The Foundations of Education

1. 7. Because schools are so deeply political, effecting change within them is very difficult.

2. 6. The kind of school choice will lead to school improvements or whether allowing students to choose private schools will lead to increased educational and social stratification.

3. 5.There is a powerful democratic ethos underlining the belief in the "common schools".

4. 4. De jure segregation has been replaced by de facto segregation

5. 3.Statistics reveal is that there has been a considerable amount of consolidation and centralization in the last 80 years in the U.S. education.

6. Schools as Organizations

6.1. 1.The schools that an individual attends shape not only his or her life chances ,but his or her perceptions,attitudes,and behaviors.

6.2. 2.To understand education, one must look beyond the classroom itself and the interaction between teachers and pupils to the larger world where different interest groups complete with each other in terms of ideology,finances and power.

7. Curriculum and Pedagogy

7.1. 1. Curriculum as an objective body of knowledge, they suggested that the curriculum is an organized body of knowledge that represents political, social, and ideological interests.

7.2. 2. " New sociology of education" ushered in by the works of Michael F.D.Young and Basil Bernstein in Britain looked critically at the curriculum as a reflection of the dominant interests in society and suggested that what is taught in schools is a critical component of the effects of schooling.

7.3. 3. Developmentalist curriculum related to the needs and interests of the students rather than the needs of society.

7.4. 4. Different pedagogic practices, like different curricula ,are differentially offered to different groups of students , often based on class , racial,ethnic, and gender differences.

7.5. 5. The curriculum represents what particular groups think is important and , by omission,what they believe is not important.

7.6. 6.Mimetic tradition is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of educatin is to transmit specfic knowledge to students.

8. Equality of Opportunity

8.1. 1. The Coleman study discussed how the students in different schools such as private, public and so forth learned. Certain schools put more effort into their students education teachers empathized more on academics then any other matter.

8.2. 2. Approximately 1-3 percent of Americans are members of the upper class ,another 25 percent belong to the lower middle class, 40 percent are working class, and 20 percent belong to what has been called the underclass.

8.3. 3. An individual race has a direct impact on how much education he or she is ;likely to achieve.

8.4. 4. Abbott v, Burke free preschool for all 3- and 4 year olds in the low income ,urban districts

8.5. 5.The field of special education has mirrored the debates about equality of educational opportunity and the concern with the appropriate placement of students with special educational needs.

8.6. 6. Two major rivaling hypotheses concerning the relationship between school characteristics and student outcomes.

8.7. 7. First hypotheses states there is a strong , positive correlation between school quality and student achievement.

8.8. 8. The second hypothesis states that there is a very weak relationship between school characteristics and student outcomes.

9. Educational Inequality

9.1. 1.Functionalists believe that the role pf schools is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals, regardless of family background.

9.2. 2.Functionalists believe that unequal education outcomes are the results, in part, of unequal educational opportunities.

9.3. 3.Whereas the functionalists focus on the attempts to provide equality of opportunity and to ensure a meritocratic system, conflict theorists are concerned with both equality of opportunity and results.

9.4. 4. If students differences are more important than school differences, then teachers cannot be blamed for the lower academic performance of nonwhite and working-class students.

9.5. 5. The significance differences between the culture and climate of schools in lower socioeconomic and higher socioeconomic communities.

9.6. 6. The fact that different groups of students in the same schools perform very differently suggests that there may be school characteristics affecting these outcomes.

10. Educational Reform

10.1. 1. Raising achievement standards for students and implementing accountability measures for evaluating teachers had some positive effects, many believed that educational reform had to do more than provide changes in evaluation procedures.

10.2. 2. 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.

10.3. 3.The economic and social  differences between races and classes affect academic achievements at all levels from prenatal, to early childhood, to their overall health,welfare,and living environments.

10.4. 4.  School-to- Work this law provided seed money to states and local partnerships of business, labor, government,education, and community organization to develop school-to-work systems.

10.5. 5. To attack education inequality is to examine and plan to educate not only the whole child,but also the whole community.

10.6. 6. The real problem in U.S education has been, and continues to be, that it works exceptionally well for children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and exceptionally poorly for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

11. Sociology of Education

11.1. 1.Schools as well as parents, churches and synagogues, and other groups shape children perception of the world by the process of socialization. That is , the values ,beliefs, and norms of  society.

11.2. 2. Schools wittingly and unwittingly ,promote gender definitions and stereotypes when they segregate learning and extracurricular activities.

11.3. 3.The concept of equal educational opportunity is a key element in the belief system that maintains that the United States is a land of opportunity where hard work is rewarded.

11.4. Effects of Schooling

11.5. 1.Knowledge and attitudes research indicates that difference between schools in terms of their academics program and policies do make a difference in students learning.

11.6. 2..Employment Most research has shown that the amount of education is only easily related to job performance.

11.7. 3. Education and Mobility Hopper (19741) made the point that thee is a difference between educational amount and educational route. That is, the number of years of education is one measure of educational attainment, but where people gp to school also affects their mobility. Private an d public school s students 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.

12. Politics of Education

12.1. Liberal

12.2. 1.John Maynard Keynes believes that the capatalist market economy is prone to cycles of recessions that must be addressed through goverment intervention.

12.3. 2.Equality of opportunity, and because they believe that the capatilst system often gives unfair advantages to those with wealth and power,liberals assert that the role of the government is to ensure the fair treatment of all citizens, to ensure that equality of opportunity exists, and to minimize exceddinly great differnces in the life chances and life outcomes of the country's richest and poorest citizens.

12.4. 3. Individuals affected by the structure of society, so soloutiions to social probelms must address group dynamics rather than individuals alone.

12.5. Progressivism

12.6. 1. John Dewey " Father of Progressivism"

12.7. 2. Progressive visions tend to view the schools as central to solving social problems, as a vehicle for upward mobility, as essential to the development of individual potential, and as integral part of democratic society.

12.8. 3. Progressives believeswa the schools should be apart of the steady progress to make things better.

13. History of U.S. Education

13.1. Education for Woman and African-American

13.2. 1. The role of a woman was particular was to just be an helpmate to the provider.

13.3. 2. Significant number of girls attended elementary schools and many were admitted to private academies, which functioned as secondary schools.

13.4. 3.Higher education for woman did not remain the exclusive domain of Eastern reformers; the movement for female education spread quickly through the Midwest.

13.5. 4. Roberts v. City of Boston, the court ruled that the local school committee had the right to establish separate educational facilities for whites and blacks. As an result African -American were encourage to establish their own schools.

13.6. 5. Although educational opportunities for women were expanding  during the period of preceding the Civil War, education for African Americans was severely limited. Southerns believed more than ever that literacy bred both insubordination and revolution. Thus, they forbade the teaching of reading and writing to the slave population.

13.7. 6. in 1868, the Freedman's Bureau helped establish historically Black Colleges, including Howard University in Washington,DC., and Hampton Institute in Virginia. problem of equality of opportunity , in general, and school segregation, in particular, continued to be a significant issue throughout the remainder of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

14. Sociological Perspectives

15. Philosophy of Education

15.1. 1. John Locke (1632-1704) was particularly intrested in the ways in which people come to know things.

15.2. 2.Pragmatism is a philosopgy that encourages people to find processes that work in order to acheive their desired ends.

15.3. 3. Locke was particularly interested in the ways in which people come to know things. He believed that the mind was a tabula rasa, a blank tablet, and that one acquires knowledge through one's senses.

15.4. 4.The school is an "embryonic community" where children could learn skills both experientially as well as from books, in addition to traditional information, which would enable them to work cooperatively in a democratic society.

15.5. 5. Dewey's progressive methodology rested on the notion that children were active; organic beings, growing and changing, and thus required a course of study that would reflect their particular stages of development.

15.6. 6.Importance of the school as a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged and restructured.