My Foundations of Education

1. Chapter 4-Sociology of Education

1.1. 1. Theoretical Perspectives

1.2. A) Functional Theory: The different aspects of society working together to create a better society. According to Emile Durkheim, a sociologist, education was vital in producing moral ideals in order to have a well-balanced society.

1.3. B) Conflict Theory: The struggle between dominant groups over lesser groups either by force or manipulation. The main focus of society is on military, economic, cultural, and political supremacy. School is believed to be a battleground of students against teachers, teachers verses students, and teachers against the political powers. Many conflict sociologists approached the relationship between school and society with different methods .

1.4. C) Interactional Theory: This theory analyzes the functional and conflict theories. The interactional theory shows how the other two theories fail to study the smaller aspects of education. Interactional theory looks deeper into the normal everyday life of students and teachers.

1.5. 2. Five effects of schooling on indivdauls

1.6. 1) Knowledge and Attitudes: The difference in academic learning in schools can affect students in learning the material. When students are exposed to more education, they are able to read more material and engage in political activities. Also, when schools have a higher academic program, the students are more prone to be successful.

1.7. 2) Education and Mobility: The idea that education can provide the economic and social mobility. But based on evidence, this is not the case as education is like a contest where the variables is oftentimes based on race, social class, gender, and tests scores.

1.8. 3) Teacher Behavior: Teachers can be influential to students whether in a positive way or negative. When teachers place labels on students, the labels can oftentimes impact the students learning ability. Teaches, when they expect more from students and praise them regularly, can help increase student learning.

1.9. 4) Student Peer Groups and Alienation: Students create groups based on looks and attitudes. These student clichés can lead to clashes between students and teachers that often results in violence. Student violence is increasing not only to teachers, but to other students as well. The idea of student clichés can carry on to college such as careerists, intellectuals, strivers, and unconnected.

1.10. 5) Gender: Schools can often be influential in the gender inequalities. Girls starting school are at first academically minded, but at the end of high school they are lower in academics than the boys. The reason is probably the teachers stereotyping against girls and paying more attention to boys. The gender gap is now disappearing with women pursuing higher degrees.

2. Chapter 6-Schools as Organizations

2.1. 1) A. Federal Level

2.2. * Senators: Richard Shelby and Luther Strange

2.3. * Representative: Mo Brooks

2.4. B) Local Level

2.5. * State Senator: William L. Holtzclaw

2.6. * State Representative: Lynn Greer

2.7. * State Superintendent: Michael Sentence

2.8. * Local Superintendent: Dr. Tom Sisk

2.9. *Local Board: Charles Shoulders, Bret McGill, Ronald R. Christ, Jr., Edward Winter, Bradley Young, Anthony Hilliard, and Earl Glaze.

2.10. 2) A) Elements of Change

2.11. A) School Processes:

2.12. * Change requires a new ways of thinking in regard to administration and educational goals.

2.13. * Teachers are essential element for changing the school processes as they need to be in the front of all educational change.

2.14. * The political atmosphere of the school system needs to change in order of the school to flourish.

2.15. B) School Cultures

2.16. * Conflict is an element of change in the school culture. Teachers, administrators, and principles need to be trained to determine and handle conflict in the school.

2.17. * New Behaviors is another element of change. Schools need to focus on creating more social interaction, building leadership roles, and learning communication and handling conflict.

2.18. * Another element of change is Team Building. This change needs to go throughout the whole school. The staff of the school especially needs to learn how to work together and also make consecutive decisions as a whole group.

2.19. * The last element of change for school culture is that process and content are connected. The process of a group is correlated with the content of change in the educational field. A project depends on the group working with the school and also the influence of the project in future meetings.

3. Chapter 7-Curriculum, Pedagogy, and the Transmission of Knowledge

3.1. 1. The Social Meliorist Theory: This theory is about creating a curriculum that helps students to consider and decipher real world problems. It also aims for students to have the ability to change society. The curriculum would be either a strong link of distinction between school subjects or a combination of the subjects together.

3.2. 2. A) Mimetic tradition: This tradition focuses on the aspect that education is transferring definite knowledge to students in schools. Lecture and presentations would be the main aspect of communicating with students. There is also an involvement of having a relationship between teachers and students.

3.3. B) Transformative tradition: This tradition involves changing the student in their thinking, imagination, and emotionally. The teaching process involves a question and answer between the teacher and the students.

4. Chapter 8-Equality of Opportunity

4.1. 1. A) Class impacts educational outcomes in several ways. First, if the students are from high or middle class families, the parents are more likely to be involved in having the children finish school. Whereas, in working class and underclass families, the parents often to do not expect their children to finish school. Second, higher and middle class students tend to speak more cultured English than students who are in a lower class. Teachers also tend to favor the higher and middle class students over working and underclass students. Peer groups also impact the correlation between class and education.

4.2. B) Race is another factor that impacts educational outcomes. Compared to white students, minority students are still receiving low scores and also dropping out of school at a higher rate. Also, minority students are not receiving the same amount of benefits in education as white students.

4.3. C) Gender impacts educational outcomes in several ways. In the past, men were receiving higher education than women and also attending more colleges. Now, women have caught up to men and are going to college and graduating alongside men. There is still an issue of men having an advantage of obtaining academic awards.

4.4. 2. 1) The first response is a debate that focuses on the analyses in Coleman's findings.

4.5. 2) The second response is Geoffrey Borman and Maritza Dowling producing devices that could evaluate the data that was produced by Coleman.

5. Chapter 9-Explanations of Educational Inequality

5.1. 1. A) The first cultural difference theory is presented by John Orbu who argued that African-Americans had to adapt white culture in order to succeed in school. He also did several studies of African-Americans in education and offered how African-Americans can be successful in the school system.

5.2. B) The second cultural difference theory is the viewpoint of working class and minority students going against the main culture of the school systems. Research into this theory shows that many working class students tend to revolt against the middle class school systems and drop out of school as a result. There is also research as to why Asian-Americans do better than other minority groups.

5.3. 2. 1) School Financing: This explanation states that there are some schools who are not receiving enough funding to adequately educate the students. The schools, who did not receive enough funding, had mainly minority students and also students from working class and underclass families.

5.4. 2) Effective-School Research: This explanation focuses on research done in schools, who are very presitgous, that have a high number of students being successful.

5.5. 3) Between-School Differences: This explanation is about the different in environment of public, private, boarding, suburban, and urban schools. It also seeks to explain why some students excel at certain schools and others fail.

5.6. 4) Within-School Differences: This explanation focuses on the different features within schools that can influence the products of student achievement. It also explains how students can be grouped based on ability and whether the curriculum works.

6. 1. The Post-World War II Equity Era. This reform focuses on providing equal education and the petition to increase education for the people of the United States. There was a major debate between two ideas: the progressive ( teaching education that agrees with the era and children) and the traditional ( old school ideals of discipline and authority). However, there was a transferal towards the progressive side due to the Civil Rights movement and other issues. This reform has opened doors to the failures on providing equal education and also delivering higher education.

6.1. Chapter 3-History of Education

6.2. 2. Democratic-liberals see education as the equal opportunity for anyone to have an education and to be successful. The Democratic-liberals see the history of education as a growing expanse on the equality and the decreasing of the idea that education is only for the higher class. Finally, Democratic-liberals deem that the ideals of excellence and equality must be in balance with regard to education.

7. Chapter 2-Politics of Education

7.1. 1. Four Purposes of Education

7.2. A. Intellectual: This purpose focuses on instruction in the rudimentary formats of schooling such as reading, writing, and math. It also includes comprehension of history, literature, and science. The purpose is for students to think deeper on the content.

7.3. B. Political: This purpose is to invoke patriotism to the country (United States), to teach students on the political polices, to unite the diverse population into a political set, and instruct the laws of the nation to the children.

7.4. C. Social: This purpose is to aid in the process of social problems, to coincide with churches and family, and to guide children in the different beliefs, roles, and behaviors of society.

7.5. D. Economic: This purpose entails training the students for future jobs. It also prepares each student to enter into the workforce.

7.6. 2. Perspecitve

7.7. 1) The role of school in the liberal viewpoint focuses on enabling all personals, no matter the race and social differences, the opportunity to have an education and to be effective in society . It also sees the role of school not only from a societal view, but also on a individual basis with regard to the democratic order in society.

7.8. 2) The liberal outlook in the unequal educational performance believes that some students come to school lacking educational experiences due to different backgrounds. These students are at a disadvantage with students who have more access to education. Thus, the society needs to accommodate the students who are lacking in order to provide equal opportunity.

7.9. 3) Educational problems from the liberal viewpoint has several aspects. First of all, the liberals believe that schools are not providing enough instruction to poor and minority children. Second, the schools are not guiding students to grow as individuals. Third, the social status of the students is creating variations between high class and low class. And finally, the school curricula is not instructing on the assorted cultures that is part of society.

8. Chapter 5-Philosophy of Education

8.1. Pragmatism is the philosophy that guides people to find ways that will help accomplish their goals. Often times, this is a study on the past, but it can also put emphasis on studying the present. This study involves having a problem, posing questions on how to solve it, action with the answers, and finally the results of the process. There were several key researchers such as Frances Bacon, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Dewy. Dewy, a pragmatistic, had several approaches to education. First, the generic notions focuses on children as enthusiastic beings who are constantly changing, and who need a particular education to support their growth. Second, the goal of education is for ideas to flourish and be challenged in the school. Also, it can help incorporate the students into a democratic culture. The next approach from Dewy was the role of the teacher in the educational system. Teachers are to encourage students, to plan studies, and be able to follow curriculum. The other approach is the method of instruction. The focus is that children can learn individually and in groups in a more innate way. The final approach from Dewy is a curriculum that is based on the students needs. Everything from science to history is integrated into the material taught by teachers. This curriculum is able to change with specific children and social order.

9. Chapter 10-Educational Reform and School Improvement

9.1. 1. A) Teacher education: This reform focuses on the issue of teachers needing to receive more education in order to effectively teach and improve student education. There was a major debate and several research into the area of whether teachers needed to improve their education and qualifications for teaching. There were also many programs produced that sought to put more qualified teachers into the field.

9.2. B) Teacher quality: This reform involves the issue of placing teachers in subject areas that they were not qualified to teach. It also mentions people, who did not have teacher certificates, teaching at the secondary level in the schools. Urbans schools were also facing an issue of having a shortage of qualified teachers.

9.3. 2. A) Economic Reform is a series of court cases regarding inequality of funding to certain schools. Over time, the states began to pass laws that would fund low income schools and students in order to improve the educational field. There is some limitations, however, to the achievement gaps of minority students. Programs such as economic programs were suggested to improve the income of underclass students.

9.4. B) Community Reform focuses on education the community and the students. The school would focus on meeting the needs of the students and their families. The school also would be opened to multiple programs that sought to help the community improve.