North as well.
10.2. The Democratic-Liberal School
10.2.1. The history of U.S. education involves the progressive evolution, albeit flawed, of a school system committed to providing equality of opportunity for all.
10.2.2. Ellwood Cubberly, Merle Curti, Lawrence Cremin are representative of this view.
10.2.2.1. As more students from diverse backgrounds went to school for longer periods of time, the goals of education become more diverse.
10.2.2.1.1. Social goals often becoming as or more important than intellectual ones.
10.2.3. Equality and excellence are seen only as ideals.