1. Sociological Perspectives
1.1. Relationship between school and society
1.1.1. Functional Theory- functionalists emphasize cohesion in explaining social order.
1.1.2. Conflict Theory- Conflict sociologists do not see the relation between school and society as unproblematic or straightforward. From a conflict point of view, schools are similar to social battlefields, where students struggle against teachers, teachers struggle against administrators, and so on.
1.1.3. Interactional Theory- interactional theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives. The critique arises from the observation that functional and conflict theories are very abstract, and emphasize structure and process at a very general level of analysis.
1.2. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
1.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes- More highly educated people are more likely to be liberal in their political and social attitudes. More years of schooling leads to greater knowledge and social participation.
1.2.2. Education and Mobility- Education opens the doors of opportunity.
1.2.3. Teacher Behavior- Attitudes of teachers toward their students may have a significant influence on student achievement and perceptions of self.
1.2.4. Inadequate Schools- Students who attend suburban schools and private schools get a better educational experience than other children.
1.2.5. Tracking- tracking refers to the placement of students in curricular programs based on students' abilities and inclinations.
2. Politics of Education
2.1. The intellectual purposes of schooling are to teach basic cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics to transmit knowledge and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills.
2.2. The political purposes of schooling are to inculcate allegiance to the existing political order, to prepare citizens who will participate in this political order, to help assimilate diverse cultural groups into a common political order, and to teach children the basic laws of society.
2.3. The social purposes of schooling are to help solve social problems, to work as one of many institutions to ensure social cohesion, and to socialize children into various roles, behaviors, and values of the society.
2.4. The economic purposes of schooling are to prepare students for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
2.5. The Liberal Perspective
2.5.1. The Role of the School- stresses the training and socializing function of the school, stresses the school's role in providing the necessary education to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed in society, and stresses individual as well as societal needs and sees the school's role as enabling the individual to develop his or her talents, creativity, and sense of self.
2.5.2. Explanations of Unequal Educational Performance- The Liberal perspective argues that individual students or groups of students begin school with different life changes and therefor some groups have significantly more advantage than others.
2.5.3. Definition of Educational Problems- Schools have too often limited the life chances of poor and minority children, schools place too much emphasis on discipline and authority, the differences in quality and climate between schools with students that have low socioeconomic backgrounds and students that have high socioeconomic backgrounds is a central problem related to the inequalities of results, and the traditional curriculum leaves out the diverse cultures of the groups that comprise the pluralistic society.
3. History of U.S. Education
3.1. Education for Women and African-Americans
3.1.1. Education for women was viewed as biologically harmful or too stressful. In 1821, Emma Hart Willard opened the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York. The curriculum included so-called serious subjects of study such as math, science, history, and geography. Higher education for women spread quickly.
3.1.2. Education for African Americans was severely limited. Benjamin Roberts filed a suit over the requirement that his daughter attend a segregated school. The court ruled that the local school committee had the right to establish separate educational facilities for whites and blacks.
3.2. The Democrat Liberal School
3.2.1. Believe that the history of U.S. education involves the progressive evolution of a school system committed to providing equality of opportunity for all.
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Existentialism- modern philosophy. rates back to the nineteenth century.
4.1.1. Key Researchers- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), MartinBuber (1878-1965), Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1986), Edmund Husserl (1859-1935), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)
4.1.2. Generic Notions- Existentialists believe that individuals are placed on this earth alone and must make some sense out of the chaos they encounter.
4.1.3. Goal of Education- They believe that education should focus of the needs of individuals, both cognitively and affectively. They also believe that education should stress individuality.
4.1.4. Role of the Teacher- 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.
4.1.5. Methods of Instruction- They view learning as intensely personal. They believe each child has a different learning style and it is up to the teacher to discover what works for each child.
4.1.6. Curriculum- Curriculum is heavily biased toward the humanities. Existentialists believe in exposing students at early ages to problems as well as possibilities, and to the horrors as well as accomplishments humankind is capable of producing.