1. Identify and describe 5 effects of schooling
1.1. 1. EMPLOYMENT: Education opens the doors and introduces people to different types of employment.
1.2. 2. EDUCATION AND MOBILITY: Education allows people to change their lives and increase their earning potential thus changing the wealth of their family. Wealth can provide the means for more education and the ability to live in better school districts which allows a person to move and change the trajectory of their lives.
1.3. 3. TEACHER BEHAVIOR: A teacher can make all the difference to the esteem of a student. A teacher who believes in you can also make you believe in yourself.
1.4. STUDENT PEER GROUP AND ALIENATION: Peer groups can either uplift a student or alienate them. Peer pressure is one of the most powerful forms of manipulation. Peer pressure can make otherwise smart, independent people turn into mindless followers.
1.5. 5.DEFACTO SEGREGATION: Occurs in school districts where there is not a blending of social groups. The less expensive a place is the more diversity you will have. The more exclusive a neighborhood is the less diversity you will have simply because ther are many more poor and middle class socioeconomic people than there are rich people.
2. Sociological Perspectives
2.1. Theoretical Perspectives concerning the relationship between school and society,
2.1.1. FUNCTIONAL THEORIES: Schools socialize students and make their values more inline with others to overcome social and economic problems without changing other aspects of society. This is supposed to create structure, programs, and curricula
2.1.2. CONFLICT THEORIES: Shared values alone cannot hold society together. Society is held together by the more powerful or the higher ranking persons in the society. The glue that keeps society together is economic, political, cultural, and military. School promotes learning thus it sorts and selects people according to ability without regard to race and culture.
2.1.3. INTERACTIONAL THEORIES: Interactional theories is the relationship between the student and teacher, or between the student and other student. This is called the microsociological interactions as opposed to macrosociological interactions that are mentioned in Functional Theories and Conflict Theories.
3. Politics of Education
3.1. Four Purposes of Education
3.1.1. Political purpose of education is to teach the student the basic laws of the society where they reside and to instill patriotism
3.1.2. Social purpose of education is to ensure social cohesion by providing guidance on what is and what is not acceptable
3.1.3. Economic purpose of education is to prepare a student for their future occupational role
3.1.4. Intellectual purpose of schooling is to teach basic skills, such as reading, writing, and mathematics
3.2. Conservative Perspective
3.2.1. The role of the school is to provide necessary training to ensure that the most talented and hard working individuals receive the tools necessary to maximize economic and social productivity
3.2.2. Explanation of unequal educational performance: : students succeed based on intelligence, hard work, and initiative. If a student fails to perform then they will fail to succeed.
3.2.3. Definition of educational problems: decline of standards, decline of cultural literacy, decline in values, decline of authority, too much meddling from bureaucracy
3.2.4. Education policy and reform: return to basics, return to traditional academic curriculum, introduce accountability measures, and introduce free market mechanisms.
3.2.5. The American dream is in jeopardy because the progressive reforms of the 60's and 70's changed the traditional curriculum thus eroding the quality of the schools
3.3. Radical Perspective
3.3.1. The role of the school is to reduce inequality of educational results and provide upward social mobility
3.3.2. Explanation of unequal educational performance: lower socioeconomic students begin school with a deficit and the reason for this is due to failure caused by the economic system and can only be fixed through political-economic policy.
3.3.3. Definition of educational problems: Policies are classist, racist, sexist, and homophobic policies which fail the poor, minorities, and women; the existing curriculum promotes conformity; curriculum is classist, sexist, racist, and homophobic; the existing educational system promotes inequality of both opportunity and results
3.3.4. Educational policy and reform: Reform programs must lead to greater equality of educational results, schools should be more democratic, educational programs must enable teachers and students to understand social and economic problems, curriculum and teaching methods should be multicultural, antiracist, antisexist, anticlassist, and antihomophobic.
3.3.5. The American Dream is for each student to be allowed to choose their own educational path and not be pushed toward a path because of their background
3.4. LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE
3.4.1. The role of the school is to balance the needs of society and the individual based on merit and achievement and at the same time ensure that the individual receives a fair and equal opportunity for economic wealth, political power, and social status.
3.4.2. Explanation of unequal educational performance: the idea that the students start their education at different life chances, therefore the government must find a way to equalize the playing field.
3.4.3. The definition of educational problems: Underachievement of poor and minority students , too much emphasis is placed on discipline and authority, inequality of results is due to difference in the quality and the climate between urban and suburban schools, and the traditional curriculum does not include the diverse culture of groups.
3.4.4. Educational policy and reform: equality of opportunity, improve failing schools, enhance the equality of opportunity for the disadvantaged groups, create a more culturally inclusive curriculum, set acceptable performance standards so that everybody has a chance to succeed.
3.4.5. The American Dream: The educational system needs to improve to provide sufficient access for opportunities so everybody has a chance to succeed.
4. Schools as Organizations
4.1. Identify major stakeholders in YOUR district:Federal level Senators- Richard Shelby Doug Jones Federal Level Representative- Mo Brooks State Superintendent of School: Michael Shoulders State Representative for School Board: District 8 Mary Scott Hunter Local County School Superintendent: Limestone County Schools: Tom Sisk Limestone County School Board Members: Earl Glaze Edward Winter Charles Shoulders Ronald Christ Bradley Young Anthony Hilliard Bret McGill
4.2. The major change in school processes is mainly how punishment is handled. Some students need to be removed from the school and there is not a good way to do this. Some students are too disruptive for the classroom and alternative methods of education should be allowed. The trouble with this is that you end up with a community of delinquents and troublemakers who just learn to be bigger trouble makers. When you send a criminal to prison, he will learn how to be a better criminal. It may be possible to have student assigned to a teacher/counselor where the student must do his lessons at home and report to counselor to show his progress or in another classroom within the school set aside for credit recovery or online courses.
4.3. School cultures have changed:
4.3.1. A major social culture change is the shift from an agrarian society to an urban based society and the obsessive use of electronic devices. Society has not matured because people are no longer interested in society as a whole. Society seems to have become fragmented due to interference from social media sites and electronic devices. Students are immature and very few of them make good choices so an authoritarian type of teaching must maintain until society matures to what Dewey evidently thought it would be. Dewey made his assumptions about societal changes as he watched his generation deal with the aftermath of two great wars. Dewey died in 1952 prior to all the scientific discoveries that make up the current generation so he could could not have predicted our current social decline and obsession with electronic devices. thus his models are based on erroneous or fallacious assumptions that society would be more mature today than it actually is. He did not foresee the future.
4.4. The Major change in school process
4.4.1. The major change in school processes is mainly how punishment is handled. Some students need to be removed from the school and there is not a good way to do this. Some students are too disruptive for the classroom and alternative methods of education should be allowed. The trouble with this is that you end up with a community of delinquents and troublemakers who just learn to be bigger trouble makers. When you send a criminal to prison, he will learn how to be a better criminal. It may be possible to have student assigned to a teacher/counselor where the student must do his lessons at home and report to counselor to show his progress or in another classroom within the school set aside for credit recovery or online courses.
5. Philosophy of Education
5.1. Pragmatism is a student centered philosophy of education which encourages students to find processes/techniques that will help them find a solution to a problem. This philosophy is considered an American philosophy and was touted by GS Peirce, William James, and John Dewey on the American side and Frances Bacon, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rosslea on the European side. The goal of this philosophy is learning through the use of instruments and experiments. The role of the teacher changes from lecturer to facilitator. The students learn as individuals and through groups methods by inquiry. The method also uses an integrated curriculum meaning that skills from other classes can be used in the pursuit of the completion of the problem.
6. Curriculum & Pedagogy
6.1. Developmentalist Curriculum Theory:
6.1.1. DEVELOPMENTALIST CURRICULUM -related to the needs of the student rather than the needs of society Dewey and Piaget emphasized the process of teaching as well as content philosophically progressive approach student centered relating the curriculum to the needs and interests of the child according to developmental stage (Piaget) teacher becomes a facilitator rather than a transmitter of knowledge practiced in mostly in independent progressive schools
6.1.1.1. TWO TRADITIONS OF TEACHING MIMETIC- -loosely based on traditional/conservative models -transmitting specific knowledge to students best method is didactic method- lecture model rational sequencing of the teacher assessment is done through reaching goals or objectives traditional curriculum and pedegogy reproduce the consciousness of a competitive, capitalistic society TRANSFORMATIVE -progressive viewpoints -change the student on some meaningful way -reject the authoritarian position of the teacher -uses the dialectical method of assessment- question/answer -rejects the scientific model of teaching – teaching is not a science but an art
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Describe how class, race, and gender impact educational outcomes
7.1.1. CLASS: In particular; access to finances, books, family expectations, and achievement are influenced by class
7.1.2. RACE: School drop out rates are higher for African American and Hispanic students as compared to white students. Reading proficiency levels are lower for African American and Hispanic students which leads to lower standardized test scores because the test questions must be read in order to be answered.
7.1.3. GENDER: Males are expected to do well in courses that are considered masculine, such as technical courses, engineering, and math. Females are expected to do well in courses that are considered feminine, such as literature, home economics, and soft sciences.This is a case of the "self fulfilling prophesy" and misguided expectations.
7.2. What are two responses to the Coleman Study from 1982?
7.2.1. The report compared public schools to private schools: Responses (a) private vs. public school is not a fair comparison (b) the composition of the student body of a school influences student achievement (c) achievement is tied to the student attitude and the school environment (d) poor students should attend school with middle class students for cultural exchange
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Two types of cultural differences theory
8.1.1. 1. Affluent families give their children more opportunities because the children grow up in a house that supports education by having books and school supplies and other material goods (computer, internet, etc.) that allow the child to be ahead of other children who do not have these opportunities prior to attending school
8.1.2. 2. Working class and non-white students resist the dominant culture of the schools. Instead of taking advantage of educational opportunities these classes choose to join the workforce and cheat themselves out of a sometimes free education.
8.2. Describe four school centered explanations for educational inequality
8.2.1. 1. School Finances (tax base): Schools is more affluent neighborhoods have a larger tax base that supports the local school system; which allows the schools more money to spend per student
8.2.2. 2. School research has not be able to determine exactly why one school works better than another so corrections cannot be made so that all school are equal.
8.2.3. 3. Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices: Some teachers are just better at teaching than others. New teachers take a little while to train. Some schools are more diverse than others so the curriculum and how a course is taught depends on the ability of the learners.
8.2.4. 4. Gap in Achievement: This can be due to different opportunities and experiences prior to starting school, having low expectation of oneself, or maybe even having a language barrier.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. Describe two school based reforms:
9.1.1. 1. Teacher education: The more education and experience the teacher has the more examples they have to draw on during their teaching. The more knowledge they have, and the more education they attain to stay current the more they can relate to their students.
9.1.2. 2. School Choice: This allows the student to streamline their education and have more control over their future.
9.2. Describe two Reforms that impact education
9.2.1. 1. School finance reform: Support redistribution of school funds so that all schools within a district have equal access to funds.
9.2.2. 2. Full Service Community Schools: This type of idea supports the whole neighborhood by opening the school house doors for community educational opportunities, recreational facilities, internet access as well as educating the students during normal school hours.