1. Sociology of Education
1.1. Theoretical Perspective
1.1.1. Functional Thoeries
1.1.1.1. Independence of the social system.
1.1.1.2. view society as a kind of machine
1.1.1.3. Durkheim- recognized that education had taken different form at difference times and places.
1.1.1.4. Functionalists tend to assume that consensus is the normal state in society and that conflict represents a breakdown of shared values.
1.1.1.5. a Nation at Risk- argument was made by the authors of the report that schools were responsible for a whole host of social and economic problems.
1.1.2. Conflict Theory
1.1.2.1. school are similar to a social battlefield, where students struggle against teachers, teaching against administrators and so on.
1.1.2.2. Karl Marx- intellectual founder of the Conflict school in the sociology of Education.
1.1.2.3. Randall Collins- who has maintained that educational expansion is best explained by status group struggle.
1.1.2.4. A variation of conflict theory that has captured the imagination of some U.S sociologist began in France and England during the 1960s.
1.1.2.5. Willard Waller- portrayed schools as autocracies in a state of "perilous equilibrium".
1.1.3. Interactional Theories
1.2. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
1.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes taking into account the importance of individual social class background when evaluating the impact of education,more years of schooling leads to greater knowledge and social participation.
1.2.2. Employment- getting a college and professional degree is important for earning more money, but education alone does not fully explain differences in levels of income.
1.2.3. teacher behavior- teachers have a huge impact own student learning and behavior. teachers are models for students and as instructional leaders, teachers set standards for students and influence self esteem and sense of efficacy.
1.2.4. Education and Inequality- most of us know that income, power, and property are unevenly distributed in society.
1.2.5. Gender- another way that schools reproduce inequalities is through gender discrimination. men and women do not share equally in U.S society.
2. Philosophy of Education
2.1. Generic notations
2.1.1. Plato helped to initiate this tradition through his concern for the search for the truth.
2.1.2. idealism- rather than idealism, since, for Plato, ideas were what mattered above all.
2.1.2.1. Idealists subscribe to the notion that education is transformation: ideas can change lives.
2.1.2.2. idealist teachers take an active part in their students learning
2.1.2.3. idealists place great importance on the study of the classics.
2.1.2.4. was noted that Plato argued for the centrality of ideas.
2.1.2.5. Plato always began with ideas.
2.1.3. Plato argued for the centrality of ideas.
2.1.4. Aristotle's Systematic Theory of Logic
2.1.5. Neo-Thomism- Aquinas philosophy became in the latter part of the nineteenth century when it was revive by the Vatican as a way of resolving the conflict between the natural sciences and Catholic Church.
2.2. Key researchers
2.2.1. Plato,
2.2.1.1. Aristotle
2.3. Goals of Education
2.3.1. teacher encourage their students to search for truth as individuals.
2.3.2. describes the doctrine of reminiscence
2.3.3. to help individuals understand.
2.3.3.1. not just stand their and fulfill "teacher duties", but actually help students to learn.
2.3.3.2. understand the ideology and curriculum being taught to students through teachers.
2.3.4. Dewey- vision of schools was rooted In the social order.
2.3.5. the key to Deweys vision is his view that the role of the school was to integrate children into not just any type of society, but a democratic one.
2.4. Role of teacher
2.4.1. the teacher assumes the peripheral position of facilitator.
2.4.1.1. encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study.
2.4.1.2. the teach also writes curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines in order to create and implement curriculum,
2.4.1.3. take risks to further students learning abilities.
2.4.1.4. tremendous repsonsibilities when playing the role of a teacher.
2.4.1.5. empower students to act on their choices.
2.4.2. the role of the teacher is an intensely personal one that carries with it a tremendous responsibility.
2.4.3. 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.
2.4.4. engage his or her students in a critical examination of the world.
2.4.4.1. i
2.4.5. the should have a solid grounding in science, mathematics, and the humanities.
2.5. Method of Instruction
2.5.1. Dewey proposed that children learn both individually and in groups.
2.5.2. problem solving or inquiry method
2.5.3. they believe that each child has a different learning style and it is up to the teacher to discover what works for each child.
2.6. Curriculum
2.6.1. the basics: Science and math, reading and writing, and the humanities.
3. Schools as Organizations
3.1. Major stakeholders in my district
3.1.1. State Senators are Richard Shelby and Jefferson Session.
3.1.2. House of Representatives- Mo Brooks
3.1.3. State Superintendent- Michael Sentance
3.1.4. representative on state school board- Michael Sentence as well.
3.1.5. Local superintendent- Tom Sisk
3.1.6. Local School Board in Limestone County- Brett McGill, Ed Winter, Charles Shoulders, Marty Adams, Bradley Young, Earl Glaze, Anthony Hilliard.
3.2. Elements of change within school processes and cultures
3.2.1. Establishing bureaucracies that focus on creating efficient behavior and process to achieve new goals.
3.2.2. Political compromises that result from social reality.
3.2.3. Creating schools that are more centered on learners needs for active, experiential, cooperative, and culturally- connected learning.
4. Curriculum and Pedagogy
4.1. Developmentalist Curriculum theory.
4.1.1. Theory which not based on society, but is centered around the student.
4.1.2. this specific curriculum is based around the students to help them achieve their full potential.
4.1.3. this theory helps the students be able to engage more with their peers, and actually learn in a full class setting.
4.2. Dominant Traditions of Teaching
4.2.1. Mimetic
4.2.1.1. gives a central place to be transmission of factual and procedural knowledge.
4.2.1.2. knowledge is commonly trnasmitted
4.2.1.3. passed from one person to another
4.2.1.4. it can be judged right or wrong
4.2.2. Transformative
4.2.2.1. successful teaching to be capable of accomplishing.
4.2.2.2. more exhaulted or noble
4.2.2.3. intergraded more deeply integrated and ingrained within the psychological makeup of the student.
4.2.2.4. teachers kowedge is not nearly so clear-cut.
5. Equality of Opportunity
5.1. Coleman Study 1982
5.1.1. First Response
5.1.1.1. Everything Coleman viewed as significant, others viewed as insignificant
5.1.1.2. criticism and controversy
5.1.1.3. using colemans findings, Jencks completed his own study.
5.1.2. Second Response
5.1.2.1. the debate over high school achievement findings has centered on the interpretations attached to the magnitude of the findings
5.1.2.2. private schools demand more from their students than public schools do.
5.1.2.3. difference among schools do make a difference
5.2. .
5.3. Impact on Educational Outcomes
5.3.1. Class
5.3.1.1. class is directly related to achievement and to educational attainment.
5.3.1.2. Middle and upper middle class children are more likely to speak "standard" English.
5.3.1.3. the more elite the college, the more likely the college is to enroll upper class and upper middle class students.
5.3.2. Race
5.3.2.1. An Individuals race has a direct impact on how much education he or she is likely to achieve.
5.3.2.2. 9.3 percent of African- American students and 17.6 percent of Hispanic American students are likely to drop out of school.
5.3.2.3. That race is related to educational outcomes is undeniable, although, given the nature of U.S society.
5.3.3. Gender
5.3.3.1. Today, females are less likely to drop out of school than males.
5.3.3.2. the one area that males outperform females is in mathematics proficiency.
5.3.3.3. in the last 20 years, gender differences between men and women, in terms of educational attainment, have been reduced.
6. Educational Inequality
6.1. Cultural Deprivation
6.1.1. Popularized in the 1960s, suggests that working-class and nonwhite families often lack the cultural resources, such as books and other educational stimuli.
6.1.2. drawing on the thesis advanced by anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1966) about poverty in Mexico, cultural deprivation theorists assert that the poor have a deprived culture.
6.1.2.1. one that lacks the value system of middle-class culture.
6.1.3. Based on this etiology, policy makers sought to develop programs aimed not at the schools but rather at the family environment of working- class and non white students.
6.2. Explanations of Educational Inequality
6.2.1. complex and perplexing
6.2.2. school-centered and student- centered explanations are not diametrically opposed, but rather need to be incorporated into a multidimensional theory of educational and inequality.
6.2.3. the relationship between four levels of sociological analysis
6.2.4. the relationships between families and schools at the institutional level, and what goes on within schools.
6.2.4.1. dialectically intertwined.
7. Educational Reform and school improvement.
7.1. School Based Reforms
7.1.1. some researchers reasoned that magnet schools and private schools were superior to neighborhood public schools
7.1.2. for several decades, the idea of school choice had been on the fringes of the educational policy world in the form of voucher proposals.
7.1.3. by the late 1980s, however, school choice was at the forefront of the educational reform movement.
7.2. Teacher Quality
7.2.1. what is clear is that how to recruit and retrain high quality teachers is among the most important problems in American education.
7.2.2. data indicates that significant numbers of classrooms staffed by teachers who are not highly qualified in the particular subject they teach.
7.2.3. high qualified teachers actually may become highly unqualified.
8. History of Education
8.1. The movement for educational for women and African americans
8.1.1. 1833 doors opened to women as we African americans
8.1.2. 1868 the freedman's bureau helped to establish historically black colleges.
8.1.3. 1865, university of Iowa became the first state university to accept women.
8.2. the conservative historical interpretation of US education.
8.2.1. 1977 arguments that education could solve social problems, led to erosion of educational excellence.
8.2.2. conservative critics al pointed to the failure of so called progressive education to fulfill its social goals.
8.2.3. decline od educational standards within the context of political movements to move us closer to a fair and just society.
9. Politics of Education
9.1. Purpose of Schooling
9.1.1. Political Purpose of Schooling is to insulate allegiance to the existing political order; to help assimilate diverse cultural groups into a common political order.
9.1.2. Social Purpose of Schooling is to help solve social problems; to work as one of the many institutions, such as family and church to ensure social cohesion; to socialize children into the various roles and behaviors of society.
9.1.3. Economic Purpose of Schooling to prepare students for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
9.2. The Role of School
9.2.1. Radical
9.2.1.1. Perpetuate the society and to serve the interests of those with economic wealth and political power.
9.2.1.2. Prepare children from different social backgrounds for different roles within the economic division of labor.
9.3. Radical Perspective
9.3.1. The liberal Perspective
9.3.1.1. The Conservative Perspective
9.3.1.1.1. 19th century social darwinist
9.3.1.1.2. Charles Darwin and William Graham Sumner
9.3.1.1.3. looks at social evolution as a process that enables the strongest individual and/or groups to survive, and adapti to changes in the environment.
9.3.1.1.4. Individuals and groups must compete in order to survive and the human progress is dependent on individual initiative and drive.
9.3.1.1.5. Positive view of US society and believes capitalism is the best and ensures maximum productivity.
9.3.1.2. 20th century in the progressive era
9.3.1.3. John Dewey
9.3.1.4. Accepts the conservative belief in a market capitalist economy.
9.3.1.5. Government involvement in the economic ,political, and social areas is necessary to ensure fair treatment to all citizens and to ensure a healthy economy.
9.3.2. Karl Marx
9.3.3. Believes democratic socialism is a fair political economic system.
9.3.4. Socialist economy that builds on the democratic political system would provide for all citizens.
9.3.5. Believe capitalist system is central to U.S social problems.