INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 3E

Chapter 16 EDUCATION

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COLLEGE PHYSICS

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Chapter # Chapter Title

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FIGURE 16.1

Students who do graduate from college are likely to begin a career in debt. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Dooley/flickr)

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FIGURE 16.2

Unemployment rates for people age 25 and older by educational attainment. As can be seen in the graph, the overall unemployment rate began falling in 2009 after it peaked during the financial crisis and continued its downward trend through the decade from 2010 to 2020. (This graph does not account for the unemployment spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.) Note the differences in educational attainment and their impact on unemployment. People with bachelor's degrees have always had the lowest levels of unemployment, while those without a high school diploma have always had the highest level. (Credit: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

FIGURE 16.3

These students in Cambodia have a relatively informal classroom setting. Other schools, both nearby and around the world, have very different environments and practices. (Credit: Nguyen Hun Vu/flickr)

TYPES OF EDUCATION

Formal Education: the learning of academic facts and concepts.

Informal Education: education that involves learning about cultural values, norms, and expected behaviors through participation in a society.

Cultural transmission refers to the way people come to learn the values, beliefs, and social norms of their culture. Both informal and formal education include cultural transmission.

FIGURE 16.4

Children showing younger siblings how to serve food is an example of informal education. (Credit: Tim Pierce/flickr)

ACCESS TO EDUCATION: MILLS V. BOARD OF ED

• Parents of seven school-age children with intellectual disabilities argued that the school board was denying their access to free public education.
• The school board maintained that the children’s “exceptional” needs would increase costs; therefore have to remain at home without access to education.
• Judge Joseph Cornelius Waddy upheld the students’ right to education:

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Constitutional rights must be afforded citizens despite the greater expense involved … the District of Columbia’s interest in educating the excluded children clearly must outweigh its interest in preserving its financial resources. … The inadequacies of the District of Columbia Public School System whether occasioned by insufficient funding or administrative inefficiency, certainly cannot be permitted to bear more heavily on the “exceptional” or handicapped child than on the normal child (Mills v. Board of Education 1972).

FUNCTIONALISM

Manifest Functions

• Social Placement: the use of education to improve one’s social standing.

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Latent Functions

• Sorting: classifying students based on academic merit or potential.

CONFLICT THEORY

• Cultural Capital: cultural knowledge that serves (metaphorically) as currency to help one navigate a culture.
• Hidden Curriculum: the type of nonacademic knowledge that people learn through informal learning and cultural transmission.
• This term has been applied in practical ways within academic success/first-year experience programs, referring to certain behaviors and approaches to learning or getting comfortable within the environment.
• Tracking: a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced, low achievers) that perpetuate inequalities

FIGURE 16.5

The teacher’s authority in the classroom is a way in which education fulfills the manifest functions of social control. (Credit: US Department of Education/flickr)

FIGURE 16.6

Starting each day with the Pledge of Allegiance is one way in which students are taught patriotism.

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According to a number of court rulings, students in the United States cannot be compelled to recite or salute during the Pledge. (Credit: SC National Guard/flickr)

FIGURE 16.7

Conflict theorists see the education system as a means by which those in power stay in power. (Photo courtesy Thomas Ricker/flickr)

GRADE INFLATION

Grade inflation generally refers to a practice of awarding students higher grades than they have earned.

• The number of A grades has been increasing by several percentage points per decade, and that A’s were the most common grade awarded (Jaschik 2016).
• In an anecdotal case, a Harvard dean acknowledged that the median grade there was an A-, and the most common was also an A.
• Williams College found that the number of A+ grades had grown from 212 instances in 2009-10 to 426 instances in 2017-18 (Berlinsky-Schine 2020).
• Princeton University took steps to reduce inflation by limiting the number of A’s that could be issued, though it then reversed course (Greason 2020).

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Outcomes: Students with higher grades are more likely to be selected for a job or a grad school.

And those higher-grade applicants are still preferred even if decision-maker knows that the applicant’s college may be inflating grades (Swift 2013).

EQUAL EDUCATION

President Eisenhower sent members of the 101st Airborne Division from Kentucky to escort black students into Little Rock Central High School after the governor of Arkansas tried to deny them entry. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army)

SEGREGATION AND WAYS TO ALLEVIATE IT

• Based on unequal resources in neighborhoods, redlining, and education hiring practices, New York (and other cities’) schools remained unequal after Brown.
• Mae Mallory (and with support from Ella Baker and NAACP) led a protest by keeping children out of school.
• For denying their children education, the Harlem Nine were painted as negligent parents and faced legal penalties.
• However, the courts eventually ruled for them, indicating that students in certain neighborhoods were still receiving a “discriminatorily inferior education.”
• NYC instituted an open transfer policy that eventually gave way to bussing, where students were transported to other neighborhoods for education.
• Some students went to better schools and some went to worse (“two-way bussing”) which was meant to desegregate schools.
• Parents in White neighborhoods protested with the influx of people from the other schools.
• While bussing is often seen as a success in terms of achievement for minority students, it doesn’t always impact segregation: NYC schools are still usually considered the most segregated in the U.S.

STANDARDIZATION AND TESTS

• No Child Left Behind Act required states to test students in prescribed grades, with the results of those tests determining eligibility to receive federal funding.
• Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) decreases the federal role in education. Accountability is shifted to the states, which must submit plans and goals regarding their approaches to the U.S. Department of Education for approval.

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Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing (ACT) were used by colleges in the admissions process.

• Inequities in resources lead to disparities in preparation.
• As a result, the inequity found in K-12 education may extend to college.

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In 2020, a slate of highly selective colleges eliminated their standardized test requirement for admission, and, in 2021 several colleges expanded and extended their “test-optional” approach.

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STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Americans With Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and No Child Left Behind increased resources and focus on students with disabilities.

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However, states implement these programs differently, and some areas do not have the resources to provide proper education and support.

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Many disorders and challenges remain undiagnosed, inadequately supported, or misunderstood, including ADHD and dyslexia.

• They may be misrepresented as behavioral issues.
• This can persist into adulthood: For example, ADHD was for a long time considered only a children’s issue, but it also exists in adults.

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Inclusive classrooms and “mainstreaming” were a part of No Child Left Behind, but most experts agree that specialized support, differentiated instruction, and more training for educators are need for better outcomes.

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In general, programs have improved to the point that students with disabilities are graduating from high school at a national average of about 73 percent.

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The debate over the performance of charter schools vs. public schools is a charged one. Dozens of studies have been made on the topic, and some, as reflected in Stanford's CREDO study above, do not support the claim that charter schools always outperform public schools. (Source: Based on the CREDO study Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States)

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