SOC 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Alternative Medicine, Mental Disorder, Sick Role
Chapter 14: Education, Health, and Medicine
Education: A Global Survey
• Education is the social institution through which society provides its members with
important knowledge, including basic facts, job skills, and cultural norms and values.
• Education takes many forms but it depends largely on formal schooling
o Formal instruction under the direction of specially trained teachers
Schooling and Economic Development
• The extent of schooling in any society is tied to its level of economic development
• Formal schooling is available mainly t wealthy people who can afford to pursue
enrichment
o The root of the word school came from the word that means leisure
• Schooling in low-income countries reflects the national culture
o Not much of it in any of them
Schooling in India
• India has recently become a middle-income country but children still work a great deal
and their options for schooling are limited
• Most children complete primary school and most continue to secondary, but few go on to
college
• Patriarchy shapes Indian education, girls are more expensive and less likely to go to
school
Schooling in Japan
• Before industrialization only a small few in Japan attended school.
• Now Japan’s educational system is well renowned
• Students take highly competitive exams and decide their future
• 99 percent graduate high school, but only 51 percent are allowed to continue on to
college
o Produce impressive results
Schooling in the United States
• The US was among the first countries to set a goal of mass education
o Have mandatory education laws
• US educational system is shaped by our high standard of living and democratic principles
• US has an outstanding record of higher education
• Tries to promote equal opportunity
• Stresses practical learning that will prepare student for future jobs
Theories of Education
Structural-Functional Theory: The Functions of Schooling
• Structural-functional theory focuses on ways in which schooling support as the smooth
operation and the stability of society:
o Socialization
▪ Trained teachers to pass on specialized knowledge adults will need
o Cultural innovation
▪ Invent culture and pass it along to students
o Social integration
▪ Molds a diverse population into one society that shares norms and values
o Social placement
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▪ Identifies talent and matches instruction to ability
o Latent functions
▪ Provides child care, occupies people in their 20s who would otherwise be
looking for jobs in a limited market
Symbolic-Interaction Theory: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• People create the reality they experience in their day-to-day interactions
• Thomas theorem: situations people define as real become real in their consequences
o Set up self-fulfilling prophecies
Social-Conflict Theory: Schooling and Social Inequality
• Challenges the structural-functional idea that schooling develops everyone’ talents and
emphasizes three ways in which schooling causes and perpetuates social inequality:
o Social control
▪ Demand for public education was based on factory owners’ need for an
obedient and disciplined work force
o Standardized testing
▪ Tests widely used by schools reflect our society’s dominant culture,
placing minority students at a disadvantage
o Tracking
▪ Most school use standardized tests for tracking: assigning students to
different types of education
▪ Most students from privileged homes get placed into higher tracks than
those from disadvantaged backgrounds
• Public and private education:
o Most US children go to state funded public schools, and the rest to private
o Many children who go to private schools go to catholic parochial schools
▪ Many others go to non catholic, Christian schools
▪ The ret go to nonreligious private schools
• Prep schools
• Kids from very well-to-do families
• Inequality in public schooling:
o Differences in funding between rich and poor communities result in unequal
resources
o At a local level differences in school funding can be dramatic
o School funding is most often based on the property taxes, neighborhoods decide
how good schools are
▪ The reality of racially segregated neighborhoods leads to segregated
schools
▪ Insufficient libraries and science labs and culture capital
• Access to higher education:
o Only 66% of US high school grads enroll in college immediately
▪ College is expensive
o Economic differences lead to a widening educational gap between whites and
minorities at the college level
o Completing college leads to higher earnings
• Greater opportunity: expanding higher education:
o US is a world leader in providing education
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find more resources at oneclass.com
o Military can go to school for free
• Community colleges:
o Community college has greatly increased access to higher education
o Low cost
o Allow minoritie college education
o Attract abroad students
o And priority of faculty is teaching, not research
• Privilege and personal merit:
o Schooling transform social privilege into personal merit
o We have a credential society
▪ Evaluated on the basis of schooling
o Hurts the already disadvantaged
Problems and Issues in U.S. Education
Discipline and Violence
• Schools do not create violence but violence sills in from the surrounding society
• Deadly school shootings have led to debates about privacy vs safety
Student Passivity
• Many more schools are plagued by students who are bored or who do not care
• Bureaucracy:
o Five ways in which bureaucratic schools undermine education:
▪ Rigid uniformity
▪ Numerical ratings
▪ Rigid expectations
▪ Specialization
▪ Little individual responsibility
o Humanizing schools could transform them
• College: the silent classroom:
o Passivity is also common among university student
o Schools are teaching passivity
o Faculty should call on students by name, reinforce participation, ask analytical
rather than factual questions, and asking for opinions
Dropping Out
• Dropping out: quitting before earning a high school diploma
• Leaves young people unprepared for the world of work
• Students dropout because of the English language, pregnancy, or working to support
families
o A multigenerational cycle of disadvantage
Academic Standards
• The quality of our nation’s schooling is questionable
• Functional illiteracy: a lack of reading and writing skills needed for everyday living, is an
issue for 1 in 3 US children
• The US spends more on schooling its children but gets worse results than countries who
spend less
Grade Inflation
• Academic standards depend on the use of grades that have clear meaning and are
awarded for work of appropriate quality
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Structural-functional theory: the functions of schooling: structural-functional theory focuses on ways in which schooling support as the smooth operation and the stability of society, socialization, trained teachers to pass on specialized knowledge adults will need, cultural innovation. Invent culture and pass it along to students: social integration, molds a diverse population into one society that shares norms and values, social placement. Identifies talent and matches instruction to ability: latent functions, provides child care, occupies people in their 20s who would otherwise be looking for jobs in a limited market. Symbolic-interaction theory: the self-fulfilling prophecy: people create the reality they experience in their day-to-day interactions, thomas theorem: situations people define as real become real in their consequences, set up self-fulfilling prophecies. Discipline and violence: schools do not create violence but violence sills in from the surrounding society, deadly school shootings have led to debates about privacy vs safety.
