1. Politics of Education
1.1. ➢ Cremin’s definition of education is in one o the broadest forms because it includes all processes in a society that transmit knowledge, skills, and values, and educational institutions as all the places in which these activities occur.
1.2. Intro
1.2.1. ➢ Schooling is a more narrow process, as it is concerned with the activities that occur in schools.
1.3. 4 Purposes of Schooling:
1.3.1. 1. Intellectual purpose- to teach basic cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics; to transmit specific knowledge (literature, history, science, etc.) and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills such as analyzing, evaluation, and synthesis
1.3.2. 2. Political purpose- to inculcate allegiance to the existing political order, to prepare citizens who will participate in this political order, and to teach children the basic laws of society
1.3.3. 3. Social purpose- help solve social problems and to work as one of many institutions
1.3.4. 4. Economic purpose- prepares students for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
1.4. Conservative Perspective
1.4.1. ➢ Looks at social evolution as a process that enables the strongest individuals and/or groups to survive, and looks at human and social evolution as adaption to changes in the environment in order to survive, and human progress is dependent on individual initiative and drive
1.4.2. ➢ Conservative view on social problems places its primary emphasis on the individual and suggests that individuals have the capacity to earn or not earn their place within the market economy, and that solutions to problems should be addressed at the individual level.
1.5. Liberal Perspective
1.5.1. ➢ Believes that the free market, if left unregulated, is prone to significant abuses, particularly to those groups who are disadvantaged economically and politically
1.5.2. ➢ Believes that the capitalist market economy is prone to cycles of recession that must be addressed through government intervention
1.5.3. ➢ Places emphasis on issues of equality, especially equality of opportunity, and because they believe that the capitalist system often gives unfair advantages to those with wealth and power, liberals assert the role of the government is to ensure fair treatment of all citizens
1.6. Radical Perspectives
1.6.1. ➢ This viewpoint suggests that the capitalist system, although undeniably the most productive form of economic organization, also produces fundamental contradictions that ultimately will lead to its transformation into socialism
1.6.2. ➢ Believe that the capitalist system is central to U.S. social problems
1.6.3. ➢ Is the only negative perspective of the US society out of the 3 perspectives.
1.7. Traditional and Progressive Visions of Education
1.7.1. ➢ Traditional visions tend to view the schools as necessary to the transmission of the traditional values of US society such as hard work, family unity, individual initiative an so on. Progressive visions tend to view schools as central as central to solving social problems, as a vehicle for upward mobility, as essential to the development of individual potential, and as an integral part of a democratic society.
1.7.2. ➢ Radical → Progressive → liberal → Traditional → Conservative
1.8. Role of School
1.8.1. ➢ Is the heart of their differing analysis
1.8.2. ➢ Concerned with the aims, purposes, and functions of education in a society
1.9. The Neo-liberal Perspective
1.9.1. ➢ Synthesis of conservative and liberal perspectives
1.9.2. ➢ Have critiqued failing traditional urban public schools and attribute their failures to teacher unions and their support of teacher tenure and layoffs based in seniority and the absence of student, teacher and school accountability to ensure improvement
2. History of U.S. Education
2.1. The Age Reform: The Rise of the Common School
2.1.1. ➢ Men and women lacked higher education and did not hold public office but
2.1.2. ➢ Ultimate goals were secular in nature
2.1.3. ➢ Vast majority of Americans were not surprisingly illiterate
2.1.4. ➢ Struggle of free education was led by Horace Mann of Massachusetts
2.2. Opposition to Public Education
2.2.1. ➢ Not all groups subscribed to the idea of the common school
2.2.2. ➢ Taxation for public education was viewed as “unjust” by nonrecipients
2.2.3. ➢ Roman Catholics, who viewed the common school as dominated by a Protestant ethos, founded their own schools
2.2.4. ➢ Public support of elementary schools was becoming prevalent throughout the United States
2.2.5. ➢ Congress passed the Morrill Act, which authorized the use of public money to establish public land grant universities, resulting in the establishment of large state universities, especially in the Midwest
2.3. Education for Women and African-Americans
2.3.1. ➢ Role of women in the Western society has been that of helpmate or homemaker to the male, who assumed the role provider
2.3.2. ➢ Generally, education for women was viewed as biologically harmful or too stressful
2.3.3. ➢ Few females achieved an education
2.3.4. ➢ By the middle of the nineteenth century, a significant number of girls attended elementary schools and were admitted to private academies ➢ Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York
2.3.5. ➢ The curriculum at this female seminary included so-called serious subjects of study, such as mathematics, science, history, and geography
2.3.6. ➢ In 1833, Oberlin Collegiate in Ohio opened its doors to women as well as African Americans
2.3.7. ➢ 1856 the University of Iowa became the first state university to admit women
2.3.8. ➢ In 1865, Vassar College , the first of the Seven Sisters women’s colleges was founded in Poughkeepsie, New York
2.3.9. ➢ Although educational opportunities for women were expanding during the period preceding the Civil War, education for African Americans were severely limited
2.4. John Dewey
2.4.1. ➢ An important U.S. philosopher whose influence on schooling is still very much with us today was John Dewey (1859-1952).
2.4.2. ➢ Dewey was a contemporary of such reformers as “Fighting Bob La Follette.”
2.4.3. ➢ Dewey argued in My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The School and Society (1899), and The Child and the Curriculum (1902) for a restructuring of schools along the lines of “embryonic communities.”
2.4.4. ➢ He advocated the creation of a curriculum that would allow for the child’s interests and developmental level while introducing the child to “the point of departure from which the child can trace and follow the progress of mankind in history, getting an insight also into the materials used and the mechanical principles involved.
2.4.5. ➢ Dewey believed the result in education was growth
3. Sociological Perspectives
3.1. Sociology
3.1.1. ➢ The desire to know and to transform society is not unique to sociologists
3.1.2. ➢ Sociology is just a simple method for bringing social aspirations and fears into focus by forcing people to ask sharp and analytic questions about the societies and cultures in which they live
3.1.3. ➢ Trying to uncover the underlying patterns that give large meaning to facts is the purpose of making social theories
3.1.4. ➢ Without some idea of how the major elements in society fit together, teachers are at a loss in understanding the relation between school and society, how their own profession has evolved and why students behave the way they do in school and outside of school.
3.2. The Relation Between School and Society
3.2.1. ➢ Socialization – values, beliefs, and norms of society are internalized within children so that they come to think an act like other members of society.
3.2.2. ➢ Schools socially and culturally reproduce the existing society through the systematic socialization of its youngest members
3.2.3. ➢ Socialization process can shape children’s consciousness profoundly
3.2.4. ➢ Schools promote gender definitions and stereotypes when they segregate leaning and extracurricular activities by gender, when teachers allow boys to dominate class discussions and activities
3.3. Functional Theories
3.3.1. ➢ Functional sociologists begin with a picture of society that stresses the independence of the social system
3.3.2. ➢ Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) has major works including Moral Education (1962), The Evolution of Educational Thought (1977), and Education and Sociology (1956).
3.3.3. ➢ Educational reform, then, from a functional point of view, is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational and encourage social unity
3.4. Conflict Theories
3.4.1. ➢ Not all sociologists of education believe that society is held together by shared values alone
3.4.2. ➢ The ability of dominate groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooptation, and manipulation
3.4.3. ➢ Ideologies or intellectual justifications created by the powerful are designed to enhance their position by legitimizing inequality and the unequal distribution of material and cultural goods as an inevitable outcome of biology or history
3.4.4. ➢ Waller’s perspective is shared by many contemporary conflict theorists who see schools as oppressive and demeaning, and portray student noncompliance with school rules as a form of resistance
3.4.5. ➢ Another major research tradition that has emerged from the Weberian school of thought is represented by Randall Collins who has maintained that educational expansion is best explained status symbols rather than indicators of actual achievement
3.5. Interactional Theories
3.5.1. ➢ Interactional theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extension of the functional and conflict perspectives
3.5.2. ➢ Emphasize structure and process at a very general level of analysis
3.5.3. ➢ Attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads everyday taken for granted behaviors and interactions between students and students and between students and teachers
3.6. Knowledge and Attitudes
3.6.1. ➢ The higher the social class background of the student, the higher hid or her achievement level
3.6.2. ➢ One of the first researchers to show that differences in schools are directly related to differences in student outcomes was Ron Edmunds
3.6.3. ➢ The more education individuals receive, the more likely they are to read newspapers, books, magazines, and to take part in politics and public affairs
3.6.4. ➢ Education is also related to individuals’ sense of well-being and self-esteem
3.7. Employment
3.7.1. ➢ Most students believe that graduating college will lead to greater employment opportunities
3.7.2. ➢ Research has shown that large organizations, such as corporations, require high levels of education for white-collar, managerial, or administrative jobs
3.8. Education and Mobility
3.8.1. ➢ The belief that occupational and social mobility begin at the schoolhouse door
3.8.2. ➢ Faith among most Americans that education is the great equalizer in the “great status race”
3.8.3. ➢ Americans believe that more education leads to economic and social mobility; individuals rise and fall based on their merit = contest mobility
3.9. Teacher Behavior
3.9.1. ➢ Teachers have as many as 1,00 interpersonal contacts each day with children in their classroom
3.9.2. ➢ Teachers are models for students and, as instructional leaders, teachers set standards for students and influence student self-esteem and sense of efficacy
3.9.3. ➢ Teachers demand more from their students and praised them more, students learn more and felt better about themselves
3.10. Gender
3.10.1. ➢ Girls usually start school cognitively and socially ahead of boys, by the end of high school, girls have lower self-esteem and lower aspirations than boys do
3.11. Sociology and the Current Educational Crisis
3.11.1. ➢ At least one-third of the nations children are at risk at failing school, even before they enter kindergarten
3.11.2. ➢ At least 2 million school-aged children have no adult supervision after school, and every night between 50,000 and 200,000 children have no home
3.11.3. ➢ As of 2009, there were 15.5 million children from families living on poverty and an additional 31.9 million children from low-income families
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Generic notions
4.1.1. ➢ Realists reject the Platonic notion that only ideas are real, and argue instead that the material world or matter is real
4.1.2. ➢ Aristotle argued that a triangle exists whether or not there is a thinking human being within range to perceive it
4.1.3. ➢ If Plato were to study the nature of reality, he would begin with ideas, since he believed that the world of matter was shadowy and unreliable
4.1.4. ➢ Aristotle, however, would begin with the world of matter
4.1.5. ➢ An important fact to note is that both Plato and Aristotle subscribed to the importance of ideas but each philosopher dealt with them very differently
4.1.6. ➢ Many forms of realism have involved ranging from the religious realism of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) to the modern realism of individuals such as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and John Locke (1632-1704) to the contemporary realism of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
4.1.7. ➢ Dewey’s form of pragmatism-instrumentalism and experimentalism- was founded on the new psychology, behaviorism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. These ideas were influenced by the theory of evolution
4.1.8. ➢ Existentialists pose questions as to how their concerns impact on the lives of individuals.
4.1.9. ➢ Phenomenologists focus on phenomena of consciousness, perception, and meaning
4.1.10. ➢ Marx is usually associated with the worldwide movement he inspired- communism- but his writings were the foundation for a radical critique of capitalism throughout the 20th century
4.1.11. ➢ Postmodernism developed out of a profound dissatisfaction with modernism- saw the world as a postmodern world
4.2. Key Researchers
4.2.1. ➢ Idealism is generally thought to be created by the Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 BC)
4.2.2. ➢ Plato was the pupil of the famous Greek teacher and philosopher Socrates who lived in Athens
4.2.3. ➢ Socrates did not write anything down, rather he taught through establishing oral dialogues with his students
4.2.4. ➢ Socrates saw himself as Plato stated in “The Apology (The Defense)” as the gadfly of Athens
4.2.5. ➢ Plato wrote down Socrates’ ideas and his methods, which was the dialogue
4.2.6. ➢ If it is difficult to understand and distinguish between Socrates’ and Plato’s work. Thus people need to refer to the combination as Platonic philosophy
4.3. Goal of Education
4.3.1. ➢ Educators who subscribed to idealism are interested in the search for truth through ideas rather than through the examination of the false shadowy world of matter
4.3.2. ➢ Teachers encourage their students to search or truth as individuals
4.3.3. ➢ Idealists subscribe to the notion that education is transformation: ideas can change lives
4.3.4. ➢ Contemporary realists goals is to help individuals understand and then apply the principals of science to help solve the problems plaguing the modern world
4.3.5. ➢ Dewey’s philosophy had a responsibility to society and that ideas required laboratory testing. Dewey stressed the importance of the school as a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and restructured with the goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order
4.3.6. ➢ Existentialists believed that education should focus on the needs of the individuals, both cognitively and affectively
4.3.7. ➢ Reproduction theories argue that the role of education in capitalist societies is to reproduce the economic, social, and political status quo
4.4. Role of Teacher
4.4.1. ➢ It is the teacher’s responsibility to analyze and discuss ideas with students in order for students to move to new levels of awareness so that ultimately they can be transformed
4.4.2. ➢ An idealist teacher plays an active role in discussion by posing questions and selecting materials and establishing the environment – also supports moral education as a means of linking ideas to action
4.4.3. ➢ Contemporary realist teachers steeped in the basic academic disciplines in order to transmit to their students the knowledge necessary for the continuance of the human race. Present ideas in a clear and consistent manner
4.4.4. ➢ Dewey viewed the role of a teacher is that they no longer are the authoritarian figure from which all knowledge flows, rather than the teacher assumes the peripheral position of facilitator – encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study
4.4.5. ➢ Existentialists teachers should understand their own “lived worlds” as well as that of their students in order to help their students achieve the best “lived worlds” they can. – teachers take risks, expose themselves to resistant students, and work constantly to enable their students to become in touch with their worlds and o empower them to choose and to act on their choices
4.4.6. ➢ The neo-Marxist philosophy of education concentrates on the teacher and student as part of a critical pedagogical process. Teacher must become a transformative intellectual whose role is to engage his/her students in a critical examination of the world
4.5. Method of Instruction
4.5.1. ➢ Idealist teachers take an active part in their students’ learning- predominately use dialectic approach described by Plato – through questioning, encouraging, analyzing, synthesizing, and applying what they have read to contemporary society
4.5.2. ➢ Realists would support a number of methods – lecture and question and answer. They use contemporary based assessment
4.5.3. ➢ Dewey proposed that children learned both individual and in groups – should start by posing questions about what they want to know – this method of instruction nowadays is called problem-solving or inquiry method
4.5.4. ➢ Existentialism teachers would abhor “methods” of instruction as they are currently taught in schools of education.
4.5.5. They view learning as intensely personal. Believe that each child has a different learning style and it is up to the teacher to discover what works for each child
4.5.6. ➢ Neo-Marxist gives their emphasis on education as transformation, favor a dialectical approach to instruction with the question and answer method designed to move the student to new levels of awareness and ultimately to change
4.6. Curriculum
4.6.1. ➢ Idealists place great importance on the study of classics – all contemporary problems have their roots in the past and can best be understood by examining how previous individuals dealt with them
4.6.2. ➢ Curriculum for realists would consist of the basics: math and science, reading, writing, and the humanities.
4.6.3. ➢ Realists believed that there is a body of knowledge that is essential for the student to master in order to be part of society
4.6.4. ➢ Dewey’s notion of core curriculum or integrated curriculum. Traditional disciplined centered curriculum
4.6.5. ➢ Existentialists and phenomenologists would choose curriculum heavily biased towards the humanities. Move them to new levels of awareness
4.6.6. ➢ Neo-Marxist view of curriculum is that the curriculum is not objective or value free but is socially constructed.
4.6.7. ➢ This view suggests that curriculum is the organized and codified representation of what those with the power to shape it wan the children to know
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. The structure of US Education
5.1.1. ➢ The organization of the US schools is complex on several levels
5.1.2. ➢ If one was to paint a landscape of elementary and secondary education in the US, it would require a picture of almost infinite complexity and subtly.
5.1.3. ➢ It is the product of ideology, pragmatism, and history
5.2. Governance
5.2.1. ➢ The US has 50 separate state school systems
5.2.2. ➢ Even more complex by the fact that there is also a private school system within each state
5.2.3. ➢ Few countries with this degree of decentralization
5.2.4. ➢ It is true that the state may mandate curriculum, qualifications for teaching, and safety codes`, but the reality is that these mandates must be carried out not by agents of the state but by citizens of a particular school district
5.3. Size and Degree of Centralization
5.3.1. ➢ It is estimated that more than 55 million youngsters are enrolled in kindergarten through the 12th grade and that the cost of educating these children is over $650 billion annually
5.3.2. ➢ Statistics reveal is that there has been a considerable amount of consolidation and centralization in the last 80 years in the US public education
5.3.3. ➢ Because school districts have become larger, superintendents have become more powerful, and as a consequence, teachers have had fewer opportunities to make decisions regarding curriculum, conditions of employment, and school policy
5.4. School Composition
5.4.1. ➢ In 2010, 53.5% of the students in primary and secondary schools were white ➢ NYC – 85.6% were nonwhite, LA – 91.3%, Detroit – 97.4% nonwhitw
5.4.2. ➢ De jure segregation has been replaced by de facto segregation ➢ Schools are also segregated or stratified according to the wealth and income of their student bodies
5.5. Degree of “Openness”
5.5.1. ➢ Children enter kindergarten at age 5 and graduate from high school at age 18
5.5.2. ➢ All youngsters are entitled to enroll into public schools and to remain in school until they graduate
5.5.3. ➢ Multiple points of entry into the school system and there are few forced exits
5.5.4. ➢ Americans would agree that schools should be as democratic as possible
5.6. Private Schools
5.6.1. ➢ Private schools tend to attract students from families that are relatively affluent and have a commitment to education
5.6.2. ➢ Approximately 28,220 elementary and secondary private schools in the US enroll 5.5 million students
5.6.3. ➢ These schools constitute for 25% of all elementary and secondary schools and educate 10% of the student population
5.6.4. ➢ In 2009, there were 21,870 private elementary schools in the US
5.6.5. ➢ There is a tremendous amount of diversity in the private sector, although most private schools are affiliated with religious organizations
5.6.6. ➢ Most private schools are located on the East and West coasts
5.6.7. ➢ Connecticut has the highest percent of private school students and Wyoming has the lowest
5.7. Great Britain
5.7.1. ➢ All schools were private
5.7.2. ➢ For the children of wealthy families parents often hired tutors
5.7.3. ➢ Poor children did not have any schooling
5.7.4. ➢ During the 1960s, there was an effort to democratize Great Britain’s educational system
5.7.5. ➢ Governing bodies of all secondary schools and many primary schools were given control over their own budget
5.7.6. ➢ Parental choice was encouraged and a pilot network of City Technology Colleges was established
5.7.7. ➢ Since 1998, England and Wales have implemented a highly centralized national curriculum and system if national assessment
5.7.8. ➢ The British educational system is no longer the highly stratifies system in which students are sorted and selected by age 11 by examination, with achievement highly correlated to social class background
5.7.9. ➢ Eliminated the comprehension secondary school, which offered noncollege curriculum for its mostly working-class students
5.8. France
5.8.1. ➢ The central government in France controls the educational system right down to the classroom level
5.8.2. ➢ Has 2 public school systems- one for ordinary and one for elite
5.8.3. ➢ For academically talented, come from upper class, there is a system of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools that is highly selective highly academic and socially elite
5.8.4. ➢ Object of the French system is to produce small number of highly qualified intellectuals
5.8.5. ➢ Efforts to democratize the system have not been succeeded
5.9. The Former Soviet Union
5.9.1. ➢ In 1991, the Soviet Union as a single geographical and national entity dramatically and abruptly ceased to exist
5.9.2. ➢ Affected the education of children in Russia and the other countries that have reemerged since the collapse of the Soviet system
5.9.3. ➢ The purpose of the educational system was to create the “new Soviet man and woman.”
5.9.4. ➢ These new men and women were to become the leaders of the proletarian revolution that would transform the Soviet Union into socialist paradise
5.9.5. ➢ In the 1980s, it became increasingly clear to Soviet leaders and the Soviet people that the educational system was failing to educate Soviet students in the new skills that were required by technology change and international competition
5.9.6. ➢ The age at which children were to start 1st grade went from 7 years to 6 years
5.9.7. ➢ Teachers were paid slightly more and there was more emphasis on technical training
5.9.8. ➢ Education was to become more flexible, open, and responsive to the needs of students, parents, and communities
5.9.9. ➢ Soviet Union is dramatically different today than the education system that was established by the Bolshevik Party at the beginning of the 12th century
5.10. Japan
5.10.1. ➢ The Japanese educational system seemed to produce skilled workers and highly competent managers
5.10.2. ➢ Extended from 6 to 9 years and the democratic principles of equality of opportunity were suffused throughout the system
5.10.3. ➢ The Japanese system of education is highly competitive
5.10.4. ➢ To be admitted to a prestigious university, students are required to pass examinations that are extremely competitive
5.10.5. ➢ Japanese students excel in every measured international standard up to the age of 17, both for the top students and for the 95% of students who graduate from
5.11. Germany
5.11.1. ➢ Germany selects and sorts its children at a relatively young age and tracks them into a tripartite system of secondary education
5.11.2. ➢ The Hauptschule is designed for those destined for blue-collar and lower-level service positions; the Realschule is for lower-level white collar and technical positions; the Gymnasium is for academic preparation for university and the intellectual and management professions
5.11.3. ➢ By the end of the lower secondary years, students with Hauptschule and Realschule enter the distinctive dual system of apprenticeship, where students spend part of the day working in apprenticeships in business and the other part in school
5.11.4. ➢ Students in the Gymnasium complete a rigorous academic curriculum that prepares them to take Abitur
5.11.5. ➢ 25% qualify for university attendance
5.12. Finland
5.12.1. ➢ Throughout the 1st decade of the 21st century Finland has had some of the highest scores on math, science, and literacy exams administered by PISA
5.12.2. ➢ little variations in tests schools around Finland
5.12.3. ➢ Abolished almost all forms of standardized testing
5.12.4. ➢ Places emphasis on formative evaluation and relies on oral and narrative dialogues between teachers and students to track progress
5.12.5. ➢ Only 15% of teachers who apply for the teaching program are admitted
6. Curriculum and Pedagogy
6.1. The History and Philosophy of the Curriculum
6.1.1. ➢ Humanist curriculum reflects the idealist philosophy that knowledge of the traditional liberal arts is the cornerstone of an educated citizenry and that the purpose of education is to present to students the best of what has been taught and written
6.1.2. ➢ The social efficiency curriculum was a philosophy pragmatist approach developed in the early 20th century as a putatively response to the development of mass public secondary education
6.1.3. ➢ Pedagogical progressivism and stressed the relationship between schooling and the activities of adults within society
6.1.4. ➢ Cardinal Principles which inverted Dewey’s notion of the school as a lever of social reform into the school as a mechanism to adjust the individual to society, became the cornerstone of the new progressivism
6.1.5. ➢ Developmentalist curriculum is related to the needs and interests of the student rather than the needs of society
6.1.6. ➢ Romantic progressivism occurred, placing its philosophical allegiance squarely within this form of curriculum and pedagogy
6.1.7. ➢ The social meliorist curriculum, which was philosophically social reconstructionist developed in the 1930s both out of the writings of Dewey who was concerned with the role of the schools in reforming society
6.2. The Politics of the Curriculum
6.2.1. ➢ The politics of curriculum analyzes the struggles over different conceptions of what should be taught
6.2.2. ➢ As new sociology of education suggests the curriculum is not a value-neutral objective set of information to be transmitted to students
6.2.3. ➢ The ability to shape the curriculum requires that groups have the power to affect the selection of instructional materials and textbooks
6.2.4. ➢ Although the controversy over which of the 2 views is correct has not been settles, we believe the reality, as in most controversies lies somewhere in the middle
6.2.5. ➢ Conflicts over curriculum are more likely to occur in public schools than in private ones
6.2.6. ➢ By the early 1990s the term politically correct became part of the popular culture
6.2.7. ➢ It referred to definitions of what is construed as acceptable language, curriculum, and ideas
6.3. The Sociology of the Curriculum
6.3.1. ➢ The hidden curriculum includes what is taught to students through implicit rules and messages, as well as through what is left out of the formal curriculum
6.3.2. ➢ The sociology of the curriculum concentrates on the function of what is taught in schools and its relationship to the role of schools within society
6.3.3. ➢ Functionalists argue that the school curriculum represents the codification of the knowledge that students need to become competent members of society
6.3.4. ➢ Finally this view demonstrates that what is taught in schools must be understood as part of the larger process of cultural conflict and stratification with school knowledge important not so much for its functional value but for its value in attaining access to specific occupations
6.4. Curriculum Theory and Practice
6.4.1. ➢ From child-centered and social-reconstructionist strands of progressive education the subject of curriculum studies has often been more concerned with practice than theory and has viewed classroom practice within the narrow confines of school
6.5. The Philosophy of Teaching
6.5.1. ➢ The mimetic tradition is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to student
6.5.2. ➢ Didactic method is a method that community relies in the lecture or presentation as the main form of communication
6.5.3. ➢ The transformative tradition rests on a different set of assumptions about the teaching and learning process
6.5.4. ➢ The process of teaching involves 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
6.6. The Stratification of Curriculum
6.6.1. ➢ Social efficiency has been the dominant model in the US public education since the 1920s
6.6.2. ➢ It is another important part from stratification
6.6.3. ➢ Ability grouping at the elementary school level with reading and mathematics groups within the same classroom, and is often extended in the upper elementary to middle school levels with separate classes with the same curriculum but different ability levels
6.6.4. ➢ Very complex and speak some concerning fundamental questions concerning teaching and learning
6.7. The Effects of the Curriculum
6.7.1. ➢ What is taught in school is not what is necessarily equivalent to what is learned in schools
6.7.2. ➢ Some research on curriculum tracking does provide an important piece to the big puzzle of education
6.7.3. ➢ Both functionalists and conflict theorists believe that schools teach important societal values and beliefs to students
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Calculating Educational and Life Outcomes
7.1.1. ➢ Social stratification is a hierarchical configuration of families who have differential access to whatever is of value in the society at a given point and over time, primarily because of, not biopsychological, variables
7.1.2. ➢ A full system of social stratifications emerges only when parents can see to it that their children inherit or acquire a social level of equal or superior to their own regardless of innate ability
7.1.3. ➢ 3 basic forms of social stratification: caste stratification occurs in agrarian societies where social level is defined in terms of some strict ascriptive criteria such as race/ and or religious worth
7.1.4. ➢ Estate stratification occurs in agrarian societies where social level is defined in terms of the hierarchy family worth
7.1.5. ➢ Class stratification occurs in industrial societies that define social level in terms of a hierarchy of differential achievement by individuals, especially in economic pursuits
7.1.6. ➢ The United States is the most unequal industrial country in terms of the distribution of income
7.1.7. ➢ Economic and political resources directly influence the selectivity of schools and the authority structures within schools, which, in turn, influence the climate of expectations and patterns of interactions within schools
7.1.8. ➢ Study of mobility is referred to as the status-attainment process
7.1.9. ➢ In 2009, a man age 25 or over with a college degree earned $72,868 a year whereas a woman with the same educational qualifications earned $44,078/year.
7.2. Class
7.2.1. ➢ Students in different social classes have different kinds of educational experiences
7.2.2. ➢ Studies show that the number of books in a family’s home is related to the academic achievement of its children
7.2.3. ➢ Middle and upper middle-class children are more likely to speak “standard” English
7.2.4. ➢ Peer groups have a significant influence on students’ attitudes toward learning
7.2.5. ➢ Children from working-class and underclass families are more likely to underachieve, drop out, and resist the curriculum of school
7.3. Race
7.3.1. ➢ Despite the Civil Rights Legislation of the 1960s, the U.S. society is still highly stratified by race
7.3.2. ➢ 16-24 year olds, for instance, 5.2% of white students drop out of school, whereas 9.3% of African American students and 17.6% of Hispanic American students are likely to drop out of school
7.3.3. ➢ Among 17 year olds, 89% of white students will be able to read at the intermediate level, which includes the ability to search for specific information, interrelate ideas, and make generalizations about literature, science, and social studies materials.
7.3.4. ➢ However, 66% of African-American students have reached that level of reading proficiency and 70% of Hispanic-American students reading at the intermediate kevel
7.4. Gender
7.4.1. ➢ Women are often rated as being better students than men, in the past they were less likely to drop out of school than males, and are more likely to have a higher level of reading proficiency than males
7.4.2. ➢ Males are more likely to score higher on the SATs than females
7.4.3. ➢ In the last 20 years, gender differences between men and women, in terms of educational attainment, have been reduced
7.4.4. ➢ Liberals argue that these increases demonstrate the success of educational reforms aimed at improving achievement; conservatives argue that the decline in male achievement and attainment is a result of the feminizing’ of the classroom
7.5. Attainment
7.5.1. ➢ For persons of both sexes 25 years or older, 92.1% of whites graduated from high school and 33.3% received a bachelor’s degree; 84% of African Americans graduated from high school and 19.9 % received a bachelor’s degree; 88.8% of Asian-Americans graduated from high school and 52.4% received a bachelor’s degree; 62.7% of Hispanic-Americans graduated from high school and 13.9% received a bachelor’s degree
7.5.2. ➢ These data indicate that despite improvements by minority students, African-American and Hispanic-American students still lag behind white students in educational achievement and attainment.
7.5.3. ➢ Female students, however, outperform male students in most categories, with the exception of mathematics and science, where they have made some gains
7.5.4. ➢ Much research indicates that social class is strongly and independently related to educational attainment and achievement support this relationship
7.5.5. ➢ Using this measure, we see that reading proficiency
7.5.6. ➢ Low income and minority students are more likely to have less challenging curricula, less likely to be in advanced placement classes, more likely to have under qualified and less experienced teachers, more likely to be in larger classes, more likely to change schools, and less likely to have their parents participate in school activities than affluent and white students
7.6. Students With Special Needs
7.6.1. ➢ The field of special education has mirrored the debates about equality od educational opportunity and the concern with the appropriate placement of students with special educational needs
7.6.2. ➢ In 1975, Congress passed the Education of All Handicapped Children Law (EHA) which included 6 basic principles
7.6.2.1. ➢ 1. The right to access public education programs
7.6.2.2. ➢ 2. The individualization of services
7.6.2.3. ➢ 3. The principle of “least restrictive environment”
7.6.2.4. ➢ 4. The scope of broadened services to be provided by the schools and a set of procedures for determining them
7.6.2.5. ➢ 5. The general guidelines for identifying disability
7.6.2.6. ➢ 6. The principles of primary state and local responsibilities
7.6.3. ➢ The purpose of the law was to guarantee that children with special needs were properly identified and placed in appropriate classes, defined as the “least restrictive environment
7.6.4. ➢ In the late 1980s critics of special needs pushed regular education initiative (REI) which called for mainstreaming children with disabilities into regular classes
7.6.5. ➢ Today, The field of special education remains in conflict
7.6.6. ➢ That minority students have been overrepresented in special education placements
7.6.7. ➢ However, it is not clear that all students with special needs will benefit from inclusion, nor that students in the mainstream will not be harmed academically from wholesale mainstreaming
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Explanations Of Unequal Educational Achievement
8.1.1. ➢ Functionalists believe that the role of schools is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals, regardless of family background
8.1.2. ➢ The functionalist vision of a just society is one where individual talent and hard work based on universal principles of evaluation are more important than ascriptive characteristics based on particularistic methods of evaluation
8.1.3. ➢ Functionalists expect that the schooling process will produce unequal results, but these results ought to be based on individual differences between students, not on group differences
8.1.4. ➢ Functionalists believe that unequal educational outcomes are the result, in part, of unequal educational opportunities
8.1.5. ➢ This perspective has been the foundation of liberal educational policy in the United States since the 1960s
8.1.6. ➢ Given that conflict theorists believe that the role of schooling is to reproduce rather than eliminate inequality, the fact is that educational outcomes are to a large degree based on family background is fully consistent with this perspective
8.1.7. ➢ Conflict theorists, who usually fall into the more radical political category, do not believe that equality of opportunity is a sufficient goal
8.1.8. ➢ Although most radicals do not believe that complete equality of results is possible or even desirable, they do want to reduce significantly the degree of educational, social, and economic inequalities
8.1.9. ➢ Conflict theorists call for more radical measures to reduce inequality, also, they are far more skeptical than functionalists that the problem can be solved
8.1.10. ➢ Despite these differences, both functionalists and conflict theorists agree that understanding educational inequality is a difficult task
8.1.11. ➢ Interactionism suggests that one must understand how people within institutions such as families and schools interact on a daily basis in order to comprehend the factors explaining academic success and failure
8.1.12. ➢ Conflict theorists, although not denying the deleterious impact extra-school factors such as poverty, believe that schools play an important role in reproducing the problem
8.2. Student-Centered Explanations
8.2.1. ➢ In the 1960s, sociologists of education interested in educational inequality often worked form a set of liberal political and policy assumptions about why students form lower socioeconomic backgrounds often did less well in school than students form higher socioeconomic backgrounds
8.2.2. ➢ Economically disadvantaged students attended inferior schools – schools that spent less money on each student, schools that spent less money on materials and extracurricular activities, and schools that had inferior teachers
8.2.3. ➢ A number of research studies in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated however that the conventional liberal wisdom was far too simplistic and that the solutions were far more complex
8.2.4. ➢ The research suggested that there were far more significant differences in academic performance among students in the same school than among students in different schools
8.3. Generic Differences
8.3.1. ➢ The most controversial student-centered explanation is the genetic or biological argument
8.3.2. ➢ Recent advances in the understanding of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, however, suggest that there may be biochemical and genetic causes
8.3.3. ➢ The argument that unequal education performance by working class and non-white students is due to genetic differences in intelligence was offered by psychologist Arthur Jensen in a highly controversial article in the Harvard Educational Review
8.3.4. ➢ Jensen indicated that compensatory programs were doomed to failure because they were aimed at changing social and environmental factors when the root of the problem was biological
8.3.5. ➢ Hurn demonstrated through a careful analysis of Jensen’s thesis that although a small percentage of the social class differences in intelligence may be attributed to genetic factors, the most significant factor affecting intelligence is social
8.4. Cultural Deprivation Theories
8.4.1. ➢ Cultural deprivation theory, popularized in the 1960s, suggests that working class and nonwhite families often lack the cultural resources such as books and other educational stimuli, and thus arrive at school at a significant disadvantage
8.4.2. ➢ According to this perspective, middle class culture values hard work and initiative the delay of immediate gratification for future reward, and the importance of schooling as a means to future success
8.4.3. ➢ Compensatory education programs such as Project Head Start – a preschool intervention program for educationally and economically disadvantaged students – are based on the assumption that because of the cultural and familial deprivation faced by poor students, the schools must provide an environment that makes up for lost time
8.4.4. ➢ Cultural deprivation theory was attacked vociferously in the 1960s and 1970s b social scientists who believed it to be paternalistic at best and racist at worst
8.4.5. ➢ Another criticism of cultural deprivation theory concerned the relative failure of many of the compensatory education programs that were based on its assumptions about why disadvantaged children have lower levels of achievement than more advantaged children
8.5. Cultural Difference Theories
8.5.1. ➢ Cultural differences agree that there are cultural and family differences between working class and nonwhite students and white middle class students
8.5.2. ➢ Working class and nonwhite students may indeed arrive at school with different cultural dispositions and without the skills and attitudes required by the schools
8.5.3. ➢ Ogbu’s later work suggests that school success requires that African American students deny their own cultural identities and accept the dominant culture of the schools, which is a white middle class model
8.5.4. ➢ African American students this have the “burden of acting white” in order to succeed
8.5.5. ➢ Bourdieu’s concepts of social and cultural capital are also important in understanding how cultural differences affect educational inequality
8.5.6. ➢ More affluent families give their children access to cultural capital and social capital are still paramount in providing affluent families with an educational advantage and social and capital are more subtle ways that social class advantage =s reproduce educational inequalities
8.5.7. ➢ A second type of cultural difference theory sees working class and nonwhite students as resisting the dominant cultural of the schools
8.5.8. ➢ These students reject the white and middle class cultural of academic success and embrace a different, often anti-school cultural—one that is opposed to the cultural of schooling as it currently exists.
8.6. School Financing
8.6.1. ➢ Jonathan Kozol in his muckraking book Savage Inequalities, compared public schools in affluent suburbs with public schools in poor inner cities
8.6.2. ➢ Public schools are financed through a combo of revenues from local, state, and federal sources
8.6.3. ➢ The majority of funds come from the state and local taxes, which local property taxes a significant source
8.6.4. ➢ Property taxes are based on the value of property in local communities and therefore is a proportional tax
8.6.5. ➢ Since property values are significantly higher in more affluent communities these communities are able to raise significantly more money for schools through this form of taxation than poorer communities with lower property values
8.6.6. ➢ More affluent communities are able to provide more per-pupil spending than poorer districts, often at a proportionately less burdensome rate than in poorer communities
8.6.7. ➢ The use of federal aid to equalize school funding is a controversial issues ➢ It is clear that the present reliance on local property taxes and state aid has not reduced inequalities of financing
8.7. Between-School Differences: Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices
8.7.1. ➢ The effective school research points to how differences in what is often termed school climates affect academic performance
8.7.2. ➢ Although there are problems with the research, most researchers agree that its findings support the argument that schools do affect educational outcomes, at times, independent of extra-school factors
8.7.3. ➢ Upper-class students are more likely to attend elite private schools, with authoritarian pedagogic practices and a classic-humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level
8.8. Within-School Differences: Curriculum and Ability Grouping
8.8.1. ➢ At the elementary school level, students are divided into reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendation, standardize test scores, and sometimes ascriptive characteristics such as race, class, or gender
8.8.2. ➢ Elementary students receive a similar curriculum in these different groups, but it may be taught at a different pace, or the teachers in the various groups may have different expectations for different students
8.8.3. ➢ At the secondary school level, students are divided both by ability and curriculum, with different groups of students often receiving considerably different types of education within the same school
8.8.4. ➢ Many teachers and administrators argue that heterogeneous groups are rare far more difficult to teach and result in teaching to the middle
9. Educational Reform
9.1. Educational Reform from the 1980s to 2012
9.1.1. ➢ The 1980s and 1990s and into the twenty-first century were periods of significant debate and reform in the US education
9.1.2. ➢ Although the decades included 2 specific waves of reform, the first beginning in 1983 and the second in 1985 and continuing through 2012, the period must be understood as a conservative response to the progressive reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, if not the entire progressive agenda of the 12th century
9.1.3. ➢ The educational reforms from the 1980s to today consisted of 2 waves of reforms
9.1.4. ➢ The 1st wave marked by the reports of the early and mid-1980s, and the educational initiatives directly responding to them, were concerned primarily with the issues of accountability and achievement
9.1.5. ➢ Although raising achievement standards for students and implementing accountability measures for evaluating teachers had some positive effects, many believed that educational reform then was targeted at the structure and processes of the school themselves, placing far more control in the hands of local schools, teachers, and communities.
9.1.6. ➢ Whereas the 1st wave was highly centralized at the state level, the 2nd wave was more decentralized to the local and school levels
9.2. Federal Involvement in Education
9.2.1. ➢ By the early 1990s, it was still unclear as to whether school reforms would begin to produce some of the improvements they promised
9.2.2. ➢ In 1990, President G.H.W. Bush – with the support of the National Governors Association—announced six national goals for the US education
9.2.2.1. ➢ Goal 1: by the year of 2000, all children will start school ready to learn ➢ Goal 2: by the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%
9.2.2.2. ➢ Goal 3: by the year 2000, American students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12, having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds as well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning , and productive employment in our modern economy
9.2.2.3. ➢ Goal 4:by the year 2000, US students will be 1st in the world in mathematics and science achievement ➢ Goal 5: By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the skills necessary to complete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship
9.2.2.4. ➢ Goal 6: by the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer disciplined environment conducive to learning
9.2.3. ➢ America 200 built on 4 relief themes:
9.2.3.1. ➢ 1. Creating better and more accountable schools for today’s students ➢ 2. Creating a New Generation of American schools for tomorrow’s students ➢ 3. Transforming America into a nation of students; and ➢ 4. Making our communities places where learning will happen
9.3. Goals 2000: Building on a Decade of Reform
9.3.1. ➢ Goals 2000 was a direct outgrowth of the state-led education reform agenda of the 1980s, which included increasing high school graduation requirements, particularly in math and science instituting statewide testing programs, offering more Advanced Placement courses, promoting the use of technology in the classroom, and instituting new teacher evaluation programs
9.3.2. ➢ The objective of systematic reform was to create coherent educational policy
9.3.3. ➢ The key intellectual element of the administration’s effort was Goals 2000
9.3.4. ➢ This law provides the framework of reform that shaped the educational ethos of the Clinton administration
9.3.5. ➢ It goes from Title I to Title V
9.3.6. ➢ The bulk of educational reforms with the respect to standards and assessments were initiated at the state level
9.4. No Child Left Behind
9.4.1. ➢ The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a landmark and controversial piece of legislation that had far reaching consequences for education in the US
9.4.2. ➢ NCLB was the centerpiece of President George W. Bush’s educational policy
9.4.3. ➢ NCLB represented a logical extension of a standards movement that tossed the left critiqued of US education back on itself
9.4.4. ➢ NCLB mandates the uniform standards for all students in order to reduce and eventually eliminate the social class and race achievement gap by 2014
9.4.5. ➢ Shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama established the Race to the Top Fund through the historic American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
9.4.6. ➢ The primary goal of this initiative was to aid states in meeting the various components of NCLB.
9.4.7. ➢ The initial legislation provided $4.35 billion for a competitive grant program that awards states for improving student outcomes and closing achievement gaps by developing plans in the following 4 educational programs that they have came up
9.5. Approaches to Reform
9.5.1. ➢ The first is the neo-liberal approach, represented by the Education Equity Project, which stresses the independent power of schools in eliminating the achievement gap for low income students
9.5.2. ➢ The second, represented by the Broader Bolder Approach, stresses that school level reform alone is necessary but insufficient and that societal and community level reforms are necessary
9.5.3. ➢ The second is supported by most liberals and radicals, and by the societal/community based approach of the Broader Bolder Approach founded by Pedro Noguera and Helen Ladd and based on the works of Jean Anyon, Richard Rothstein and others who argue that schools are limited institutions for eradicating the effect of poverty and its effects on children
9.5.4. ➢ Minority and lower class children have more vision, hearing, and oral health problems than white children which can affect their ability to focus and learn during school
9.5.5. ➢ Integrating social classes can lead to improvements in educational achievement
9.5.6. ➢ Constructing new social and economic policies that address family, community, and neighborhood inequalities, such as increasing the poverty line, fully funding affordable housing programs and providing rental subsidies, providing assistance to families to find units in a nicer neighborhoods, enforcing fair housing laws, building more mixed-income housing, and changing local zoning laws that prevent public housing form being built in better neighborhoods will help eliminate neighborhood differences and improve the educational level of our society as a whole