function of education in sociology

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16.2 Sociological Perspectives on Education

Learning objectives.

List the major functions of education.
Explain the problems that conflict theory sees in education.
Describe how symbolic interactionism understands education.

The major sociological perspectives on education fall nicely into the functional, conflict, and symbolic interactionist approaches (Ballantine & Hammack, 2009). Table 16.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes what these approaches say.

Table 16.1 Theory Snapshot

The Functions of Education

Functional theory stresses the functions that education serves in fulfilling a society’s various needs. Perhaps the most important function of education is socialization . If children need to learn the norms, values, and skills they need to function in society, then education is a primary vehicle for such learning. Schools teach the three Rs, as we all know, but they also teach many of the society’s norms and values. In the United States, these norms and values include respect for authority, patriotism (remember the Pledge of Allegiance?), punctuality, individualism, and competition. Regarding these last two values, American students from an early age compete as individuals over grades and other rewards. The situation is quite the opposite in Japan, where, as we saw in Chapter 4 “Socialization” , children learn the traditional Japanese values of harmony and group belonging from their schooling (Schneider & Silverman, 2010). They learn to value their membership in their homeroom, or kumi , and are evaluated more on their kumi ’s performance than on their own individual performance. How well a Japanese child’s kumi does is more important than how well the child does as an individual.

A second function of education is social integration . For a society to work, functionalists say, people must subscribe to a common set of beliefs and values. As we saw, the development of such common views was a goal of the system of free, compulsory education that developed in the 19th century. Thousands of immigrant children in the United States today are learning English, U.S. history, and other subjects that help prepare them for the workforce and integrate them into American life. Such integration is a major goal of the English-only movement, whose advocates say that only English should be used to teach children whose native tongue is Spanish, Vietnamese, or whatever other language their parents speak at home. Critics of this movement say it slows down these children’s education and weakens their ethnic identity (Schildkraut, 2005).

A third function of education is social placement . Beginning in grade school, students are identified by teachers and other school officials either as bright and motivated or as less bright and even educationally challenged. Depending on how they are identified, children are taught at the level that is thought to suit them best. In this way they are prepared in the most appropriate way possible for their later station in life. Whether this process works as well as it should is an important issue, and we explore it further when we discuss school tracking shortly.

Social and cultural innovation is a fourth function of education. Our scientists cannot make important scientific discoveries and our artists and thinkers cannot come up with great works of art, poetry, and prose unless they have first been educated in the many subjects they need to know for their chosen path.

Figure 16.1 The Functions of Education

The Functions of Education: social integration, social placement, socialization, social and cultural innovation

Schools ideally perform many important functions in modern society. These include socialization, social integration, social placement, and social and cultural innovation.

Education also involves several latent functions, functions that are by-products of going to school and receiving an education rather than a direct effect of the education itself. One of these is child care . Once a child starts kindergarten and then first grade, for several hours a day the child is taken care of for free. The establishment of peer relationships is another latent function of schooling. Most of us met many of our friends while we were in school at whatever grade level, and some of those friendships endure the rest of our lives. A final latent function of education is that it keeps millions of high school students out of the full-time labor force . This fact keeps the unemployment rate lower than it would be if they were in the labor force.

Education and Inequality

Conflict theory does not dispute most of the functions just described. However, it does give some of them a different slant and talks about various ways in which education perpetuates social inequality (Hill, Macrine, & Gabbard, 2010; Liston, 1990). One example involves the function of social placement. As most schools track their students starting in grade school, the students thought by their teachers to be bright are placed in the faster tracks (especially in reading and arithmetic), while the slower students are placed in the slower tracks; in high school, three common tracks are the college track, vocational track, and general track.

Such tracking does have its advantages; it helps ensure that bright students learn as much as their abilities allow them, and it helps ensure that slower students are not taught over their heads. But, conflict theorists say, tracking also helps perpetuate social inequality by locking students into faster and lower tracks. Worse yet, several studies show that students’ social class and race and ethnicity affect the track into which they are placed, even though their intellectual abilities and potential should be the only things that matter: white, middle-class students are more likely to be tracked “up,” while poorer students and students of color are more likely to be tracked “down.” Once they are tracked, students learn more if they are tracked up and less if they are tracked down. The latter tend to lose self-esteem and begin to think they have little academic ability and thus do worse in school because they were tracked down. In this way, tracking is thought to be good for those tracked up and bad for those tracked down. Conflict theorists thus say that tracking perpetuates social inequality based on social class and race and ethnicity (Ansalone, 2006; Oakes, 2005).

Social inequality is also perpetuated through the widespread use of standardized tests. Critics say these tests continue to be culturally biased, as they include questions whose answers are most likely to be known by white, middle-class students, whose backgrounds have afforded them various experiences that help them answer the questions. They also say that scores on standardized tests reflect students’ socioeconomic status and experiences in addition to their academic abilities. To the extent this critique is true, standardized tests perpetuate social inequality (Grodsky, Warren, & Felts, 2008).

As we will see, schools in the United States also differ mightily in their resources, learning conditions, and other aspects, all of which affect how much students can learn in them. Simply put, schools are unequal, and their very inequality helps perpetuate inequality in the larger society. Children going to the worst schools in urban areas face many more obstacles to their learning than those going to well-funded schools in suburban areas. Their lack of learning helps ensure they remain trapped in poverty and its related problems.

Conflict theorists also say that schooling teaches a hidden curriculum , by which they mean a set of values and beliefs that support the status quo, including the existing social hierarchy (Booher-Jennings, 2008) (see Chapter 4 “Socialization” ). Although no one plots this behind closed doors, our schoolchildren learn patriotic values and respect for authority from the books they read and from various classroom activities.

Symbolic Interactionism and School Behavior

Symbolic interactionist studies of education examine social interaction in the classroom, on the playground, and in other school venues. These studies help us understand what happens in the schools themselves, but they also help us understand how what occurs in school is relevant for the larger society. Some studies, for example, show how children’s playground activities reinforce gender-role socialization. Girls tend to play more cooperative games, while boys play more competitive sports (Thorne, 1993) (see Chapter 11 “Gender and Gender Inequality” ).

Another body of research shows that teachers’ views about students can affect how much the students learn. When teachers think students are smart, they tend to spend more time with them, to call on them, and to praise them when they give the right answer. Not surprisingly these students learn more because of their teachers’ behavior. But when teachers think students are less bright, they tend to spend less time with them and act in a way that leads the students to learn less. One of the first studies to find this example of a self-fulfilling prophecy was conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968). They tested a group of students at the beginning of the school year and told their teachers which students were bright and which were not. They tested the students again at the end of the school year; not surprisingly the bright students had learned more during the year than the less bright ones. But it turned out that the researchers had randomly decided which students would be designated bright and less bright. Because the “bright” students learned more during the school year without actually being brighter at the beginning, their teachers’ behavior must have been the reason. In fact, their teachers did spend more time with them and praised them more often than was true for the “less bright” students. To the extent this type of self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, it helps us understand why tracking is bad for the students tracked down.

Pre schoolers working on arts and crafts

Research guided by the symbolic interactionist perspective suggests that teachers’ expectations may influence how much their students learn. When teachers expect little of their students, their students tend to learn less.

ijiwaru jimbo – Pre-school colour pack – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Key Takeaways

According to the functional perspective, education helps socialize children and prepare them for their eventual entrance into the larger society as adults.
The conflict perspective emphasizes that education reinforces inequality in the larger society.
The symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on social interaction in the classroom, on school playgrounds, and at other school-related venues. Social interaction contributes to gender-role socialization, and teachers’ expectations may affect their students’ performance.

For Your Review

Review how the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives understand and explain education. Which of these three approaches do you most prefer? Why?

American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. (1998). Gender gaps: Where schools still fail our children . Washington, DC: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.

Ansalone, G. (2006). Tracking: A return to Jim Crow. Race, Gender & Class, 13 , 1–2.

Ballantine, J. H., & Hammack, F. M. (2009). The sociology of education: A systematic analysis (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Battey, D., Kafai, Y., Nixon, A. S., & Kao, L. L. (2007). Professional development for teachers on gender equity in the sciences: Initiating the conversation. Teachers College Record, 109 (1), 221–243.

Booher-Jennings, J. (2008). Learning to label: Socialisation, gender, and the hidden curriculum of high-stakes testing. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29 , 149–160.

Grodsky, E., Warren, J. R., & Felts, E. (2008). Testing and social stratification in American education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34 (1), 385–404.

Hill, D., Macrine, S., & Gabbard, D. (Eds.). (2010). Capitalist education: Globalisation and the politics of inequality . New York, NY: Routledge; Liston, D. P. (1990). Capitalist schools: Explanation and ethics in radical studies of schooling . New York, NY: Routledge.

Jones, S. M., & Dindia, K. (2004). A meta-analystic perspective on sex equity in the classroom. Review of Educational Research, 74 , 443–471.

Oakes, J. (2005). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom . New York, NY: Holt.

Schildkraut, D. J. (2005). Press “one” for English: Language policy, public opinion, and American identity . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Schneider, L., & Silverman, A. (2010). Global sociology: Introducing five contemporary societies (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

16.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Education

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

Define manifest and latent functions of education
Explain and discuss how functionalism, conflict theory, feminism, and interactionism view issues of education

While it is clear that education plays an integral role in individuals’ lives as well as society as a whole, sociologists view that role from many diverse points of view. Functionalists believe that education equips people to perform different functional roles in society. Conflict theorists view education as a means of widening the gap in social inequality. Feminist theorists point to evidence that sexism in education continues to prevent women from achieving a full measure of social equality. Symbolic interactionists study the dynamics of the classroom, the interactions between students and teachers, and how those affect everyday life. In this section, you will learn about each of these perspectives.

Functionalism

Functionalists view education as one of the more important social institutions in a society. They contend that education contributes two kinds of functions: manifest (or primary) functions, which are the intended and visible functions of education; and latent (or secondary) functions, which are the hidden and unintended functions.

Manifest Functions

There are several major manifest functions associated with education. The first is socialization. Beginning in preschool and kindergarten, students are taught to practice various societal roles. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who established the academic discipline of sociology, characterized schools as “socialization agencies that teach children how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic roles” (Durkheim 1898). Indeed, it seems that schools have taken on this responsibility in full.

This socialization also involves learning the rules and norms of the society as a whole. In the early days of compulsory education, students learned the dominant culture. Today, since the culture of the United States is increasingly diverse, students may learn a variety of cultural norms, not only that of the dominant culture.

Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility. This function is referred to as social placement . College and graduate schools are viewed as vehicles for moving students closer to the careers that will give them the financial freedom and security they seek. As a result, college students are often more motivated to study areas that they believe will be advantageous on the social ladder. A student might value business courses over a class in Victorian poetry because she sees business class as a stronger vehicle for financial success.

Latent Functions

Education also fulfills latent functions. As you well know, much goes on in a school that has little to do with formal education. For example, you might notice an attractive fellow student when he gives a particularly interesting answer in class—catching up with him and making a date speaks to the latent function of courtship fulfilled by exposure to a peer group in the educational setting.

The educational setting introduces students to social networks that might last for years and can help people find jobs after their schooling is complete. Of course, with social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn, these networks are easier than ever to maintain. Another latent function is the ability to work with others in small groups, a skill that is transferable to a workplace and that might not be learned in a homeschool setting.

The educational system, especially as experienced on university campuses, has traditionally provided a place for students to learn about various social issues. There is ample opportunity for social and political advocacy, as well as the ability to develop tolerance to the many views represented on campus. In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement swept across college campuses all over the United States, leading to demonstrations in which diverse groups of students were unified with the purpose of changing the political climate of the country.

Functionalists recognize other ways that schools educate and enculturate students. One of the most important U.S. values students in the United States learn is that of individualism—the valuing of the individual over the value of groups or society as a whole. In countries such as Japan and China, where the good of the group is valued over the rights of the individual, students do not learn as they do in the United States that the highest rewards go to the “best” individual in academics as well as athletics. One of the roles of schools in the United States is fostering self-esteem; conversely, schools in Japan focus on fostering social esteem—the honoring of the group over the individual.

In the United States, schools also fill the role of preparing students for competition in life. Obviously, athletics foster a competitive nature, but even in the classroom students compete against one another academically. Schools also fill the role of teaching patriotism. Students recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning and take history classes where they learn about national heroes and the nation’s past.

Functionalists also contend that school, particularly in recent years, is taking over some of the functions that were traditionally undertaken by family. Society relies on schools to teach about human sexuality as well as basic skills such as budgeting and job applications—topics that at one time were addressed by the family.

Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists do not believe that public schools reduce social inequality. Rather, they believe that the educational system reinforces and perpetuates social inequalities that arise from differences in class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Where functionalists see education as serving a beneficial role, conflict theorists view it more negatively. To them, educational systems preserve the status quo and push people of lower status into obedience.

The fulfillment of one’s education is closely linked to social class. Students of low socioeconomic status are generally not afforded the same opportunities as students of higher status, no matter how great their academic ability or desire to learn. Picture a student from a working-class home who wants to do well in school. On a Monday, he’s assigned a paper that’s due Friday. Monday evening, he has to babysit his younger sister while his divorced mother works. Tuesday and Wednesday, he works stocking shelves after school until 10:00 p.m. By Thursday, the only day he might have available to work on that assignment, he’s so exhausted he can’t bring himself to start the paper. His mother, though she’d like to help him, is so tired herself that she isn’t able to give him the encouragement or support he needs. And since English is her second language, she has difficulty with some of his educational materials. They also lack a computer and printer at home, which most of his classmates have, so they have to rely on the public library or school system for access to technology. As this story shows, many students from working-class families have to contend with helping out at home, contributing financially to the family, poor study environments and a lack of support from their families. This is a difficult match with education systems that adhere to a traditional curriculum that is more easily understood and completed by students of higher social classes.

Such a situation leads to social class reproduction, extensively studied by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He researched how cultural capital , or cultural knowledge that serves (metaphorically) as currency that helps us navigate a culture, alters the experiences and opportunities available to French students from different social classes. Members of the upper and middle classes have more cultural capital than do families of lower-class status. As a result, the educational system maintains a cycle in which the dominant culture’s values are rewarded. Instruction and tests cater to the dominant culture and leave others struggling to identify with values and competencies outside their social class. For example, there has been a great deal of discussion over what standardized tests such as the SAT truly measure. Many argue that the tests group students by cultural ability rather than by natural intelligence.

The cycle of rewarding those who possess cultural capital is found in formal educational curricula as well as in the hidden curriculum , which refers to the type of nonacademic knowledge that students learn through informal learning and cultural transmission. This hidden curriculum reinforces the positions of those with higher cultural capital and serves to bestow status unequally.

Conflict theorists point to tracking , a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuate inequalities. While educators may believe that students do better in tracked classes because they are with students of similar ability and may have access to more individual attention from teachers, conflict theorists feel that tracking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations (Education Week 2004).

To conflict theorists, schools play the role of training working-class students to accept and retain their position as lower members of society. They argue that this role is fulfilled through the disparity of resources available to students in richer and poorer neighborhoods as well as through testing (Lauen and Tyson 2008).

IQ tests have been attacked for being biased—for testing cultural knowledge rather than actual intelligence. For example, a test item may ask students what instruments belong in an orchestra. To correctly answer this question requires certain cultural knowledge—knowledge most often held by more affluent people who typically have more exposure to orchestral music. Though experts in testing claim that bias has been eliminated from tests, conflict theorists maintain that this is impossible. These tests, to conflict theorists, are another way in which education does not provide opportunities, but instead maintains an established configuration of power.

Feminist Theory

Feminist theory aims to understand the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality in education, as well as their societal repercussions. Like many other institutions of society, educational systems are characterized by unequal treatment and opportunity for women. Almost two-thirds of the world’s 862 million illiterate people are women, and the illiteracy rate among women is expected to increase in many regions, especially in several African and Asian countries (UNESCO 2005; World Bank 2007).

Women in the United States have been relatively late, historically speaking, to be granted entry to the public university system. In fact, it wasn’t until the establishment of Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972 that discriminating on the basis of sex in U.S. education programs became illegal. In the United States, there is also a post-education gender disparity between what male and female college graduates earn. A study released in May 2011 showed that, among men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010, men out-earned women by an average of more than $5,000 each year. First-year job earnings for men averaged $33,150; for women the average was $28,000 (Godofsky, Zukin, and van Horn 2011). Similar trends are seen among salaries of professionals in virtually all industries.

When women face limited opportunities for education, their capacity to achieve equal rights, including financial independence, are limited. Feminist theory seeks to promote women’s rights to equal education (and its resultant benefits) across the world.

Sociology in the Real World

Grade inflation: when is an a really a c.

In 2019, news emerged of a criminal conspiracy regarding wealthy and, in some cases, celebrity parents who illegally secured college admission for their children. Over 50 people were implicated in the scandal, including employees from prestigious universities; several people were sentenced to prison. Their activity included manipulating test scores, falsifying students’ academic or athletic credentials, and acquiring testing accommodations through dishonest claims of having a disability.

One of the questions that emerged at the time was how the students at the subject of these efforts could succeed at these challenging and elite colleges. Meaning, if they couldn’t get in without cheating, they probably wouldn’t do well. Wouldn’t their lack of preparation quickly become clear?

Many people would say no. First, many of the students involved (the children of the conspirators) had no knowledge or no involvement of the fraud; those students may have been admitted anyway. But there may be another safeguard for underprepared students at certain universities: grade inflation.

Grade inflation generally refers to a practice of awarding students higher grades than they have earned. It reflects the observation that the relationship between letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing over time. Put simply, what used to be considered C-level, or average, now often earns a student a B, or even an A.

Some, including administrators at elite universities, argue that grade inflation does not exist, or that there are other factors at play, or even that it has benefits such as increased funding and elimination of inequality (Boleslavsky 2014). But the evidence reveals a stark change. Based on data compiled from a wide array of four-year colleges and universities, a widely cited study revealed that 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).

Why is this happening? Some cite the alleged shift toward a culture that rewards effort instead of product, i.e., the amount of work a student puts in raises the grade, even if the resulting product is poor quality. Another oft-cited contributor is the pressure for instructors to earn positive course evaluations from their students. Finally, many colleges may accept a level of grade inflation because it works. Analysis and formal experiments involving graduate school admissions and hiring practices showed that 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). In other words, people with high GPA at a school with a higher average GPA are preferred over people who have a high GPA at a school with a lower average GPA.

Ironically, grade inflation is not simply a college issue. Many of the same college faculty and administrators who encounter or engage in some level of grade inflation may lament that it is also occurring at high schools (Murphy 2017).

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism sees education as one way that labeling theory is seen in action. A symbolic interactionist might say that this labeling has a direct correlation to those who are in power and those who are labeled. For example, low standardized test scores or poor performance in a particular class often lead to a student who is labeled as a low achiever. Such labels are difficult to “shake off,” which can create a self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton 1968).

In his book High School Confidential , Jeremy Iversen details his experience as a Stanford graduate posing as a student at a California high school. One of the problems he identifies in his research is that of teachers applying labels that students are never able to lose. One teacher told him, without knowing he was a bright graduate of a top university, that he would never amount to anything (Iversen 2006). Iversen obviously didn’t take this teacher’s false assessment to heart. But when an actual seventeen-year-old student hears this from a person with authority over her, it’s no wonder that the student might begin to “live down to” that label.

The labeling with which symbolic interactionists concern themselves extends to the very degrees that symbolize completion of education. Credentialism embodies the emphasis on certificates or degrees to show that a person has a certain skill, has attained a certain level of education, or has met certain job qualifications. These certificates or degrees serve as a symbol of what a person has achieved, and allows the labeling of that individual.

Indeed, as these examples show, labeling theory can significantly impact a student’s schooling. This is easily seen in the educational setting, as teachers and more powerful social groups within the school dole out labels that are adopted by the entire school population.

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Sociology of Education: Meaning, Scope, Importance, Perspectives

Synopsis : This article explores the discipline of Sociology of Education, a branch of the broader subject of Sociology, through its meaning, history of development, significance, differences with Educational Sociology, and scope. It also portrays how education can be examined using the three main theoretical perspectives in sociology.

What is Sociology of Education ?

To understand what Sociology of Education comprises, it is, first and foremost, imperative to define education from a sociological understanding. In sociology, education is held to be a social institution that serves the objective of socializing an individual from their very birth into the systems of society. Henslin (2017) defines education as “a formal system” which engages in imparting knowledge to individuals, instilling morals and beliefs (which are at par with those of the culture and society), and providing formal training for skill development. In non-industrial, simple societies, the specific institution of education did not exist in society.

For quite a long period after it was established as a formal means of knowledge development, education was available only to those privileged enough to afford it. Requirements under industrialization to have literate workers for some jobs reshaped the structure of the education system to a great extent. Even in today’s world, the education system varies from one country to another due to various factors, ranging from cultural values to the availability of proper resources.

Sociology of Education is the discipline or field of study which deals with the institution of education, and all the other factors related to it, in society. Sociology of education is also defined as the academic discipline which “examines the ways in which individuals’ experiences affect their educational achievement and outcomes” (Williams, 2011). Scott (2014) states that the subject is “mostly concerned with schooling, and especially the mass schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.”

In simple words, the discipline studies education as a social institution, and examines its functions, roles, and other behaviors within the broader social context, as well as how it influences individuals and is influenced reciprocally by them. It highlights the significance of education within the different cultures and other social groups, as well as assesses factors (such as economic, political, etc.) associated with the individuals which might affect their access to education. Some themes discussed within the field are modules or curriculum, testing methods (such as standardized testing), etc.

Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Lancelot Hogben, Talcott Parsons , Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman, John Wilfred Meyer, etc., are some scholars associated with the Sociology of Education. The discipline was made popular in India by scholars such as Madhav Sadashiv Gore, Akshay Ramanlal Desai, Yogendra Singh, and Shyama Charan Dube, among others (Pathania, 2013).

Historical Background:

French sociologist Emile Durkheim was the person who helped establish Sociology as a formal educational discipline. Durkheim also became the first professor of sociology, the first individual to pursue a sociological understanding of the functioning of societies, and the foremost person to initiate a discussion on the sociology of education (Boronski & Hassan, 2020). He identified that the base of organic solidarity is moral education, in which self-discipline and keeping one’s desires in check are the essential principles of moral development.

However, even before sociology emerged as a formal academic discipline or pursued interest in the West, Arab philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun has been designated the position of being one of the pioneer thinkers in Sociology, and in the sociology of education in particular. Khaldun understood education as a tool of significance, the advancement of which is crucial to the growth and development of society and economy (Boronski & Hassan, 2020).

With the advent of the Fabian Society, which was originally established in 1884, during the middle of the twentieth century, sociology of education began in its early stage in Britain.

Boronski & Hassan (2020) describe the Fabian society and its activities as the “political foundation” of the sociology of education in Britain. The methodology followed during this time was ‘political arithmetic’: examining the capability of education to result in a society that was more supportive of and characterized by democracy, and its related principles.

The intellectual roots of sociology of education in Britain lie in the influence of structural functionalism, strongly visible in both Britain and America. The British sociology of education saw a drastic shift to a more critical view of education during the 1970s and 1980s. This was termed as “New Sociology of Education (NSOE)”, which consisted of not one, but several different approaches to education, all of which, however, had a similar base: the system or institution of education was considered as fundamentally adverse to those belonging from the working class (Boronski & Hassan, 2020).

The feminist perspective of sociology grew apace in the education scenario, providing a bolder and enhanced voice to the agenda of the women’s movement, and literature on the same, such as those of Dale Spencer and Judy Samuel, also expanded. Today, the field of Sociology itself, and in particular, the sub-field of Sociology of Education faces a continuous and increasing demand to make the discipline more embracive by facilitating and encouraging the incorporation of involvement of the global South.

Theoretical Perspectives on Education :

The social institution of education can be examined using the three main theoretical perspectives in Sociology:

Structural Functionalism : This perspective views education as a crucial and integral institution that provides several benefits to society (Henslin, 2017). The first manifest function of education is providing a source of knowledge and teaching essential aptitude, required both for social survival and economic necessities. Standardized testing scores help employers discern and select the ‘good’ potential workers from the ‘bad’ wherever there is a lack of prior knowledge about each of them.

The second function is facilitating distribution or passing on of core cultural values, norms, beliefs, ideals, as well as patriotic feelings towards one’s country, and harmony towards fellow citizens. These are passed on from generation to generation to ensure that these values are kept intact.

“Social integration”, that is, feelings of solidarity towards other people due to sharing the same nationality as them, the inclusion of people with special needs, etc., is the third manifest function of education (Henslin, 2017). At the same time, it also serves the function of separating people into ‘appropriate’ groups based on differences in their characteristics (such as merit, skills, etc.).

Other functions vary from place to place and include providing childcare, providing nutrition (free midday meal systems), facilitating sex education and proper healthcare, diminishing the rate of unemployment, as well as ensuring security in society by keeping individuals in schools and away from corrupt activities (Henslin, 2017).

Symbolic Interactionism : This perspective focuses on the interaction taking place in schools–in classrooms, playgrounds, etc., between students and teachers, and among students themselves, and how these can affect the individuals involved in the interactions. Socialization into gender roles is a primary example of the influence of in-school interaction upon individuals. Teachers’ expectations, type of peer groups, etc., have an impact on the performance of students (higher the teacher’s expectations, the better the students will perform, and vice versa) (Henslin, 2017). Expectations of students oneself based on their life situations (such as financial conditions) also affect an individual’s educational performance.
Conflict Theory : This theoretical perspective is inherently skeptical and critical of the education system. According to conflict theorists, education serves the purpose of introducing, reiterating, and maintaining the class division which is present in society. They posit the presence of a “hidden curriculum” which instills values such as submission to power or authority, adherence to social or cultural rules (such as maintenance of racial discrimination, treating students from different social classes differently), etc. (Henslin, 2017).

Also Read: Maxist Perspective on Education

By implementing some latent and some visible rules, schools also promote the current social structures (such as capitalism: by encouraging competitive behavior and pitting students against one another based on test scores, social stratification: regions having lower-class students have poorly funded schools, etc.), thereby facilitating their existence rather than working towards their removal from society.

Other theoretical perspectives which have had a significant impact on how education, and the system around it, is analyzed are feminist approaches, which highlight the gender differences in education, with the third wave of feminism also incorporating race and class-based discriminations into the gender imbalance; and critical race theory which focuses on all matters concerning race (mainly the obstacles which people have to encounter due to race) in education (Robson, 2019).

Scope of Sociology of Education :

Sociology of Education covers a wide range of topics. Society and all other components within it, such as culture, class, race, gender, etc., the ongoing processes of socialization, acculturation, social organization, etc., and other factors such as status, roles, values, morals, etc., all fall under the inspection of this field of study (Satapathy, n.d.). Aligning the design of education according to geographical, ethnic, and linguistic necessities, and requirements of other population subgroups also falls under Sociology of Education. How economic background and situations, family structures and relations, friends, peer groups and teachers, and other more overarching social issues affect the personality, quality of education, and accessibility of opportunities to students is an integral point of consideration under Sociology of Education.

Significance of Studying Sociology of Education :

Dynamic nature of culture, the fact that culture varies from one place to another and sometimes even within the same region, and because education, culture, and society affect each other drastically, it is important to have an understanding of the relationship between these so that education can be used effectively as a tool for human advancement (Satapathy, n.d.). Sociology of Education helps in facilitating that.

Teachers are able to learn cultural differences, practice cultural relativism , understand how differences in culture translate into the educational sphere as well, and work towards providing individuals equitable opportunities for education through the Sociology of Education (Ogechi, 2011). They can also motivate the same knowledge among students. As a discipline, Sociology of Education instills cultural appreciation, respect, and admiration towards diversity, and more in-depth knowledge about different cultures and other social groups through the patterns in education within them.

Sociology of Education also provides greater knowledge about human behavior, clarity on how people organize themselves in society and helps unravel and simplify the complexities within human society (Ogechi, 2011). Because education, whether in the formal, institutionalized form or otherwise, is one of the few components in human society which more or less remains constant across cultures, it becomes an important tool to analyze and interpret human societies.

The discipline also enhances one’s understanding of the position education occupies in society, and the roles it plays in the lives of humans (Ogechi, 2011). At the same time, it helps develop knowledge about the benefits as well as the shortcomings of education and devise policies to make the institution more beneficial for society by facilitating an analytical examination.

Due to its focus on studying one of the most vital parts of human lives today, the academic field of Sociology of Education holds a position of great importance among the several branches and sub-branches of sociology. The discipline is constantly evolving, and undergoing improvement and changes as the society, and the values held by it change.

Differences between Educational Sociology and Sociology of Education :

Although the two are related, Sociology of Education is distinctly different from Educational Sociology in certain factors. Sociology of education is the process of scientifically investigating the institution of education within the society–how the society affects it, how education influences people in the society in return, and the problems which might occur as a result of the interaction between the two (Chathu, 2017). Educational Sociology also deals with these, but where Sociology of Education is a more theory-based study, Educational Sociology focuses on applying principles in sociology to the entire system of education and how it operates within the society. In other words, Sociology of Education studies the practices within the social institution of education using sociological concepts, while Educational Sociology engages in the practical application of understandings developed through sociological research into education (Bhat, 2016).

In the same context, Sociology of Education views education as a part of the larger society, and hence the institution is analyzed both as a separate unit, as well as by considering it alongside other factors in society (Bhat, 2016). Therefore, the discipline tries to form a relationship between education and other facets of society and seeks to understand how education affects these different components of the society, and vice versa (for example, how education ingrains gender roles, as well as how pre-existing gender roles affect the quality, quantity, availability, and access to education). Educational Sociology, on the other hand, aims to provide solutions to the problems which occur in education (Bhat, 2016). In doing so, the discipline views education as a separate entity within society.

Sociology of Education tends to strive towards developing an understanding of how the education system affects individuals, and what outcomes are visible in people as a result of education (Chathu, 2017). Educational Sociology, on the other hand, strives to find ways of improving the institution and system of education so that its potentials can be more advantageously harnessed for the greater interest of all in the future.

Bhat, M. S. (2016). EDU-C-Sociological foundations of education-I . https://www.cukashmir.ac.in/departmentdocs_16/Education%20&%20Sociology%20-%20Dr.%20Mohd%20Sayid%20Bhat.pdf

Boronski, T., & Hassan, N. (2020). Sociology of education (2nd ed.). Editorial: Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington Dc, Melbourne Sage.

Chathu. (2017, January 30). Difference between educational sociology and sociology of education | definition, features, characteristics . Pediaa.com. https://pediaa.com/difference-between-educational

Ogechi, R. (2011). QUESTION: Discuss the importance of sociology of education to both teachers and students. Academia . https://www.academia.edu/37732576/QUESTION_Discuss_the_importance_

Pathania, G. J. (2013). Sociology of Education. Economic and Political Weekly , 48 (50), 29–31. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24479041

Robson, K. L. (2019). Theories in the sociology of education. In Sociology of Education in Canada . Pressbooks. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/robsonsoced/chapter/__unknown__-2/

Satapathy, S. S. (n.d.). Sociology of education . https://ddceutkal.ac.in/Syllabus/MA_SOCIOLOGY/Paper-16.pdf

Scott, J. (2014). A dictionary of sociology (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Williams, S. M. (2011). Sociology of education. Education . https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0065

Soumili is currently pursuing her studies in Social Sciences at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, focusing on core subjects such as Sociology, Psychology, and Economics. She possesses a deep passion for exploring various cultures, traditions, and languages, demonstrating a particular fascination with scholarship related to intersectional feminism and environmentalism, gender and sexuality, as well as clinical psychology and counseling. In addition to her academic pursuits, her interests extend to reading, fine arts, and engaging in volunteer work.

Module 12: Education

Functionalist theory on education, learning outcomes.

Describe the functionalist view on education, including the manifest and latent functions of education

Functionalism

Manifest functions.

There are several major manifest functions associated with education. The first is socialization. Beginning in preschool and kindergarten, students are taught to practice various societal roles that extend beyond the school setting. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who is regarded as one of the founders of the academic discipline of sociology, characterized schools as “socialization agencies that teach children how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic roles” (Durkheim 1898). Indeed, it seems that schools have taken on this responsibility in full.

School systems in the United States also transmit the core values of the nation through manifest functions like social control. One of the roles of schools is to teach students conformity to law and respect for authority. Obviously, such respect, given to teachers and administrators, will help a student navigate the school environment. By organizing schools as bureaucracies, much like what is found in the labor market and in other social institutions, schools teach children what is commonly referred to as “the hidden curriculum.” We will expand on this in the following section on conflict theory. This function also prepares students to enter the workplace and the world at large, where they will continue to be subject to people who have authority over them. Fulfillment of this function rests primarily with classroom teachers and instructors who are with students all day.

Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility through allowing individuals of all social backgrounds to gain credentials that will broaden their prospects in the future. This function is referred to as social placement . Colleges and graduate schools are viewed as vehicles for moving students closer to the careers that will give them the financial freedom and security they seek. As a result, college students are often more motivated to study areas that they believe will be advantageous on the socio-economic ladder. A student might value business courses over a class in Victorian poetry because she sees business coursework as a stronger vehicle for financial success and for higher placement within the social hierarchy.

Latent Functions

Education also fulfills latent functions. As you well know, much goes on in a school that has little to do with formal, programmatic education. For example, you might notice an attractive fellow student when they give a particularly interesting answer in class—catching up with them and making a date speaks to the latent function of courtship fulfilled by exposure to a peer group in the educational setting.

The educational setting introduces students to social networks that might last for years and can help people find jobs after their schooling is complete. Of course, with the increase in social media platform use such as Facebook and LinkedIn, these networks established in school environments are easier than ever to maintain. Another latent function is the ability to work with others in small groups, a skill that is transferable to a workplace and that might not be learned in a homeschool setting.

A young boy is shown from behind saluting the American flag.

Figure 1. Starting each day with the Pledge of Allegiance is one way in which students are taught patriotism. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Turner/flickr)

Functionalists recognize other ways that schools educate and enculturate students. One of the most characteristic American values students in United States schools learn is that of individualism—the valuing of the individual over the value of groups or society as a whole. In countries such as Japan and China, where the good of the group is valued over the rights of the individual, students do not learn as they do in the United States that the highest rewards go to the “best” individual in academics or athletics. One of the roles of schools in the United States is fostering self-esteem; conversely, schools in Japan focus on fostering social esteem—the honoring of the group over the individual. As such, schools in the U.S. and around the world are teaching their students about larger national ideals and fostering institutions that are conducive to the cultural imprinting of those ideas.

In the United States, schools also fill the role of preparing students for competition in life. Obviously, athletics foster a competitive ethos, but even in the classroom students compete against one another academically. Schools also aid in teaching patriotism. Students recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning and take history classes where they learn about national heroes and the nation’s past. The practice of saying the Pledge of Allegiance has become controversial in recent years, with individuals arguing that requiring or even expecting children to pledge allegiance is unconstitutional and as such may face legal challenges to its validity. [1] [/footnote]

Another role of schools, according to functionalist theory, is that of sorting , or classifying students based on academic merit or potential. The most capable students are identified early in schools through testing and classroom achievements. Such students are placed in accelerated programs in anticipation of successful college attendance, a practice that is referred to as tracking, and which has also generated substantial opposition, both in the United States and abroad. This will be further discussed as it pertains to conflict theory, but a majority of sociologists are against tracking in schools because research has found that the positive effects of tracking do not justify the negative ones. Functionalists further contend that school, particularly in recent years, is taking over some of the functions that were traditionally undertaken by family. Society relies on schools to teach their charges about human sexuality as well as basic skills such as budgeting and filling out job applications—topics that at one time were addressed within the family.

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[footnote]Bomboy, Scott (June 2018). "The history of legal challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance". Constitution Daily. Retrieved from https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-latest-controversy-about-under-god-in-the-pledge-of-allegiance . ↵
Theoretical Perspectives on Education. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:Q7ShLma2@8/16-2-Theoretical-Perspectives-on-Education . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]

11.2 Sociological Perspectives on Education

Learning objectives.

List the major functions of education.
Explain the problems that conflict theory sees in education.
Describe how symbolic interactionism understands education.

The major sociological perspectives on education fall nicely into the functional, conflict, and symbolic interactionist approaches (Ballantine & Hammack, 2012). Ballantine, J. H., & Hammack, F. M. (2012). The sociology of education: A systematic analysis (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Table 11.1 "Theory Snapshot" summarizes what these approaches say.

Table 11.1 Theory Snapshot

The Functions of Education

A third function of education is social placement . Beginning in grade school, students are identified by teachers and other school officials either as bright and motivated or as less bright and even educationally challenged. Depending on how they are identified, children are taught at the level that is thought to suit them best. In this way, they are presumably prepared for their later station in life. Whether this process works as well as it should is an important issue, and we explore it further when we discuss school tracking later in this chapter.

Figure 11.6 The Functions of Education

Schools ideally perform many important functions in modern society. These include socialization, social integration, social placement, and social and cultural innovation.

Education also involves several latent functions, functions that are by-products of going to school and receiving an education rather than a direct effect of the education itself. One of these is child care : Once a child starts kindergarten and then first grade, for several hours a day the child is taken care of for free. The establishment of peer relationships is another latent function of schooling. Most of us met many of our friends while we were in school at whatever grade level, and some of those friendships endure the rest of our lives. A final latent function of education is that it keeps millions of high school students out of the full-time labor force . This fact keeps the unemployment rate lower than it would be if they were in the labor force.

Because education serves so many manifest and latent functions for society, problems in schooling ultimately harm society. For education to serve its many functions, various kinds of reforms are needed to make our schools and the process of education as effective as possible.

Education and Inequality

Conflict theory does not dispute the functions just described. However, it does give some of them a different slant by emphasizing how education also perpetuates social inequality (Ballantine & Hammack, 2012). Ballantine, J. H., & Hammack, F. M. (2012). The sociology of education: A systematic analysis (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. One example of this process involves the function of social placement. When most schools begin tracking their students in grade school, the students thought by their teachers to be bright are placed in the faster tracks (especially in reading and arithmetic), while the slower students are placed in the slower tracks; in high school, three common tracks are the college track, vocational track, and general track.

Such tracking does have its advantages; it helps ensure that bright students learn as much as their abilities allow them, and it helps ensure that slower students are not taught over their heads. But conflict theorists say that tracking also helps perpetuate social inequality by locking students into faster and lower tracks. Worse yet, several studies show that students’ social class and race and ethnicity affect the track into which they are placed, even though their intellectual abilities and potential should be the only things that matter: White, middle-class students are more likely to be tracked “up,” while poorer students and students of color are more likely to be tracked “down.” Once they are tracked, students learn more if they are tracked up and less if they are tracked down. The latter tend to lose self-esteem and begin to think they have little academic ability and thus do worse in school because they were tracked down. In this way, tracking is thought to be good for those tracked up and bad for those tracked down. Conflict theorists thus say that tracking perpetuates social inequality based on social class and race and ethnicity (Ansalone, 2010). Ansalone, G. (2010). Tracking: Educational differentiation or defective strategy. Educational Research Quarterly, 34 (2), 3–17.

Conflict theorists add that standardized tests are culturally biased and thus also help perpetuate social inequality (Grodsky, Warren, & Felts, 2008). Grodsky, E., Warren, J. R., & Felts, E. (2008). Testing and social stratification in American education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34 (1), 385–404. According to this criticism, these tests favor white, middle-class students whose socioeconomic status and other aspects of their backgrounds have afforded them various experiences that help them answer questions on the tests.

A third critique of conflict theory involves the quality of schools. As we will see later in this chapter, US schools differ mightily in their resources, learning conditions, and other aspects, all of which affect how much students can learn in them. Simply put, schools are unequal, and their very inequality helps perpetuate inequality in the larger society. Children going to the worst schools in urban areas face many more obstacles to their learning than those going to well-funded schools in suburban areas. Their lack of learning helps ensure they remain trapped in poverty and its related problems.

In a fourth critique, conflict theorists say that schooling teaches a hidden curriculum A set of values and beliefs learned in school that support the status quo, including the existing social hierarchy. , by which they mean a set of values and beliefs that support the status quo, including the existing social hierarchy (Booher-Jennings, 2008). Booher-Jennings, J. (2008). Learning to label: Socialisation, gender, and the hidden curriculum of high-stakes testing. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29 , 149–160. Although no one plots this behind closed doors, our schoolchildren learn patriotic values and respect for authority from the books they read and from various classroom activities.

A final critique is historical and concerns the rise of free, compulsory education during the nineteenth century (Cole, 2008). Cole, M. (2008). Marxism and educational theory: Origins and issues. New York, NY: Routledge. Because compulsory schooling began in part to prevent immigrants’ values from corrupting “American” values, conflict theorists see its origins as smacking of ethnocentrism (the belief that one’s own group is superior to another group). They also criticize its intention to teach workers the skills they needed for the new industrial economy. Because most workers were very poor in this economy, these critics say, compulsory education served the interests of the upper/capitalist class much more than it served the interests of workers.

Symbolic Interactionism and School Behavior

Symbolic interactionist studies of education examine social interaction in the classroom, on the playground, and in other school venues. These studies help us understand what happens in the schools themselves, but they also help us understand how what occurs in school is relevant for the larger society. Some studies, for example, show how children’s playground activities reinforce gender-role socialization. Girls tend to play more cooperative games, while boys play more competitive sports (Thorne, 1993) Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (see Chapter 4 "Gender Inequality" ).

Applying Social Research

Assessing the Impact of Small Class Size

Do elementary school students fare better if their classes have fewer students rather than more students? It is not easy to answer this important question, because any differences found between students in small classes and those in larger classes might not necessarily reflect class size. Rather, they may reflect other factors. For example, perhaps the most motivated, educated parents ask that their child be placed in a smaller class and that their school goes along with this request. Perhaps teachers with more experience favor smaller classes and are able to have their principals assign them to these classes, while new teachers are assigned larger classes. These and other possibilities mean that any differences found between the two class sizes might reflect the qualities and skills of students and/or teachers in these classes, and not class size itself.

For this reason, the ideal study of class size would involve random assignment of both students and teachers to classes of different size. (Recall that Chapter 1 "Understanding Social Problems" discusses the benefits of random assignment.) Fortunately, a notable study of this type exists.

The study, named Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio), began in Tennessee in 1985 and involved 79 public schools and 11,600 students and 1,330 teachers who were all randomly assigned to either a smaller class (13–17 students) or a larger class (22–25 students). The random assignment began when the students entered kindergarten and lasted through third grade; in fourth grade, the experiment ended, and all the students were placed into the larger class size. The students are now in their early thirties, and many aspects of their educational and personal lives have been followed since the study began.

Some of the more notable findings of this multiyear study include the following:

While in grades K–3, students in the smaller classes had higher average scores on standardized tests.
Students who had been in the smaller classes continued to have higher average test scores in grades 4–7.
Students who had been in the smaller classes were more likely to complete high school and also to attend college.
Students who had been in the smaller classes were less likely to be arrested during adolescence.
Students who had been in the smaller classes were more likely in their twenties to be married and to live in wealthier neighborhoods.
White girls who had been in the smaller classes were less likely to have a teenage birth than white girls who had been in the larger classes.

Why did small class size have these benefits? Two reasons seem likely. First, in a smaller class, there are fewer students to disrupt the class by talking, fighting, or otherwise taking up the teacher’s time. More learning can thus occur in smaller classes. Second, kindergarten teachers are better able to teach noncognitive skills (cooperating, listening, sitting still) in smaller classes, and these skills can have an impact many years later.

Regardless of the reasons, it was the experimental design of Project STAR that enabled its findings to be attributed to class size rather than to other factors. Because small class size does seem to help in many ways, the United States should try to reduce class size in order to improve student performance and later life outcomes.

Sources: Chetty et al., 2011; Schanzenbach, 2006 Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Hilger, N., Saez, E., Schanzenbach, D. W., & Yagan, D. (2011). How does your kindergarten classroom affect your earnings? Evidence from Project STAR. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126 , 1593–1660; Schanzenbach, D. W. (2006). What have researchers learned from Project STAR? (Harris School Working Paper—Series 06.06).

Another body of research shows that teachers’ views about students can affect how much the students learn. When teachers think students are smart, they tend to spend more time with these students, to call on them, and to praise them when they give the right answer. Not surprisingly, these students learn more because of their teachers’ behavior. But when teachers think students are less bright, they tend to spend less time with these students and to act in a way that leads them to learn less. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom . New York, NY: Holt. conducted a classic study of this phenomenon. They tested a group of students at the beginning of the school year and told their teachers which students were bright and which were not. They then tested the students again at the end of the school year. Not surprisingly, the bright students had learned more during the year than the less bright ones. But it turned out that the researchers had randomly decided which students would be designated bright and less bright. Because the “bright” students learned more during the school year without actually being brighter at the beginning, their teachers’ behavior must have been the reason. In fact, their teachers did spend more time with them and praised them more often than was true for the “less bright” students. This process helps us understand why tracking is bad for the students tracked down.

Other research in the symbolic interactionist tradition focuses on how teachers treat girls and boys. Many studies find that teachers call on and praise boys more often (Jones & Dindia, 2004). Jones, S. M., & Dindia, K. (2004). A meta-analystic perspective on sex equity in the classroom. Review of Educational Research, 74 , 443–471. Teachers do not do this consciously, but their behavior nonetheless sends an implicit message to girls that math and science are not for them and that they are not suited to do well in these subjects. This body of research has stimulated efforts to educate teachers about the ways in which they may unwittingly send these messages and about strategies they could use to promote greater interest and achievement by girls in math and science (Battey, Kafai, Nixon, & Kao, 2007). Battey, D., Kafai, Y., Nixon, A. S., & Kao, L. L. (2007). Professional development for teachers on gender equity in the sciences: Initiating the conversation. Teachers College Record, 109 (1), 221–243.

Key Takeaways

According to the functional perspective, education helps socialize children and prepare them for their eventual entrance into the larger society as adults.
The conflict perspective emphasizes that education reinforces inequality in the larger society.
The symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on social interaction in the classroom, on school playgrounds, and at other school-related venues. Social interaction contributes to gender-role socialization, and teachers’ expectations may affect their students’ performance.

For Your Review

Review how the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives understand and explain education. Which of these three approaches do you most prefer? Why?

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Sociology of Education

Introduction, general overviews.

US Supreme Court Cases
Cultural Capital and Schooling
Race and Ethnicity in Schools
Social Class, Status Attainment, and Schooling
Gender and Schooling
Social Organization of Schools
Explanations of the Black-White Test Score Gap
Assessments, Accountability, and Standards
School Choice

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Gender, Power, and Politics in the Academy
Girls' Education in the Developing World
Non-Formal & Informal Environmental Education
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Sociology of Education by Sheneka M. Williams LAST REVIEWED: 19 August 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 15 December 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0065

The sociology of education refers to how individuals’ experiences shape the way they interact with schooling. More specifically, the sociology of education examines the ways in which individuals’ experiences affect their educational achievement and outcomes. Scholars and professionals who are interested in the interaction of education and society typically participate in this field. This field also includes education policy issues that arise from the social context of schools. The citations included in this bibliography guide users to works that primarily pertain to the structure of schooling. Certain citations have been included because of their significance to the discipline, in particular, and their influence on the overall field of education, in general.

The general works provided in this bibliography cover a range of topics in the sociology of education field. Arum, et al. 2011 , a composite of articles relating to the contemporary study of the sociology of education, provides a foundational basis for many articles contained in this work. These readings extend from theoretical viewpoints, such as status attainment and social mobility, to more racialized analyses that relate to the achievement gap and desegregation. To further gain insights on the theoretical underpinnings and beginnings of the sociology of education, readers should consult Becker 1975 , Bourdieu and Passeron 1974 , Coleman 1966 , and Schultz 1961 . More contemporary works, such as Coleman 1988 and Putnam 1995 , are included below. Alternative frameworks such as Durkheim 1956 and Bowles and Gintis 1976 also provide a basis for understanding the sociology of education. These works, published by economists as well as sociologists, provide a foundational basis for understanding the evolution of the sociology of education. Even today, the sociology of education field is influenced by economists and political scientists, as well as sociologists.

Arum, Richard, Irenee Beattie, and Karly Ford. 2011. The structure of schooling: Readings in the sociology of education . 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.

A collection of readings that explore traditional and contemporary sociological issues in education, as well as the myriad theoretical perspectives on studying schools and their impact on social development.

Becker, Gary S. 1975. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

A seminal book that posits that education is a form of human capital that gives rise to better life opportunities.

Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1974. Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. Paper presented at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association, Univ. of Durham, 7–10 April 1970. In Knowledge, education and social change: Papers in the sociology of education . Edited by Richard Brown. Tavistock, UK: Tavistock.

The authors’ main focus was the structural reproduction of disadvantages and inequalities that are caused by cultural reproduction. According to the authors, inequalities are recycled through the education system and other social institutions.

Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life . New York: Basic Books.

A groundbreaking work in the sociology of education, the Marxist economists argue that schools reproduce existing inequalities which are also represented in the American workforce.

Coleman, James S. 1966. Equality of educational opportunity . Washington, DC: US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education.

Seminal report that fueled debates on school effects and student achievement. The report found that funding has little effect on student achievement, whereas student background and socioeconomic status are much more important in determining academic outcomes for students.

Coleman, James S. 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94:S95–S120.

Argues that the concept of social capital is an avenue to infuse social structure as a “resource for action.” The author looks at three forms of social capital in the creation of human capital.

Durkheim, Émile. 1956. Education and sociology . New York: Free Press.

This seminal work merges education and sociology into one distinct discipline: sociology of education. For Durkheim, the key function of the education system was to socialize and integrate individuals into larger society.

Putnam, Robert D. 1995. Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy 6.1: 65–78.

DOI: 10.1353/jod.1995.0002

Discusses the decline in civic engagement and political involvement in America. The author argues that such decline in social capital began in 1950.

Schultz, Theodore W. 1961. Investment in human capital. American Economic Review 51.1: 1–17.

Introduces the theory of human capital and makes a direct link between an increase in investment in human capital and the overall increase in workers’ earnings.

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Blended Learning
Case Study in Education Research
Changing Professional and Academic Identities
Character Education
Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Children's Beliefs about Intelligence
Children's Rights in Early Childhood Education
Citizenship Education
Civic and Social Engagement of Higher Education
Classroom Learning Environments: Assessing and Investigati...
Classroom Management
Coherent Instructional Systems at the School and School Sy...
College Admissions in the United States
College Athletics in the United States
Community Relations
Comparative Education
Computer-Assisted Language Learning
Computer-Based Testing
Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Net...
Continuous Improvement and "High Leverage" Educational Pro...
Counseling in Schools
Critical Approaches to Gender in Higher Education
Critical Perspectives on Educational Innovation and Improv...
Critical Race Theory
Crossborder and Transnational Higher Education
Cross-National Research on Continuous Improvement
Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improveme...
Cultural Diversity in Early Childhood Education
Culturally Responsive Leadership
Culturally Responsive Pedagogies
Culturally Responsive Teacher Education in the United Stat...
Curriculum Design
Data Collection in Educational Research
Data-driven Decision Making in the United States
Deaf Education
Design Thinking and the Learning Sciences: Theoretical, Pr...
Development, Moral
Dialogic Pedagogy
Digital Age Teacher, The
Digital Citizenship
Digital Divides
Disabilities
Distance Learning
Distributed Leadership
Doctoral Education and Training
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark
Early Childhood Education and Development in Mexico
Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand
Early Childhood Education in Australia
Early Childhood Education in China
Early Childhood Education in Europe
Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
Early Childhood Education in Sweden
Early Childhood Education Pedagogy
Early Childhood Education Policy
Early Childhood Education, The Arts in
Early Childhood Mathematics
Early Childhood Science
Early Childhood Teacher Education
Early Childhood Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand
Early Years Professionalism and Professionalization Polici...
Economics of Education
Education For Children with Autism
Education for Sustainable Development
Education Leadership, Empirical Perspectives in
Education of Native Hawaiian Students
Education Reform and School Change
Educational Statistics for Longitudinal Research
Educator Partnerships with Parents and Families with a Foc...
Emotional and Affective Issues in Environmental and Sustai...
Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
Environmental and Science Education: Overlaps and Issues
Environmental Education
Environmental Education in Brazil
Epistemic Beliefs
Equity and Improvement: Engaging Communities in Educationa...
Equity, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Excellence in Education
Ethical Research with Young Children
Ethics and Education
Ethics of Teaching
Ethnic Studies
Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention
Family and Community Partnerships in Education
Family Day Care
Federal Government Programs and Issues
Feminization of Labor in Academia
Finance, Education
Financial Aid
Formative Assessment
Future-Focused Education
Gender and Achievement
Gender and Alternative Education
Gender-Based Violence on University Campuses
Global Mindedness and Global Citizenship Education
Global University Rankings
Governance, Education
Grounded Theory
Growth of Effective Mental Health Services in Schools in t...
Higher Education and Globalization
Higher Education and the Developing World
Higher Education Faculty Characteristics and Trends in the...
Higher Education Finance
Higher Education Governance
Higher Education Graduate Outcomes and Destinations
Higher Education in Africa
Higher Education in China
Higher Education in Latin America
Higher Education in the United States, Historical Evolutio...
Higher Education, International Issues in
Higher Education Management
Higher Education Policy
Higher Education Research
Higher Education Student Assessment
High-stakes Testing
History of Early Childhood Education in the United States
History of Education in the United States
History of Technology Integration in Education
Homeschooling
Inclusion in Early Childhood: Difference, Disability, and ...
Indigenous Education in a Global Context
Indigenous Learning Environments
Indigenous Students in Higher Education in the United Stat...
Infant and Toddler Pedagogy
Inservice Teacher Education
Integrating Art across the Curriculum
Intelligence
Intensive Interventions for Children and Adolescents with ...
International Perspectives on Academic Freedom
Intersectionality and Education
Knowledge Development in Early Childhood
Leadership Development, Coaching and Feedback for
Leadership in Early Childhood Education
Leadership Training with an Emphasis on the United States
Learning Analytics in Higher Education
Learning Difficulties
Learning, Lifelong
Learning, Multimedia
Learning Strategies
Legal Matters and Education Law
LGBT Youth in Schools
Linguistic Diversity
Linguistically Inclusive Pedagogy
Literacy Development and Language Acquisition
Literature Reviews
Mathematics Identity
Mathematics Instruction and Interventions for Students wit...
Mathematics Teacher Education
Measurement for Improvement in Education
Measurement in Education in the United States
Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis in Education
Methodological Approaches for Impact Evaluation in Educati...
Methodologies for Conducting Education Research
Mindfulness, Learning, and Education
Mixed Methods Research
Motherscholars
Multiliteracies in Early Childhood Education
Multiple Documents Literacy: Theory, Research, and Applica...
Multivariate Research Methodology
Museums, Education, and Curriculum
Music Education
Narrative Research in Education
Native American Studies
Note-Taking
Numeracy Education
One-to-One Technology in the K-12 Classroom
Online Education
Open Education
Organizing for Continuous Improvement in Education
Organizing Schools for the Inclusion of Students with Disa...
Outdoor Play and Learning
Outdoor Play and Learning in Early Childhood Education
Pedagogical Leadership
Pedagogy of Teacher Education, A
Performance Objectives and Measurement
Performance-based Research Assessment in Higher Education
Performance-based Research Funding
Phenomenology in Educational Research
Philosophy of Education
Physical Education
Podcasts in Education
Policy Context of United States Educational Innovation and...
Politics of Education
Portable Technology Use in Special Education Programs and ...
Post-humanism and Environmental Education
Pre-Service Teacher Education
Problem Solving
Productivity and Higher Education
Professional Development
Professional Learning Communities
Program Evaluation
Programs and Services for Students with Emotional or Behav...
Psychology Learning and Teaching
Psychometric Issues in the Assessment of English Language ...
Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques
Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Research Samp...
Qualitative Research Design
Quantitative Research Designs in Educational Research
Queering the English Language Arts (ELA) Writing Classroom
Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education
Reading Education
Refugee and New Immigrant Learners
Relational and Developmental Trauma and Schools
Relational Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education
Reliability in Educational Assessments
Religion in Elementary and Secondary Education in the Unit...
Researcher Development and Skills Training within the Cont...
Research-Practice Partnerships in Education within the Uni...
Response to Intervention
Restorative Practices
Risky Play in Early Childhood Education
Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Impro...
Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
School Accreditation
School Culture
School District Budgeting and Financial Management in the ...
School Improvement through Inclusive Education
School Reform
Schools, Private and Independent
School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
Science Education
Secondary to Postsecondary Transition Issues
Self-Regulated Learning
Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
Service-Learning
Severe Disabilities
Single Salary Schedule
Single-sex Education
Single-Subject Research Design
Social Context of Education
Social Network Analysis
Social Pedagogy
Social Science and Education Research
Social Studies Education
Sociology of Education
Standards-Based Education
Statistical Assumptions
Student Access, Equity, and Diversity in Higher Education
Student Assignment Policy
Student Engagement in Tertiary Education
Student Learning, Development, Engagement, and Motivation ...
Student Participation
Student Voice in Teacher Development
Sustainability Education in Early Childhood Education
Sustainability in Early Childhood Education
Sustainability in Higher Education
Teacher Beliefs and Epistemologies
Teacher Collaboration in School Improvement
Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness
Teacher Preparation
Teacher Training and Development
Teacher Unions and Associations
Teacher-Student Relationships
Teaching Critical Thinking
Technologies, Teaching, and Learning in Higher Education
Technology Education in Early Childhood
Technology, Educational
Technology-based Assessment
The Bologna Process
The Regulation of Standards in Higher Education
Theories of Educational Leadership
Three Conceptions of Literacy: Media, Narrative, and Gamin...
Tracking and Detracking
Traditions of Quality Improvement in Education
Transformative Learning
Transitions in Early Childhood Education
Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities in the Unite...
Understanding the Psycho-Social Dimensions of Schools and ...
University Faculty Roles and Responsibilities in the Unite...
Using Ethnography in Educational Research
Value of Higher Education for Students and Other Stakehold...
Virtual Learning Environments
Vocational and Technical Education
Wellness and Well-Being in Education
Women's and Gender Studies
Young Children and Spirituality
Young Children's Learning Dispositions
Young Children's Working Theories
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71 Theoretical Perspectives on Education

Learning objectives.

Define manifest and latent functions of education
Explain and discuss how functionalism, conflict theory, feminism, and interactionism view issues of education

Functionalism

Manifest Functions

School systems in the United States also transmit the core values of the nation through manifest functions like social control. One of the roles of schools is to teach students conformity to law and respect for authority. Obviously, such respect, given to teachers and administrators, will help a student navigate the school environment. This function also prepares students to enter the workplace and the world at large, where they will continue to be subject to people who have authority over them. Fulfillment of this function rests primarily with classroom teachers and instructors who are with students all day. <!– no-selfclose –>

Teacher and high school students in a classroom looking at the projection screen in the front of the classroom.

Latent Functions

A young boy is shown from behind saluting the American flag flying from a flagpole.

Conflict Theory

Boy kicking a soccer ball on a playground toward three other boys who are caged against a wall by a small metal goal post. The boys are crying or holding their ears.

Feminist Theory

Consider a large-city newspaper publisher. Ten years ago, when culling résumés for an entry-level copywriter, they were well assured that if they selected a grad with a GPA of 3.7 or higher, they’d have someone with the writing skills to contribute to the workplace on day one. But over the last few years, they’ve noticed that A-level students don’t have the competency evident in the past. More and more, they find themselves in the position of educating new hires in abilities that, in the past, had been mastered during their education.

This story illustrates a growing concern referred to as grade inflation —a term used to describe the observation that the correspondence between letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing (in a downward direction) over time. Put simply, what used to be considered C-level, or average, now often earns a student a B, or even an A.

Why is this happening? Research on this emerging issue is ongoing, so no one is quite sure yet. Some cite the alleged shift toward a culture that rewards effort instead of product, i.e., the amount of work a student puts in raises the grade, even if the resulting product is poor quality. Another oft-cited contributor is the pressure many of today’s instructors feel to earn positive course evaluations from their students—records that can tie into teacher compensation, award of tenure, or the future career of a young grad teaching entry-level courses. The fact that these reviews are commonly posted online exacerbates this pressure.

Other studies don’t agree that grade inflation exists at all. In any case, the issue is hotly debated, with many being called upon to conduct research to help us better understand and respond to this trend (National Public Radio 2004; Mansfield 2005).

Symbolic Interactionism

The major sociological theories offer insight into how we understand education. Functionalists view education as an important social institution that contributes both manifest and latent functions. Functionalists see education as serving the needs of society by preparing students for later roles, or functions, in society. Conflict theorists see schools as a means for perpetuating class, racial-ethnic, and gender inequalities. In the same vein, feminist theory focuses specifically on the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality in education. The theory of symbolic interactionism focuses on education as a means for labeling individuals.

Section Quiz

Which of the following is not a manifest function of education?

Cultural innovation
Social placement
Socialization

Because she plans on achieving success in marketing, Tammie is taking courses on managing social media. This is an example of ________.

cultural innovation
social control
social placement
socialization

Which theory of education focuses on the ways in which education maintains the status quo?

Conflict theory
Feminist theory
Functionalist theory
Symbolic interactionism

Which theory of education focuses on the labels acquired through the educational process?

What term describes the assignment of students to specific education programs and classes on the basis of test scores, previous grades, or perceived ability?

Hidden curriculum
Self-fulfilling prophecy

Functionalist theory sees education as serving the needs of _________.

the individual
all of the above

Rewarding students for meeting deadlines and respecting authority figures is an example of ________.

a latent function
a manifest function
informal education
transmission of moral education

What term describes the separation of students based on merit?

Cultural transmission
Social control

Conflict theorists see sorting as a way to ________.

challenge gifted students
perpetuate divisions of socioeconomic status
help students who need additional support
teach respect for authority

Conflict theorists see IQ tests as being biased. Why?

They are scored in a way that is subject to human error.
They do not give children with learning disabilities a fair chance to demonstrate their true intelligence.
They don’t involve enough test items to cover multiple intelligences.
They reward affluent students with questions that assume knowledge associated with upper-class culture.

Short Answer

Thinking of your school, what are some ways that a conflict theorist would say that your school perpetuates class differences?

Which sociological theory best describes your view of education? Explain why.

Based on what you know about symbolic interactionism and feminist theory, what do you think proponents of those theories see as the role of the school?

Further Research

Can tracking actually improve learning? This 2009 article from Education Next explores the debate with evidence from Kenya. http://openstax.org/l/education_next

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) is committed to ending the bias and other flaws seen in standardized testing. Their mission is to ensure that students, teachers, and schools are evaluated fairly. You can learn more about their mission, as well as the latest in news on test bias and fairness, at their website: http://openstax.org/l/fair_test

Education Week. 2004. “Tracking.” Education Week , August 4. Retrieved February 24, 2012 ( http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/tracking/ ).

Godofsky, Jessica, Cliff Zukin, and Carl Van Horn. 2011. Unfulfilled Expectations: Recent College Graduates Struggle in a Troubled Economy . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University.

Iversen, Jeremy. 2006. High School Confidential . New York: Atria.

Lauen, Douglas Lee and Karolyn Tyson. 2008. “Perspectives from the Disciplines: Sociological Contribution to Education Policy Research and Debate.” AREA Handbook on Education Policy Research . Retrieved February 24, 2012.

National Public Radio. 2004. “Princeton Takes Steps to Fight ‘Grade Inflation.’” Day to Day , April 28.

Mansfield, Harvey C. 2001. “Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 47(30): B24.

Merton, Robert K. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure . New York: Free Press.

UNESCO. 2005. Towards Knowledge Societies: UNESCO World Report . Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

World Bank. 2007. World Development Report . Washington, DC: World Bank.

Introduction to Sociology 2e Copyright © 2012 by OSCRiceUniversity (Download for free at https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-sociology-2e) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

ReviseSociology

A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

mind map of sociology of education for A-level

Table of Contents

Last Updated on November 21, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Links to posts on the sociology of education for A Level Sociology, including perspectives on education (Functionalism, Marxism etc.), explanations for differential educational achievement (class, gender, ethnicity), in-school processes (labelling etc.) and the impact of social policies such as the 1988 Education Reform Act.

The first section of this page includes links to posts covering the main content for the different sub topics within the Education topic for A-level sociology, the structure of which is taken directly from the AQA’s specification. These posts are either medium form (like a text book section) or revision notes form, sometimes both!

The second section includes links to my assessment posts – either essay plans, 10 mark questions or general exam advice relevant here to the sociology of education.

mind map of the sociology of education for A-level sociology

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PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE LINKED PDF GRID VERSION OF THE EDUCATION SPECIFICATION:

Sociology A-level scheme of work AQA education

The Sociology of Education: An Introduction

An Overview of the Education System in England and Wales – an introduction to the different types of school in England and Wales, the primary, secondary and ‘tertiary’ stages of education and the main compulsory national exams which make up the ‘education system’ .

Education and Schools in the United Kingdom – Key Statistics – a look at of some of the most basic statistics on the UK education system, including the number of schools, school types, pupils and teachers, along with some comments on the validity of such statistics.

Education with Theory and Methods – A Level Sociology Paper 1 – an overview of the first of the three exam papers within A level sociology (AQA focus)

Education Key Concepts – brief definitions of key concepts relevant to the A-level sociology of education module.

The role and functions of education

This really means ‘the perspectives’ on education – mainly Functionalism, Marxism, and the The New Right, but it might also be useful to know about Feminism and Postmodernism, especially for evaluation purposes.

Many of the perspectives discuss education in relation to work and the economy, ‘role allocation’ in Functionalism is about this for example’, and the link to class structure is hopefully obviously mainly ‘Marxism’.

Although vocational education is not explicitly on the syllabus, it would be useful to know something about it here because there are obvious links to work and the economy.

summary grid of perspectives on education for sociology

Perspectives on the Role of Education – Knowledge Check List – a simple check list for this sub-topic, covering the five main perspectives you need to know (Functionalism, Marxism, The New Right, Feminism and Post/ Late Modernism), the key concepts and some selected short answer and essay questions

The Functionalist perspective on education – brief revision notes covering four key ideas of Functionalism on education: how school encourages social solidarity, teaching skills for work, school as a bridge between home and wider society and role allocation and meritocracy.

Emile Durkheim’s view on the role of education in society – class notes which take a more in-depth look at Durkheim’s view on the role of education in society. Including his views on education and the transmission of share values, education and social roles, and the role education played in the Division of Labour in society.

Talcott Parsons’ perspective on education – class notes which take a more in-depth look at Parson’s views of the role of education in society.

Evaluating the Functionalist view of the role of education in contemporary society – detailed evaluative post exploring a range of contemporary evidence which either supports or criticises the Functionalist view of education.

The Marxist perspective on education – brief revision notes covering four key ideas of the Marxist perspective on education: school as part of the ideological state apparatus, the correspondence theory, and the reproduction and legitimation of class inequality. Also includes a section on Paul Willis’ neo-Marxist study ‘learning to labour’.

Bowles and Gintis – The Correspondence Principle – detailed class notes on this classic piece of Marxist theory on education from Bowles and Gintis’ classic (1976) work ‘Schooling in Capitalist America’.

Evaluating the Marxist perspective on education – medium length evaluative post focusing on a range of contemporary evidence which either supports or criticises the Marxist view of education.

Joel Spring – Education Networks – Power, Wealth, Cyberspace and the Digital Mind – book summary. Good supporting contemporary evidence for the Marxist view of education in a global context.

The neoliberal approach to education – neoliberalism has informed New Right policies of education reform in England and Wales. Key neoliberal ideas for education include more exogenous and endogenous privatisation more choice and voice for parents and more surveillance and top down performance management of teachers.

The New Right perspective on education – brief revision notes covering the key ideas of the New Right, key New Right Policies and some evaluations. NB should be read in conjunction with the 1988 Education reform Act post. This just covers the theory.

Evaluating the New Right’s perspective on education – a medium length post which looks at the long term trend in GCSE results, PISA international league tables, Stephen Ball’s work and Sue Palmer’s concept of toxic childhood to evaluate the impact (positive and negative) of marketisation policies on pupils in England and Wales.

Postmodernism and education – a medium length post outlining some of the ways in which education seems to have responded to the shift to postmodern society, by becoming more individualised and diverse, for example.

Homeschooling in England and Wales – Homeschooling is part of the postmodern education landscape but only 1% pupils are homeschooled. This post looks at the characteristics of homeschooled pupils and some of the pros and cons of educating children at home.

Sociological perspectives on the relationship between education and work – a brief summary post covering the Functionalist, Marxist, Feminist, New Right and Postmodern perspectives on education and work.

Functionalist, Marxist and The New Right Views of Education – summary vodcast comparing the three perspectives .

Sociological Perspectives on the Role of Education in Society – Summary Grid – summary revision grid covering Functionalism, Marxism, The New Right, and Post and Late Modern perspectives on education .

Differential Educational Achievement

Sociologists usually examine differential educational achievement by social class, gender and ethnicity.

Students absolutely need to know which groups do better and worse TODAY – in summary, girls do better than boys, Chinese and Indian students to best in terms of ethnicity, and white working class students are the largest group with the lowest results.

You also need to know about why some groups do better than others, which is typically broken down into home versus school explanations.

Sociological Explanations of Educational Underachievement – class notes, and an introduction to the sub-topic

Social class and educational achievement

The effects of material deprivation on education – material deprivation refers to lacking in money or resources. This post explores how factors such as low income and poor housing have a detrimental effect on educational achievement for children.

Statistics on social class and educational achievement – the Government does not routinely collect detailed data on the relationship between social class background and educational achievement. Instead we have to rely on two ‘proxies’ for social class: students eligible for free school meals and independent school results compared to state funded school results.

The effects of cultural deprivation on education – In the 1960s cultural deprivation theory believed that working class children failed in school because of the lack of appropriate norms and values relevant to education. These revision notes cover the concepts of immediate and deferred gratification, restricted and elaborated speech codes.

The effects of cultural and social capital on education – brief revision notes on how the values and connections of middle class parents give their children an advantage in education

Cultural Capital and Education – more detailed class notes on the above .

Social Class and In school factors and differential educational achievement – revision notes on how labelling, pupil subcultures, banding and streaming and the hidden curriculum have differential affects on working class and middle class children.

Gender and educational achievement

Best thought of in terms of three sub topics:

Why do boys do worse than girls, and vice versa
Why do boys and girls choose different subjects
How do different genders/ sexuality experience school differently (gender and identity)

summary grid of gender and achievement, in-school and out of school factors.

What is the gender gap in education? – an introductory post outlining the extent of gender gap in education, focusing on GCSE and A-level exam results and degree entries by gender. The headline fact is that girls do better than boys in almost every subject and nearly every level of education!

Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – External Factors – revision notes covering how factors such as gender socialisation and changing gender roles explain why girls do better than boys in education.

Evaluating the role of External Factors in Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – An evaluation post focusing on what the most significant factors are in explaining why girls do better than boys.

Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – In School Factors – revision notes explaining how things such as teacher labelling and pupil subcultures affect boys and girls differently

Gender and subject choice – An overview of subject choice by gender, looking at the most female and male dominated subjects at A-level and university and the more gender neutral ones.

Why do boys and girls choose different subjects? Summary revision notes covering socialisation, teacher labelling and gendered subject image .

Gender and identit y – revision notes exploring how hegemonic masculinity and femininity hinder or help boys and girls in education .

Education Policy and Gender – A look at the extent to which policies have focused on improving or ignoring gender equality in education, only focusing on males and females.

Transgender education policies in England and Wales – There is a lack of specific guidance on how schools should avoid discriminating against transgender pupils but this post explores the scant advice that does exist.

Ethnicity and differential educational achievement

How Does Educational Achievement Vary by Ethnicity – an overview of the latest statistics from the Department for Education.

Material Deprivation and Ethnicity – material deprivation doesn’t seem to explain differential achievement by ethnicity.

Cultural factors and ethnicity – revision notes covering such things as ethnic variations in parental attitudes to school and family structure and how these affect education

In school factors and institutional racism – revision notes focusing on how pupil subcultures and also teacher labelling and racism might affect educational achievement by ethnicity. Includes summaries of Tony Sewell, David Gilborn and the concept of educational triage.

Are Schools Institutionally Racist? David Gilborn has claimed that schools are, this post has a look at some of the evidence to asesss this claim.

Why do Gypsy-Roma Children have such Low Educational Achievement ? – Some of the factors include Tory funding cuts to traveller education services, children not feeling as if the school curriculum is relevant to them, and discrimination in schools.

Policies to Combat Racism within Schools – A historical overview of the main policy dynamics from assimilationism to cynical multiculturalism.

The relative importance of gender/ class and ethnicity in differential educational achievement

White Working Class Underachievement – the white working classes have some of lowest achievement levels l – this post is a summary of a thinking allowed podcast which tries to explain why.

Relationships and Processes Within Schools

Interationists tend to focus on processes within schools, which primarily means teacher labelling, pupil subcultures, banding and streaming and school ethos.

In school factors all partly explain differential educational achievement by class, gender and ethnicity, but are probably not as significant as out of school factors.

Teacher labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy – detailed class notes covering the definitions of labeling and the self fulfilling prophecy, summaries of David Hargreave’s work on typing, Rosenthal and Jacobson’s classic field experiment, and C. Rist’s study of an American Kindergarten which focused on the relationship between social class and labelling, Also includes some evaluations of the labelling theory applied to education.

Pupil subcultures – detailed class notes on pupil subcultures in school, covering pro and anti-school cultures and Peter Wood’s work on the range of subcultures in-between these extremes – such as retreatist subcultures.

School Ethos and The Hidden Curriculum – brief revision notes focusing on how the ethos (basic values) of a school and the hidden (or informal rules) of a school advantage some students and disadvantage others.

Education Polices

The AQA specification states that students need to know about ‘ the Significance of Educational Policies for an Understanding of the Structure, Role, Impact and Experience of, and Access to Education in British Society ‘.

This section includes links relating to policies of selection, marketisation and privatisation; policies to achieve greater equality of opportunity or outcome, and the impact of globalisation on educational policy.

Education Policies in the UK – a very brief overview of the Tripartite System, Comprehensives, the 1988 Education Act and New Labour’s and the Coalition government’s policies of 1997 and 2010.

Social democratic perspectives on education – social democrats emphasize the important role which education can play in promoting equality of opportunity. Social democratic views lead to comprehensivisation

The 1988 Education Reform Act – detailed class notes covering all of the specific policies introduced to implement the marketisation of education – namely GCSEs, league tables, formula funding, OFSTED and the national curriculum.

New Labour’s Education Policies (1997-2010) – detailed class notes covering the introduction of Academies, Sure Start, Education Action Zones. This post also analyses the impact of New Right or Neoliberal and Social Democratic ideas on Labour’s education policies.

New Labour’s Education Policies – summary revision notes of the above.

2010–2015 – The Coalition Government’s education policies – detailed class notes covering funding cuts to education, further acadamization and the pupil premium, among other things.

2010-2015 – The Coalition Government’s Education policies – summary revision notes of the above topic.

Free Schools – Arguments For and Against – class notes summarising some of the arguments and evidence for and against Free Schools, which are a type of academy.

E ducation Policy in England Wales 2015 to 2020 – An overview of several polices such as austerity, the Ebacc, progress on Academisation, and the expansion of grammar schools.

Education policy since 2020 – covering the lockdown policies, the impact on children and covid-catch up policies.

Compensatory Education – extra education designed to make up for social disadvantage.

The Privatisation of Education – class notes covering endogenous and exogenous privatization of education.

Selective Education Since Comprehensivisation – revision notes on ways in which education has become more selective, including selection by mortgage and covert selection.

Arguments for and Against Reintroducing Grammar Schools – this was suggested a few years ago now my Theresa May, but I’m not sure it’s on the cards anymore. class notes .

Vocational Education

Vocational Education in Britain today – summarises contemporary vocational policies including vocational GCSEs, T-Levels and apprenticeships.

Trends in Apprenticeships in England and Wales – a statistical overview of Apprenticeships up to 2021.

Evaluating Apprenticeships in England and Wales – a quick look at the strengths and limitations of modern apprenticeships.

Assess Sociological Perspectives on Vocational Education – essay plan

Globalisation and Education

Globalisation is one of the fundamental sociological concepts students must be able to apply to every aspect of the specification!

Globalisation and Education – a summary of five ways in which globalisation has affected education in the U.K.

The globalisation of Education – an exploration of some of the evidence that suggests we have an emerging global education system – from the rise of global tech companies such as Google with learning platforms to international PISA league tables.

Sociology Revision Resources

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my A level sociology revision mega bundle – which contains the following:

over 200 pages of revision notes
60 mind maps in pdf and png formats
50 short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
Covers the entire A-level sociology syllabus, AQA focus.

Assessment Material

This section includes links to exam technique, and model answers for essays, the two types of 10 mark questions and the short answer questions you’ll find in the education section of the AQA’s A-level sociology paper 7192-1 .

How I would have answered the June 2018 sociology A-level paper 1 – covering the 4, 6, 10 and 30 mark questions on the education section of this paper. The post also covers the 2 theory and methods questions.
How I would have answered the June 2017 Sociology A-level paper 1 – covering the education and theory and methods sections of the paper
Analyse two reasons why women remain economically disadvantaged compared to men despite the increase in the gender gap in educational achievement (10)
Possible 10 mark ‘analyse’ questions which you might get on paper one
Evaluate the Functionalist view of the role of education in society – essay plan, long version
Evaluate the Functionalist view of the role of education in society – essay plan, brief version
To what extent do home factors explain social class differences in educational achievement? essay plan , long version
Evaluate the view that differences in educational achievement by class, gender and ethnicity are the result of in-school processes – essay plan, long, bullet pointed

2 thoughts on “Education”

the mind map for education really helps summarise the topic

Really useful information, it is clear and concise and really helped with my understanding of the topic

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Until we adopt the ability to question all the structures and systems that govern our lives, many of us assume that those systems function in the favour of the average citizen. But of course, as sociologists - we know better! That is precisely why there are a multitude of varying perspectives on the role and function of the education system.

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American Identity
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In this explanation, we'll be exploring the role and functions of the education system in sociology.
We'll explore the definition of the term 'education system', followed by an in-depth examination of the functions of education according to various sociological perspectives.
We'll also take a look at the 1944 tripartite education system, as well as the comprehensive education system - both of which are widely discussed in sociological research and theory.

The role and functions of the education system in sociology

The sociology of education is the study of human social relationships, patterns, events, institutions, and their development in the context of education.

Sociologists investigate and examine people's experiences of education and outcomes by identifying trends. They study how education affects society. Sociologists analyse social phenomena at different levels and from different theoretical perspectives.

'Education system' definition

The term 'education system' refers to the economic, political and social structures that shape access to and experiences of education in a particular country or state.

When studying education systems, it is helpful to understand what micro and macro-level theories are.

Micro-level theories look at small-scale social processes, systems, and interactions. It is based on the interpretative analyses of society and the world. A macro-sociological study might investigate how institutional racism affects pupil attainment, while a micro-sociological study might investigate the effects of teacher labelling on pupil attainment.

Macro theories analyse social systems and populations at a structural level to understand how social processes, patterns, and trends shape the lives and experiences of groups and individuals at a larger scale.

Functions of education in society

There are numerous theoretical perspectives or sociological paradigms on the role and functions of education. Here is a summary of these theoretical perspectives:

Functionalist theory of education

According to functionalists, society is like a biological organism with interconnected parts held together by a value consensus. Each piece performs a vital role in maintaining balance and social equilibrium for the continuity of society. (See Functionalist Theory of Education for more detail.)

Functionalist theories of education draw heavily on French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who argued that education serves the needs of society by helping pupils develop specialist skills and create social solidarity . Durkheim emphasised the importance of moral education, which is essential in the transmission of culture and role allocation or social placement .

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), who followed in the footsteps of Durkheim, argued that after the family (an agent of primary socialisation ), education takes over as the most important agent of secondary socialisation . For Parsons, schools, like wider society, are based on meritocratic principles . People are rewarded based on their efforts and talents. Schools are the focal socialising agent ; they act as a bridge between the family and wider society, teaching pupils how to navigate society.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) suggested education plays a vital function in role allocation. Schools and other educational institutions select and allocate pupils to their future roles. Inequality is a necessary and inevitable result of meritocracy; without inequalities, there would be no meritocracy. Inequalities also encourage competition which ensures the most talented and the most suitable people fill the most important positions in society, and encourages social and cultural innovation .

Marxist and socialist theories of education

A Marxist view of society is based on class division. Marxists view education the same way, saying that education is based on class division and capitalist exploitation. Traditional Marxists view capitalism as a two-class system; the capitalist ruling class (the bourgeoisie) are a minority class that holds the most power in society and owns the means of production, and the working class (the proletariat) are forced to sell their labour to the ruling class. This, in turn, creates class conflict and raises class consciousness.

Capitalism persists because the ruling class can control society through the education system. Education legitimises class inequality by producing and reproducing ideologies that create false class consciousness among the exploited working class.

According to Louis Althusser , the state is the means by which the capitalist ruling class maintains power. The state consists of two separate apparatuses: the r epressive state apparatuses (RSAs), which maintain power through physical force or the threat of force; and t he i deological state apparatuses (ISAs) , which use beliefs and ideas as a means of control. Education is an essential ISA that reproduces and legitimises class inequality by ensuring the working class is in a state of false class consciousness.

Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis argue that education casts a 'long shadow of work' , meaning there are close parallels between work and school. School mirrors or corresponds with the workplace as they both involve reward, punishment, uniform, and hierarchy. The correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum ; Lessons on punctuality and behaviour are not formally taught to pupils, but pupils eventually internalise and accept them. This is essential because capitalism requires obedience and workers-compliance. (See Marxist Theories of Education for a more in-depth understanding of these theories and concepts.)

Feminist theories of education

Feminist theories emphasise the exploitation and marginalisation of women and girls. Feminists argue that education is an agent of secondary socialisation that enforces patriarchy and the subjugation of women and girls.

Liberal feminists celebrate the advancement of girls' education and highlight progress that has been made in the attainment gap between girls and boys, and education today is used to promote gender equality.

Radical feminists, on the other hand, highlight the gender inequalities that still exist in society and education. Subjects are still gendered, and the curriculum transmits patriarchal norms and values . Girls in schools are subjected to gendered violence while the media creates moral panic about the underachievement of boys. The focus on the underachievement of boys is a distraction and reflects the domination exercised by boys and men.

Marxist and socialist feminists argue that through the hidden curriculum, pupils are taught capitalist patriarchal values, and to accept their subjugation. Boys are taught to dominate and exploit girls.

Feminists agree that current sociological research and theories are ' malestream ', meaning most people are preoccupied with understanding and explaining things through boys and men's experiences. They focus heavily on boys and marginalise and devalue the experiences of girls in the education system.

Neoliberal and new right theories of education

Neoliberalism is a term used to describe a set of economic and social practices, policies, and processes that work to expand free-market capitalism . Neoliberals argue that marketing education creates competition which helps improve schools. Neoliberals advocate for restricting state involvement in the lives of citizens and believe the state should not be responsible for providing education.

Proponents of the new right are conservatives who have adopted neoliberal ideologies. They also believe that education should reflect the market and the state should not provide education for every child, simply because it cannot do so. It argues that the state cannot offer everyone adequate education, meaning that children from working-class families get left behind. Marketing education offers working-class families opportunities that the current system cannot provide. It also makes schools accountable to parents who are seen as consumers. It argues that state involvement stunts innovation, making us unprepared for the global market.

Marketing education raises standards, which improves attainment and fosters social and cultural innovation as schools and educational institutions are constantly responding to the market. This also helps create a competent workforce and leads to greater diversity.

Postmodernist theories of education

'Postmodernists' , as they are sometimes called, seek to move beyond functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist paradigms of understanding social interactions. They want to investigate patterns, events, and institutions. Postmodernism is a philosophical movement that arose in the 20th century as a response to modernity . It challenges the ideas and values of modernism which was characterised by individualism, industrialisation , and scientific thought.

Postmodernists argue that we have moved from modernism to postmodernism . Society is now a lot more diverse, as well as being far more consumerist , which means that people now have more choice . In the context of education, there has been a shift. Education was once controlled centrally by the state but has now become marketised.

Marketisation has turned schools into businesses, but it has also forced teachers to ' reskill' . Teachers are now expected to cater for a diverse student population who have different learning styles , and the national curriculum no longer only centres on British values and industrial needs; it prepares pupils to survive in a globalised world .

Postmodernist theories of education track the advancement and changes of the education system throughout history and evaluate how education has adapted to respond to the needs of society and the economy.

The 1944 tripartite education system

The debate surrounding the future of education was widespread and pervasive after the end of the Second World War. In order for all children to be able to fulfil their potential through education, the UK government passed the 1944 Education Act. This involved splitting education in England and Wales into three distinct stages:

Primary education (ages 5 to 11)
Secondary education (ages 11 to 15)
Further/higher education

The most significant changes to education brought about by the introduction of the tripartite system were for secondary school-goers. Namely, the implementation of the 11+ test made it so that children could be allocated to one of three types of schools for their secondary education (hence this system being called the tripartite system). The three types of schools were:

Grammar schools, meant for students with high academic achievements.

Technical schools, for students with high aptitude in technical and vocational learning.

Secondary modern schools, for students with more practical skills, who would only receive a very basic academic education.

The comprehensive education system

The comprehensive system emerged from the social democratic belief that everybody should have the same opportunities for success. As a direct answer to the inequalities of the tripartite system, comprehensive schools brought all students into a single type of school without the barrier of entrance or 11+ exams.

You can learn more about Government Education Policies in a dedicated explanation on the StudySmarter web-app!

Education System - Key takeaways

Education has many functions. Most theories agree that education is an agent of secondary socialisation transmitting values and norms.
Functionalists view education as an important component in role allocation or social placement.
Marxists and socialists believe education produces and reproduces class inequalities.
Feminists believe education upholds the patriarchy and teaches girls to be subservient to boys.
Postmodernists view functionalist, Marxist, feminist, and neoliberal theories as outdated. They seek to understand the role and functions of education in a postmodern society.

Frequently Asked Questions about Education System

--> what is the role of the education system.

The education system is an agent of secondary socialisation used to transmit the norms and values of society, and to prepare pupils to live in society.

--> What are the five functions of education?

Education serves many functions including; socialisation, social placement, social and cultural innovation, creating a workforce, creating social solidarity, and producing ideologies.

--> What is the role and function of education in the 21st century?

Education in the 21st century exists to serve the needs of the people. Parents as consumers are given a choice about how and where they want their children educated.

--> What does 'function of education' mean?

In sociology, the term 'function of education' refers to the purpose that the education system supposedly does (or at least should) fulfil.

--> What is the main purpose of the education system?

Different sociologists will offer different purposes that the education system fulfils. For instance, functionalists believe that the main purpose of education is 'role allocation', whereby school-goers learn the future roles that they will carry out for the functioning of society. On the other hand, Marxists argue that the purpose of education is to perpetuate the capitalist system and existing class inequalities.

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What is an example of social solidarity?

Which one of these policies was not introduced by the Education Act of 1988?

To what extent do feminists agree with functionalists and Marxists about the role and functions of education?

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What is the sociology of education?

The Sociology of Education is the study of sociology within the context of education. It looks at how educational institutions such as schools affect the outcomes of pupils, and how it influences society.

Why do functionalists believe inequality is necessary?

Functionalists argue that education is a meritocratic system, meaning everybody is judged fairly without any bias. As a result, there are people who are judged to be less qualified for top positions in society, from which inequalities arise. This is always fair and just; if there were no inequalities, we wouldn’t have a meritocratic system. Inequalities maintain and ensure education remains meritocratic.

What do Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis mean by ‘education casts a long shadow over work?’

The phrase ‘education casts a long shadow of work’ refers to the fact that schools mirror the workplace. The rules pupils have to abide by, the structures put in place in schools, and those who make the rules, are similar to those found in the workplace.

Why do radical feminists refer to the underachievement of boys as a moral panic?

Radical Feminists believe the underachievement of boys is used to distract people from sexism in education and reaffirm that society views boys as more important than girls.

Why are Neoliberals and the New Right in favour of the marketisation of education?

Neoliberals and the New Right favour the marketisation of education because it fosters social and cultural innovation, raises educational standards, and creates a workforce ready for the market.

Give two reasons why postmodernists believe education has moved away from modernity.

Postmodernists point to the fact that society is a lot more diverse than it used to be, and that most people are more concerned with consumerism than education. Parents are treated as consumers and are able to choose how and where they want their children to be educated, and pupils are offered different ways to learn.

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2 Theories in the Sociology of Education

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to

Understand what is meant by macrosocial , microsocial , mesosocial , and middle-range theory .
Explain how agency, structure, ontology, and epistemology are related to major underlying assumptions within sociological theories of education.
Describe structural functionalism and the contributions made by Durkheim and Parsons.
Explain Marxism and neo-Marxism, and name the major theorists associated with these perspectives.
Explain how critical pedagogy is associated with the Marxist perspectives.
Describe Weberian and neo-Weberian approaches to the sociology of education.
Define institutional theory .
Describe symbolic interactionism and identify major theorists associated with this perspective.
Explain what is meant by phenomenology .
Define what is meant by cultural reproduction theory and identify major theorists associated with this orientation.
Explain what is meant by social capital .
Describe the social mobility approaches to the sociology of education.
Define ecological systems theory .
Describe how feminist theory is connected to the sociology of education.
Explain critical race theory and how it is related to the sociology of education.

Introduction

This chapter introduces several theories concerning the sociology of education. Because this text explores education from a sociological perspective, it is essential that we consider how theory contributes to our understanding of education as a part of society. Sociological theories help us to take various pieces of a puzzle and put them together, using a specific framework to help us make sense of it all and to give us the tools we need to talk about the “bigger picture.” Each theoretical perspective represents a particular way of understanding the social world. It is like seeing the world through a specific set of glasses (see Figure 2.1). The way we see the world clearly influences how we interpret the social processes that are occurring within it. In this chapter, theories are presented chronologically as they have developed over time.

Many theories are given consideration in this chapter. No one theory is “right”—you will see that every theory has its own strengths and weaknesses. All theories focus on different aspects of human society; some focus on class, others on race, others on gender. There is much overlap, and while many theorists talk about class, for example, you will find that they think of it in markedly different ways. And the prominence of particular theoretical perspectives follows definite trends. Some of these theories were very popular in the discipline at one point (e.g., structural functionalism) but are barely considered now. However, it is important to understand the origins of all theories of educational sociology in use today. Understanding the era of a theory—that is, the historical circumstances under which it emerged—often also helps to understand the emphasis given to different aspects of social life.

Each theory is presented with a brief overview followed by examples from recent research, including Canadian research where possible. This chapter is meant to be a synopsis of the various theories used by sociologists of education; it is in no way an exhaustive overview of all theories within the discipline. Theories are presented in roughly chronological order, starting with structural functionalism of the late 1890s and ending with critical race theory, which is dominant today.

Terminology

When you are learning about sociological theories, you may run across numerous words that you have not encountered before. Various theories are peppered with strange terminology. Theorists have adopted the use of specialized words to capture concepts that often have very complex meanings. Below, many such instances of these terms are discussed: cultural capital , habitus , racialization , and primary effects , just to name a few. Many of these terms are specific to one particular body of theories or a particular theorist.

Some terms, however, are used throughout the discussion of theory rather frequently. These terms are macrosocial theory, microsocial theory, mesosocial theory, middle-range theory, agency, and structure .

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Agency and Structure

What is more important in explaining social life—individuals or the social structures around them? This is the question at the heart of the debate between agency and structure . Agency refers to the individual’s ability to act and make independent choices, while structure refers to a s pects of the social landscape that appear to limit or influence the choices made by ind i viduals. So, which one takes primacy—individual autonomy or socialization? Of course, this question is not easily resolved and it is central to theoretical approaches in sociology. Some theorists emph a size the importance of individual experience, therefore favouring agency. Those the o rists who favour agency are associated with microsociological explanations of social phenomena. Other theorists view society as a large functional organism. These are macrosociologists, who see the social world as a series of structures with varying d e grees of harmony.

The agency–structure debate in social theory isn’t simply about which is more important; it also considers what it is that ties the individual to society. Society is more than a collection of individuals—there is something larger at work that makes those individuals a “society.” The structural functionalists and Marxists (i.e., macro theorists) emphasize how social structures determine social life and maintain that individual actions can be reinterpreted as the outcomes of structural forces. In other words, it may seem that individuals made decisions to act in certain ways (e.g., get a specific job or take a specific course) and these theorists would argue that the larger forces of society and structure constrain an individual’s choices in such a way that these are the only decisions that can be made. Symbolic interactionists and phenomenologists are microsociological theorists who focus on the subjective meanings of social life and how these meanings are responsible for creating individuals’ social worlds. Much research in social theory has focused on how to reconcile the structure and agency debate by exploring how individuals are connected to society. Some reconciliatons are offered by Berger and Luckmann (1969), Giddens (1984), Ritzer (2000), and Bourdieu (1986). Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus as a bridge between structure and agency will be discussed later in this chapter. Similarly, Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) discussion of the various ways and levels at which the child interacts with the environment will also be a considered as way of bridging the gap between agency and structure.

Ontology and Epistemology

Also underlying theoretical perspectives are other assumptions about the social world. There are two very important assumptions to consider when thinking about theories in the sociology of education— ontology and epistemology .

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The theoretical perspectives considered in this text all have “taken-for-granted” ont o logical and epistemological orientations in their worldviews. Figure 2. 2 graphically illu s trates how ontology, epistemology, agency, stru c ture, and the levels of social theory tend to correspond to each other on a spectrum. Microsocial theorists, for example, tend to emph a size agency over structure, point to the importance of understanding subjective rea l ity, and use interpretive methods (in-depth qualitative interviews) when undertaking their stu d ies. On the opposite end of the spectrum are macrosocial theorists, who focus on stru c ture and believe in an objective reality that is to be learned about through positivist met h ods.

When learning about theories, it is important to think about what the theorist is assuming about social life. Theorists approach their subject with specific orientations to the primacy of agency or structure, micro/macro/meso sociological concerns, and specific beliefs about the nature of reality and how it should be studied. There are stark distinctions among theoretical approaches and recognizing the assumptions made by theorists in this way can help you understand the major differences in the “schools of thought” explored in the rest of the chapter.

Structural Functionalism

Structural functionalism is a body of theories that understand the world as a large system of interrelated parts that all work together. Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons are two major theorists in this area.

Émile Durkheim

French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) is best known for his theory of moral regulation . He was also the first sociologist of education. Durkheim was interested in explaining why the rise of individualism in society did not result in widespread social breakdown. Durkheim wrote during a time when individualism was replacing the authority of the Catholic church in France and the collectivist social bond built on religious homogeneity. Societies no longer had singular dominant religions that bonded them together, or even dominant ethnicities. How was society being held together? Durkheim’s answer was that social life was possible because of the trust that existed among members of society. For society to function, there must exist an unwritten moral code that people follow. This moral framework is at the core of Durkheim’s th e ory of society .

Because of this belief in the importance of a shared moral code, Durkheim considered it the role of education in society to instill society’s morals in the minds (and actions) of young people. His writings on the subject stress this point very much, as reflected in such titles as Moral Education (1925). 1 He argued that it is only through education that a given society can forge a commitment to an underlying set of common beliefs and values, as well as create a strong sense of community or nationhood. This moral education prepares us to be productive members of society by socializing and integrating us, whereby we not only understand but also value common morals. We become autonomous adults but we are guided in our acts by the moral codes that have become firmly ingrained in our beings.

Durkheim’s belief that society is held together by a common set of values and morals is at the heart of structural functionalism because it emphasizes how the various parts of a social system work together. Society functions because shared norms and morals create a sense of trust that leads to general social cohesion. Schools are integral to this process because they instill the correct moral codes into children so that they can develop into productive adults that contribute to society.

Talcott Parsons

Durkheim died in 1917 and structural functionalism, particularly as it related to the sociology of education, was largely ignored until Talcott Parsons invigorated the discussion in the late 1950s with his widely cited article “The School Class as a Social System: Some of Its Functions in American Society.” Like Durkheim, Parsons argued that schools existed to socialize students. Up to school age, children are primarily socialized at home by their families, but the values instilled in the child at home are particular to the family. The child is judged in a particular way—as a member of his or her family. There is no way of judging his or her character relative to other children. The school plays a central role in bridging individuals to society. It is within schools that children are assessed in a standardized universalistic way that does not take their social background characteristics into account. According to Parsons, schools level the playing field so that children are assessed on the basis of merit—how they are judged is based only on how they perform on a standardized set of goals regardless of social background.

In this way, school prepares young people for their roles as adults. Parsons argued that American schools emphasized the values of achievement and equality of opportunity. Adults’ later placement in the workforce is a reflection of how much they achieved and how successful they were in their schooling. The school is functionally related to the workforce because it assigns people to their roles based on achievement, skills, and capability. It needs to be emphasized that structural functionalists do not believe that inequality is non-existent. On the contrary, they believe it is inherent to the functional system. Social inequality, in other words, exists because it is functional in society. People who are at the lower ends of the educational and socioeconomic spectrum are there because they fill necessary places there—and because they did not meet the qualifications for higher placement.

As you may imagine, structural functionalism is not without its critics, and many criticisms are well-founded. In particular, the approach fails to account for how many ascribed traits, like socioeconomic background, gender, and race, appear to be so important in determining life outcomes. A plethora of research has provided compelling evidence that the education system does not operate on a purely meritocratic basis. However, despite its shortcomings, structural functionalism has been a useful framework for understanding how morality and norms are spread across society and the school’s role in this process. See Box 2.1 for a recent analysis of education in Canada using a Durkheimian perspective.

Box 2. 1 – Understanding Past Practices through a Durkheimian Lens

Recently, Loren Lerner (2010) presented an analysis of how children were portrayed in photographs contained in Canadian Pictorial , a monthly magazine published in Montreal, between 1906 and 1916. The magazine published mostly photographs and, according to Lerner, these photos served to “uphold the ideals of Canada’s Anglo-Saxon Protestant citizens who originated from Great Britain and to educate Canadians from non-British backgrounds to be like them” (p. 234).

Lerner argues that the photos were part of a larger educational mandate, following Durkheim, to teach young Canadians how to be “good” and “moral” citizens. Below, she comments on the implied meaning of a photo of Aboriginal children taken in a residential school in 1914. In an attempt to assimilate the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, residential schools were established by European-Canadians in the early twentieth century and funded by churches and the government. Aboriginal children were taken away from their families and communities and forced to abandon their language and culture. Many children experienced abuse in these schools. These worldviews of a presumed collective conscience and correct moral character, argues Lerner, are clearly depicted in the above photo:

English Canadians saw it as their social mission to impose particular meanings on these images of children, and so manipulated them to cohere with a worldview that was embedded with class-consciousness and traditional beliefs and customs. This was a collective vision that seemed to either ignore or reluctantly endorse the new realities of a society that was quickly changing . . . Durkheim believed that education was intrinsically linked to a society’s notion of an ideal person. The object of education was to develop in the child a certain number of physical, intellectual, and moral states demanded by society. It could be argued that Durkheim’s concept of education as the socialization of youth based on moral beliefs and traditions was consistent with Canadian Pictorial ’s objective to educate the Canadian child. (p. 257) The conviction that Aboriginal children could be assimilated is proudly documented in a full-page professional photograph of a classroom of students at Mellapolla near Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The banner-like title above the picture reads “Making Good Canadians of the Children of the Red Man.” The students, who are of all ages and include a few adults, are sitting at attention, while the female teacher at the back of the classroom stands in front of a very large map of Canada. The caption reads: “Only within quite recent times have the Indians of that part of the country come within close touch of civilization.” This statement was untrue. The text continues: “Now there is a well-equipped little school for the Indian children with a young lady teacher from England in charge. The photograph was specially taken for the ‘Pictorial’ by the first man to penetrate far north of Prince Rupert with a moving-picture camera . . .” The words are loaded with the supremacist connotation that the children, until now isolated, are being civilized by the white race that has come to save them from their non-civilized condition. The children’s submissiveness in front of the camera suggests that the experiment is succeeding, though most look unhappy or uncomfortable in the setting. The last sentence of the caption is particularly telling: “The expressions on the faces of the Indian children are worth studying.” The phrase “expressions on the faces” speaks to a longstanding belief that the human face carries signs of character and attributes. While it may hide a person’s true nature, if studied correctly, that nature will be disclosed. The expressions of Aboriginal people were often said to be wild and savage, but if they changed in an appropriate way, it signaled that the person had been successfully converted into a peace-loving Christian. Similarly, indoctrination in the guise of education could lead to the metamorphosis of Aboriginal children into acceptable Canadian children. (pp. 254–255) For Durkheim, the intervention of the state in the internal life of the family was mandatory because the traditional family had the power to retard social development. He believed that society was created through the development of a collective conscience shared by all different types of children. As such, through education the child could be released from the bonds of a regressive family and learn to become integrated into a social group. This was also true of the immigrant or Aboriginal child, who could become a functioning member of society by learning to make a living as part of an occupational group. Only when the normative functions once exercised by institutions such as the family and religion turned into a relationship of mutual dependence could these children become real Canadian citizens. (p. 259)

Source: Lerner, Loren. 2010. “Photographs of the Child in Canadian Pictorial from 1906 to 1916: A Reflection of the Ideas and Values of English Canadians about Themselves and ‘Other’ Canadians.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 3(2):233–263. doi:10.1353/hcy.0.0098.

Karl Marx and Neo-Marxism

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German intellectual and revolutionary known for his creation and endorsement of socialism and communism. Marx was a prolific writer, and among his many books were The Communist Manifesto and three volumes of Das Kap i tal . Writing during the industrial revolution in Europe (a point in history which markedly changed how goods were produced and thereby how people earned a living), Marx believed that all social relations were rooted in economic relations, particularly the mode of production, which refers to the way of producing goods and services. In capitalist systems, the mode of production is such that it places workers and owners in direct opposition to one another. Both groups have differing interests: the workers, for example, want to command the highest wage, while the owners, in order to drive the greatest profit, want to pay the lowest possible wage. This relation of production under capitalism, or the social relations that stem from capitalism, means that workers are always subservient and dependent on owners.

Marx viewed society as divided into distinct classes. At the most basic level, there were owners (the bourgeoisie) and workers (the proletariat). He argued that the only way to achieve a just society was for the proletariat to achieve class consciousness—to collectively become self-aware of their class group and the possibilities for them to act in their own rational self-interest.

The idea of class is at the very core of Marx and Marxist scholarship. While Marx was a prolific writer, he wrote relatively little on education. However, he did emphasize that class relations spilled into all aspects of social life, therefore the role of education in society—capitalist society—would be a topic of much relevance under a Marxist framework. In particular, the educational system of a society exists to maintain and reproduce the economic systems of society. Institutions in society, including education, were the outcome of activities and ideas that were created through the specific material conditions and circumstances surrounding them.

Neo-Marxism and Marxist Social Reproduction Analysis

The social activism of the 1960s in North America provided fertile ground for scholars to become receptive to Marxist theory. In the 1970s, two important contributions were made to Marxist social reproduction analysis in the sociology of education. The first was by Louis Althusser in 1970 and the second was by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis in 1976.

Althusser (1918–1990) was a French Marxist philosopher who wrote on a wide range of topics. In terms of the sociology of education, he is best known for his theory of ideo l ogy . He believed that ideology was used to socialize children into their subordinate statuses in the capitalist system. Not only did the education system work to reinforce this socialization, but religion, the law, and the media (and other social structures) were used to pass on this ideology of the ruling class. He referred to the forces of these social structures in reproducing the social order as state ideological apparatus . To Althusser, ideo l ogy had two meanings. The first refers to the set of routine material practices in which teachers and students are involved. For example, rooms in schools are divided into spaces where certain people or groups of people accomplish certain jobs—the principal has his own office, the teachers have their own social space, and the support staff have their own area. The second aspect of ideology relates to “the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (Althusser 1971:153). In other words, ideology refers to “those systems of meanings, representations and values embedded in the concrete practices that structure the unconsciousness of students” (Arnowitz and Giroux 1987:86). To Althusser, this second aspect of ideology meant that individuals were engaged in unconscious acts that reproduced their class positions without even being aware of such processes. The physical and cultural surroundings reinforced this ideology, making it seem natural, although it was driven by the larger capitalist agenda, which was responsible for reproducing inequalities in social class.

In 1976 Bowles and Gintis wrote Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life, which is widely considered to be the most influential neo-Marxist work in the sociology of education. The authors critically examined the education system in the United States and argued, in a Marxist vein, that the way school was organized in the United States was designed to replicate the class system and to benefit elites. There are two terms that are popularly associated with the work of Bowles and Gintis, and which overlap somewhat with Althusser’s concept of ideology: the correspondence principle and the hidden curriculum . The correspondence princ i ple is the overarching theme of their book, which suggests that the education system is set up to serve (or correspond to) the class-based system so that classes are reproduced and so that elites maintain their positions. The authors provide evidence of this relationship by showing how the statistical relationship between (1) intelligence and future earnings and (2) intelligence and future occupation disappears once socioeconomic background is accounted for. In other words, class origins are the major driving force behind the future jobs and incomes that young people achieve—not their intelligence. It is through the hi d den curriculum that schools are able to reproduce the class system. The hidden curric u lum refers to the subtle ways that students are taught to be co-operative members of the class system. There is a “correspondence” between the economic system and the structure of school. Social relations and work principles developed at a young age in the education system parallel those of the wider capitalist society. Students must learn deference and be subservient to teachers, have respect for the established order, and accept that they have no control over what they learn. Engraining these traits in young people “corresponds” with their future roles in the labour market. From a young age, young people are therefore socialized to accept their class placement in the capitalist economy. 2

Marxist theory and neo-Marxism enjoyed popularity in the sociology of education in 1970s and 1980s, but has since fallen from favour as the theoretical paradigm of choice among researchers. Neo-Marxism is a term that generally refers to Marxist approaches from the twentieth century and beyond which in some way modify original Marxist theory. In Canada, the 1970s and ’80s produced numerous important pieces of work in the sociology of education under the Marxist/neo-Marxist umbrella, including Wotherspoon (1984, 1987) and Livingstone (1983, 1985). However, one major criticism of the versions of Marxism described above is that they tend to ignore other characteristics that are influential in the social landscape, such as gender and race or ethnicity.

Marxist theory and neo-Marxism have largely been superseded by other theories in the discipline, particularly postmodern theories of gender and race , which are discussed below. Some researchers in the sociology of education refer to Marxist authors covered in this section and use certain aspects of their theory, combined with other theories. For example, in their study of how working-class students from an inner-city school in Vancouver understood Canadian citizenship, Kennelly and Dillabough (2008) used the framework of phenomenology but appealed to Althusser’s concept of ideology to help them understand the position of disadvantaged youth.

Makropolous (2010) has called upon Bowles and Gintis’s correspondence principle to explain Ottawa students’ attitudes to French immersion curriculum. She concluded that the French immersion program in Ottawa was geared toward students who were preparing for university. Those who did not share that goal were not successful in the program. See Box 2.2 for a discussion of how Marxist theory is related to approaches in pedagogy.

Box 2.2 – Critical Pedagogy and Its Marxist Roots

Critical pedagogy is a term that frequently comes up in neo-Marxist approaches to teaching. Crit i cal pedagogy refers to a general philosophy of teaching that recognizes and attempts to rid the classroom and teacher–student interactions of relationships and practices that perpetuate inequalities. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, is credited with starting this movement with the publication of his highly influential book Ped a gogy of the Oppressed in 1970. Freire uses a metaphor of “banking” to describe how the education system is organized—students are empty banks and teachers deposit knowledge into them. Freire rejects this model, arguing that this assumes that the object of education (the student) knows nothing and has nothing to offer to the “educator,” which serves to dehumanize both the student and the teacher.

Many prominent education researchers have been influenced by the work of Freire, including Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren. Giroux is currently a professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University and has published about 35 books and 300 scholarly articles. His most recent interests have focused on how the media represent youth and negatively influence current pedagogical practices (Giroux 2010; Giroux and Pollock 2010).

Canadian-born McLaren is a professor of Education at UCLA and has written over 45 books, along with hundreds of scholarly articles (see, for example, McLaren 2010; McLaren and Jaramillo 2010). McLaren is known for his work in promoting a radical critical pedagogy which “attempts to create the conditions of pedagogical possibility that enables students to see how, through the exercise of power, the dominant structures of class rule protect their practices from being publicly scrutinized as they appropriate resources to serve the interests of the few at the expense of the many” (McLaren 2010:5). Like the neo-Marxists described above, McLaren understands schools as being a place of social reproduction, and his critical pedagogy is aimed at dismantling this process which results in what he views as the continued oppression of many.

Critical pedagogical approaches are used extensively in Canadian research. For example, Barrett et al. (2009) interviewed 47 teacher-educators from Ontario’s New Teacher Induction Program from eight different faculties of education across Ontario. The researchers used elements of McLaren’s approach to critical pedagogy, indicating that teacher-educators suggested that the curriculum of teacher training contained elements that reduced the likelihood of teachers adopting a critical pedagogical perspective. One example is the pairing of new teachers with senior colleagues who were not likely receptive to the idea of introducing emancipatory teaching practices.

Other prominent scholars associated with neo-Marxism include Michael Apple and Paul Willis. Apple’s work Ideology and Curriculum (1979) was critical of Bowles and Gintis, indicating that they had failed to account for the role of ideology and culture in reproducing systems of domination. He agreed that economic reproduction (i.e., reproducing social classes) was indeed an outcome of schooling, but that it went beyond simple economic aspects. To Apple, social reproduction was also the result of ideological and cultural practices that occurred within schools. Schools serve to educate students and as such they convey knowledge to students. This knowledge is a particular type of knowledge, however, which is considered “legitimate knowledge.” It reflects the ideologies and cultural practices of the ruling classes, and passing this type of knowledge on to students also contributes to social reproduction. More recently, Apple has been interested in the rise of neo-conservatism in the United States and its influence on creating American educational policy (based upon right-wing political ideology). Aurini and Davies (2005) have considered Apple’s perspective in their research on the growth of homeschooling in Canada. They agree with Apple that to some extent many parents who opt to homeschool are politically conservative, but they trace the growth of homeschooling to a more general trend of parents being closely involved in their children’s education (i.e., “intensive” or “helicopter” parenting) rather than any particular politically based movement.

Another neo-Marxist theorist is Paul Willis, who is best known for his resistance theory . His groundbreaking work Learning to Labour (1977) was an ethnographic study of working-class adolescent boys in the UK. In particular, Willis examined how these youth resisted the schools’ attempt to control them by rejecting the values associated with the middle class. They openly rejected the value of the intellectual offerings associated with school work. They also openly rejected the authoritative structure associated with the school. The findings from this research led him to coin the term resistance th e ory , which referred to how marginalized students do not comply with the values, discipline, and expected behaviours of middle class school structures. Instead of being viewed as acts of delinquency, these acts of rule breaking are interpreted as a class-based resistance. Paradoxically, however, these resisting behaviours also served to reproduce their class position—preventing the acquisition of the skills and training required for jobs outside the realm of manual labour.

Raby and Domitrek’s (2007) more recent study of rule-breaking by Canadian high school students largely confirms Willis’s theory. They found that adolescent boys from marginalized backgrounds tended to resist the White middle-class techniques for dispute resolution (i.e., “talking it out”), favouring physical aggression. They were also more likely to have been in conflicts with teachers and lacked the middle class cultural knowledge required to navigate the school system effectively.

Weber and Neo-Weberian Approaches

Max Weber (1868–1920) was a German sociologist who, along with Marx and Durkheim, is widely regarded as being a “founding father” of sociology. Weber, however, differed from Marx and Durkheim in a very important way. Unlike Marx and Durkheim, who were macro-theorists, his theory does not describe the overall nature of society. Instead, his micro-theoretical ideas pointed to how people both construct society and are constrained by it at the same time (King 1980). Weber focused on education in many of his writings.

One of Weber’s most famous analyses is contained within The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , where he identifies the growth and success of capitalism as being largely contingent upon the spread of Protestantism in Northern Europe. The values and tenets associated with this branch of Christianity encourage hard work, and the subdivision of Calvinism provided even more support for his association between the rise of capitalism and religious affiliation. Calvinists believed in predestination; in other words, one’s “destination” (i.e., heaven or hell) was determined at birth. As a result of this uncertainty, people looked for clues about their fate. They consequently interpreted success in business and in work as a signal that they were held in God’s favour. Weber argued that the religious beliefs at the time facilitated the growth of capitalism. As time went on and beliefs became more secularized, capitalism was so entrenched and established within society that the initial complimentary religious attitudes that allowed it to develop were no longer necessary. Unlike Marx, Weber argued that ideas were central to the social groups and institutions we observe. His understanding of ideology is one that, in contrast to Marx, is based upon subjective understandings held by people, not overarching dominant forces that control individuals.

Linked to his interest in religion and its place in society was Weber’s analysis of rationalization. Rationalization occurred when society became more secular, scientific knowledge began to develop, and an increasing reliance on scientific and technological explanations began to emerge. Instead of being based on customs or religious belief, more and more social actions were the outcome of beliefs related to scientific thought. Rationalization paved the way for what Weber referred to as “rational-legal authority,” which is a type of political leadership that is regarded as legitimate due to being rooted in established laws (which themselves are the outcome of rationalization). Closely related to the concepts of rationalization and rational-legal authority is bureau c racy , which is an administrative structure that follows a clear hierarchical structure and involves very specific rules and chains of command. If you are enrolled in a post-secondary institution like a college or university, you have had first-hand experience of bureaucracy. If you want to appeal a grade, for example, you must fill out the right forms, send them to the right office, and wait until various people in the bureaucracy (professors, deans, heads of departments, grade appeal committees) read your appeal and make a decision on it. The decision then trickles back to you in the reverse manner. Bureaucracies organize work in specific ways and can be frustrating because they are, by design, inflexible.

In addition to his contributions above, Weber also provided a unique interpretation of the nature of social stratification. As discussed earlier, Marx indicated that there were two social classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. These classes were entirely determined by the relationship that individuals had to the means of production. Max Weber, in contrast, had a more complex understanding of stratification, identifying class and status groups as the two major distributors of power within a society.

However, both Marx and Weber argued that social classes had the tendency to reproduce themselves. This tendency for reproduction is, in fact, the ultimate feature of classes. The concept of status is central to understanding how Weber understood how society was divided into groups with competing interests. Weber defined status as being associated with honour and privilege, independent of class membership. According to Weber, status groups are moral communities, concerned with upholding the privilege of their members in society. Weber also argued that status groups could cut across classes and thus acted to work against class unification. As well, status groups also secure power through “social closure,” whereby they restrict rewards to those who possess certain characteristics (social or physical) (Parkin 1982). Weber indicated that it did not matter which criteria were used to distinguish “outsiders”: “whatever suggests itself most easily is seized upon” (Parkin 1982:102, quoting Weber 1968:1012). The result of this social closure would be to secure resources and advantages at the expense of other groups.

Credentialism

Status groups often limit membership based on credentials. Credentialism is a major theme in Weberian (and neo-Weberian) discussions of the sociology of education. Credentialism refers to the requirement of obtaining specific qualifications for membership to particular groups. More specifically, the actual skills obtained through these credentials are often not explicitly associated with the job’s task. Many entry-level office jobs or jobs in the civil service require new recruits to have a university degree, although the skills required in these jobs may have nothing to do with the degree that individuals have. This is an instance of credentialism. People with many years of practical experience in a given field but who have no degree may be denied jobs or promotions because they have no formal credentials.

Randall Collins is probably the best-known sociologist of education working in a neo-Weberian framework. Like neo-Marxism, neo-Weberian approaches refer to modifications to Weber’s theories that have occurred in the twentieth century forward, but still retain many of the core elements of Weber’s writings. In 1979 he published The Credential Soc i ety , a book that continues to be influential in the study of credentialism. He coined the term credential inflation to refer to the decreased value of the expected advantage associated with educational qualifications over time. You may be familiar with the popular notion that a bachelor’s degree is now equivalent to what a high school diploma “used to” be. This is an example of credential inflation—that expected returns to a university degree now are what the high school diploma used to be “worth” a generation ago. See Box 2.3 for examples of studies in the sociology of education drawing on Weberian and neo-Weberian perspectives.

Box 2.3 – Weberian Approaches to the Study of the Sociology of Education

Weber’s (1951) major study of how occupational status groups controlled entry with credentials was done in China, where he described how administrative positions were granted to individuals based upon their knowledge of esoteric Confucian texts, rather than on any skills that were particular to that job (Brown 2001). Weber described how the “testing rituals that gained one admittance to sectarian religious communities and the various forms of economic and political credit they afforded were predecessors to the formalized educational credential requirements for employment in the modern era. Formal educational claims of competence . . . were inseparable from jurisdictional issues (politics) of employment, that is, from position monopolies that were based on substantively unassailable cultural qualifications” (Brown 2001:21). In other words, credentialism, in its many forms and through many processes, has been around in various cultures for some time and serves to reproduce culture and protect status groups.

Taylor (2010) recently examined credential inflation in high school apprenticeships in Canada. She notes that education policy-makers have shown an interest in making the “academic” and “vocational” streams in high school education more comparable by mixing these curricula. The typical trajectory is for teens to attend secondary schools where they can take courses in various subjects (vocational and academic) and receive a diploma upon credit completion. However, Taylor’s data analysis showed that vocational education occupied a vague position within secondary education, particularly when credentialism was being emphasized. Trades training continues to be stigmatized and associated with less intelligent students, despite efforts to integrate the programs. Instead of an integration of these programs, the researcher instead saw a pronounced effect of educational stratification and an “intensification of positional competition” where students tried to further differentiate themselves in the labour market.

Foster (2008) traces the professionalization of medicine in Canada in his analysis of foreign-trained doctors. The medical profession is a status group that requires certain credentials for entry. In Canada, that credential is a medical degree from Canada (or a recognized foreign institution). Foster asks why there is a doctor shortage while there are so many foreign-trained doctors in Canada who are unable to practise. He argues that the professional closure of the medical profession in Canada is regulated so that foreign-born, non-European and non-White practitioners are at a serious disadvantage.

Institutional Theory

John Meyer (along with his associates) is another sociologist of education (currently professor emeritus of sociology at Stanford University) who also questions the overall legitimacy of credentialism. His developments in the theories around sociology of education were largely a reaction to the arguments put forth by the structural functionalists and the Marxist scholars in the 1970s. He has noted that educational systems have expanded worldwide, but that this expansion is not necessarily related to labour market demands. Known as institutional theory , Meyer’s central argument is that the global expansion of education has not been the result of institutional or workforce requirements for this level of training, but rather that of a wider democratic belief in the good of expanding education associated with institutional rituals and ceremonies that make it legitimate, rather than actual practices in the workforce that necessitate such levels of training (Meyer and Rowan 1977, 1978; Meyer, Boli, Thomas, and Ramirez 1997). He has further argued that there is a loose coupling (or a weak association) between the belief in the importance of expanding schooling in democratic societies (reflected in government and political positions) and the actual need for such skills. Loose coupling also exists when educational ideals are expressed (again, perhaps by government agencies or in policies), but the actual ability to attain those skills is rather limited.

Aurini (2006) provides useful illustrations of loose coupling in a Canadian context. She describes how public education in Canada has “loosely coupled by adhering to common institutional scripts (e.g., hiring credentialed staff), by avoiding performance indicators such as standardized tests, and by adopting vague and expansive language to describe organizational activities, such as ‘social development’ and ‘emotional intelligence’” (p. 89). Aurini goes on to argue that Ontario public schools have “recoupled” in recent years by introducing standardized tests in an attempt to demonstrate competency. Her research on private schooling businesses (i.e., private tutoring companies like Kumon or Sylvan Learning Centre) demonstrates that these institutions are examples of loose coupling because they do not make promises of improved grades (which would be a logical coupling of tutoring and educational outcomes), but focus on their services as providing the outcome of increased “skills” and self-esteem.

Symbolic Interaction

Symbolic interaction is a microsociological approach to social theory that emerged in the 1960s and is closely associated with the work of George Herbert Mead (1863–1931). Mead is regarded as a founder of what is known today as social psychology.

Mead and the Development of the Self

Symbolic interaction theory in general asserts that the world is constructed through meanings that individuals attach to social interactions. Mead’s approach to understanding social life was grounded in his understanding of the steps in child development. In 1934, he used the terms “I” and “Me” to refer to the process that individuals go through in understanding themselves in a social world. A child enters the world only understanding the concept of “I”—he or she is mostly unaware of the social world except as it relates to fulfilling his or her own needs. The “I” is controlled by impulses and basic human needs and desires. As a child gets older, the social part of the self—the “Me”—develops. The child learns about other people through the understanding and meaning he or she attributes to gestures. The “Me” develops through interaction with other people and through the social environment. This happens by learning how individuals respond to specific acts and gestures made by the individual. The “Me” is the social self. The “I” is our immediate response to others.

Mead posited that there are two distinct stages that a child goes through in order to realize “Me.” The first is the play stage, where children learn how to take the attitude of a single particular other. For example, children may play house and act as “mommy” or “daddy.” This stage, however, is very limiting because it allows the child to take on only two possible roles. The second stage—where full development of the self occurs—is the game stage, where a child learns to take on the attitude of everyone else. By being able to internalize the roles of several others, he or she is about to function in organized groups in society. By being able to take on various roles at a time, he or she understands the roles and attitudes of multiple people. This understanding of collective attitudes of a society is what Mead referred to as the generalized other . The generalized other keeps individuals connected to society by an understanding of shared meanings; it can be considered a bridge between the individual (micro) and the wider society (macro).

Symbols and Herbert Blumer

In addition to these concepts, Mead emphasized the importance of significant symbols and social life. Significant symbols are generated vocally through the use of language and are embedded in a deep web of meaning. One task of symbolic interaction (SI) is to understand how people attribute meaning to different symbols. This aspect of SI was more fully developed by Herbert Blumer (1900–1987), a student of Mead’s. Blumer (1969) extended Mead’s theory and focused on three basic concepts: meaning, language, and thought. People’s behaviours toward things are based upon the meaning that such things have for them. “Things” can refer to objects, other people, ideas, and the self. The meaning that people attribute to things is derived largely from complex social interactions that individuals have amongst themselves that involve vocal language. There is also no pre-existing objective meaning—meaning is continuously created dependent on particular contexts and is constantly negotiated through thought. In creating meaning, the social actor must be able to take different points of view (i.e., the generalized other).

Box 2.4 – Recent Examples of Symbolic Interaction Theory Used in Education Research

How do ethnic minority students perceive racism in their teachers? This is the question Stevens (2008) asked in his study of Turkish students in a vocational school in Belgium. Stevens was interested in exploring how ethnic minorities in a White, Flemish educational institution defined racism and how particular contexts and interactions between students influenced the students’ perceptions of racism. He found that students made different claims about racism based on perception, which were very specific to students and particular contexts. The students regarded “racist-joking” by teachers to be perceived as racist only if there was a definite racist intent. He also found that students did not evaluate teachers’ ability to teach based on their perceived racism of that teacher; perceived racists were also considered good teachers by some students.

Alternatively, Rafalovich (2005) used an SI approach to examine how children’s behaviour was “medicalized.” Interviewing teachers, parents, and clinicians from two cities in North America (one in Canada, the other in the United States), Rafalovich examined language to reveal how certain childhood behaviours were contextualized by educators as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Typically, the behaviour was escalated to a potential “medical” problem (rather than just an individual behavioural characteristic of being a child, such as “daydreaming”) when teachers started to compare such children with other children in the class. While not denying the existence of ADHD as a medical problem, the author argues that this process often acted to assign meanings to behaviours as a problematic medical condition, instead of typical childhood behaviours. Rafalovich argues from an SI perspective that the meaning of the behaviour of acts such as “daydreaming” are open to interpretation. The author examines how teachers, who are not certified to make official diagnoses, play an important role in the medicalization of children’s behaviours.

Within the sociology of education, symbolic interactionist perspectives are useful for examining how meaning is attributed to language. When drawing upon an SI theoretical framework, researchers are much more likely to reference Blumer or successive theorists in the area (e.g., Denzin 1989), rather than referring to Mead. The general spirit of the research, however, remains the same: examining how meaning is created through the use of language in various social settings. See Box 2.4 for recent examples of research in the sociology of education employing an SI approach.

Phenomenology

The term phenomenology is used to refer to a variety of philosophies that span many disciplines. Here, the discussion is based upon phenomenological sociology, which originated with the work of Austrian social scientist Alfred Schütz (1899–1959) in the early 1930s. Schütz’s work was very much influenced by the writings of Max Weber. While he admired Weber’s work, he felt that it had a serious deficit in that it overlooked the meaning that individuals attributed to their actions.

Schütz (1970, 1972) found a way to manage this perceived shortcoming of Weber by borrowing insights from the phenomenological philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). Husserl’s focus as a phenomenological philosopher was in the area of formal structures of consciousness. Schütz’s theory emerged as a blend of Weberian theory with Husserl’s understanding of consciousness (Hamilton 1991). He agreed with Weber that social sciences were different from the natural sciences and therefore required special techniques for the study of the subject (an interpretivist epistemological orientation). He argued that people are continuously trying to make sense of the world and that the social scientists must recognize that we are engaged in a process of trying to make sense of the process of other people trying to make sense. Unlike those he or she is observing, however, social researchers have a “disinterested attitude” (Schütz 1970) because they are concerned with making sense out of what they see as a purely cognitive exercise—not because they have any practical interest in the outcomes of the interactions they are analyzing. Therefore, social scientists must study unintentional consciousness—or the meanings attributed to actions in everyday life. The term “life-world” ( Lebenswelt in German) is one closely associated with Schütz’s work and refers to the analytical attention given to meaning in the lived world.

Many sociologists since Schütz have taken up the phenomenological position. Berger and Luckmann further popularized the approach in the late 1960s with the publication of The Social Construction of Reality . More recently, Scanlon (2009) used a Schützian approach to studying the learning experiences of Canadian adult learners. Using this approach, the author was able to understand the complex life-worlds of adult students, and identify specific segments which helped or distracted them from their studies. Through the use of phenomenological sociology, Scanlon was able to produce a nuanced understanding of the complexities of adult education that may enable adult educators to better understand their world, which is of growing importance as more adults return to education for retraining.

Wong and Lohfield (2008) similarly studied the experiences of immigrants with foreign medical doctor credentials who had to re-enter medical school in Canada in order to have their credentials recognized. Using a phenomenological approach, the researchers analyzed interviews they had undertaken with 12 recertifying medical students in Ontario. The researchers’ analysis revealed that the recertifying doctors experienced many barriers to gaining access to retraining. After they were accepted into recertification programs, they then went through periods of loss tied to their professional devaluation in their host country. They also experienced a sense of disorientation during training because they did not know how to act in social situations around their peers, not understanding their “expected roles” as international medical graduates. The participants described various coping strategies that helped them adapt to their situation. Like Scanlon (2009), Wong and Lohfield indicate that information from their study can be used to assist medical educators of the unique needs that recertifying doctors may bring to the medical classroom.

Cultural Reproduction Theory

Cultural reproduction theory is most closely associated with the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002). Bourdieu is one of many theorists associated with what is known as poststructuralism. Poststructuralism is a reaction to structural functionalism, which favours the importance of social structures in explanation of social life over individual action. Poststructuralism is associated mostly with the writings of a fairly diverse set of French philosophers (including Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault) whose only substantial area of agreement was that structuralism was flawed. There is no tidy definition that encompasses all the major theorists associated with poststructuralism—their areas of writing were all very disparate.

Like many social theorists, Bourdieu wrote on a host of topics. Bourdieu was markedly influenced by Marxism, as he believed that social position (class) greatly determined the life chances of people. But he disagreed with the Marxist notion of class and argued that social stratification processes emerged from a variety of difference sources, such as the forms of capital . Bordieu’s writings that pertain specifically to education (1977, 1984, 1986) will be focused on here and deal with the role of cultural reproduction in the education system. Like many theories, it is necessary to understand various terms the theorists in question used.

The Forms of Capital

Many social theorists talk about “capital.” The term capital is borrowed from the discipline of economics and is used to describe tangible assets. The idea of capital is typically associated with money and assets that are easily converted to money. Social theorists have borrowed the term capital and used it to refer to other assets that people possess, such as their social skills and cultural knowledge.

Bourdieu is perhaps most well-known in the field of education for his contributions in the area of cultural capital. It is not easy to define cultural capital , as Bourdieu himself defined the term in several different ways throughout the course of his writings. But the characteristic that his various definitions shared is that cultural capital refers to high status cultural knowledge possessed by individuals. High status cultural knowledge is acquired by experience and familiarity with high culture activities, such as going to the opera, ballet, or theatre as well as the appreciation of art, literature, and classical musical, and theatre attendance. It is theorized that familiarity with these forms of leisure allows individuals to give off signals that give them advantage in high status circles. Bourdieu argued that children with cultural capital were appraised more favourably by their teachers than children who did not possess this form of capital, even though this form of capital did not necessarily impact on how well the child was doing in school. Familiarity with high culture may give a child more sophisticated language skills, for example, which may result in the teacher rating that child more positively.

Cultural capital is one vehicle through which culture is reproduced. By cu l tural reproduction , it is meant that the high status classes reward individuals who exhibit the traits and possess the knowledge of the upper class, therefore maintaining their power. Having cultural capital gives individuals access to exclusive social circles that those who do not possess cultural capital cannot penetrate. The honing of (or investment in) this capital occurs over the life course. In the case of upper class families, children are groomed to have certain cultural knowledge and mannerisms from a very young age. Children exposed to high culture will adopt the language and knowledge associated with participation in these leisure pursuits, and as a result of this, may give cues to teachers that will result in their preferential treatment in the classroom (Bourdieu 1977). These signals are very similar to what Bernstein (1971) referred to as “language codes.” This is essentially Bourdieu’s argument about how inequality persists in schools, despite efforts to base academic achievement solely on merit and ability.

As well, cultural capital functions by a principle of cumulative advantage (for those who possess it) or cumulative disadvantage (for those who do not have any). While there are types of tastes and styles associated with all social classes or subgroups, only those that are able to potentially further economic and/or social resources are considered cultural capital.

In addition to cultural capital, Bourdieu (1986) identified (at least) two other broad types of capital. The first is economic capital , which refers to characteristics that are quickly and relatively easily converted into money. Educational attainment, job skills, and job experience are included in this type of capital as their transformation into money is a well-understood process. The second type of capital is social cap i tal , which Bourdieu conceptualized as micro-based in networks and individual relationships that potentially led to access to resources.

These forms of capital do not exist in isolation from one another, but are closely linked. Each form of capital is convertible into another form. Economic capital is at the root of all capitals such that economic reward can be derived from both social and cultural capital. For example, signals of cultural knowledge (such as the ability to speak in an “educated manner”) are rewarded in the classroom, which is easily converted into a type of economic capital—educational attainment.

As Bourdieu was a poststructuralist, his theoretical positionings were somewhat in response to structuralism. Bourdieu was not content to advocate a theory according to which individuals were either bound by social structures or where individual agency was prioritized. His solution to the structure/agency problem was the habitus . The habitus can be understood as embodied social structure—that piece of social structure that we all carry around in our heads, and which largely regulates our actions. The habitus guides our behaviours, our dispositions, and our tastes. It originates from our lived experience of class and the social structures in which we have become familiarized and socialized. Our decisions may be our own decisions, but they are greatly guided and restricted by the social structure that exists within each of us (see Figure 2.3).

Field is another major concept used by Bourdieu. Field refers to social settings in which individuals and their stocks of capital are located. Fields are important because it is only within these contexts that we can understand how the rules of the field interact with individuals’ “capitals” and their habitus to produce specific outcomes.

Box 2.5 – Applying Bourdieu’s Theory to the Study of Education

Lehmann (2009) used Bourdieu’s ideas of cultural capital and habitus to explore how first-generation university students from working class backgrounds integrated into the culture of the university. Being “first generation,” these individuals were the first persons from their families to enter university. Bourdieu himself argued that universities (especially elite ones) are places where the possession of cultural capital is particularly important for success. Students from working class backgrounds, however, are at a disadvantage because they typically do not possess much cultural capital. Lehmann was interested to see how these individuals coped with being university students—the university being a field that was mismatched to their class, and stocks of capital. Lehmann conducted qualitative interviews with 55 first-generation students at a large university in Ontario at two points: (1) at the beginning of their studies in their first year, and (2) at the beginning of their second year. Lehmann found that students compensated for their deficiencies in cultural capital by focusing on aspects of their social class background that they felt gave them an advantage. The habitus of the working class students was characterized by a strong work ethic, maturity, and independence.

Taylor and Mackay (2008) studied the creation of alternative programs within the Edmonton Public School Board. The EPSB is well-known for its policies on school choice and alternatives, and combined with provincial policies from the 1970s, much flexibility has existed for the creation of alternative programs. The authors focus on the creation of three alternative programs between 1973 and 1996: a Cree program, a fine arts program, and a Christian program. The authors note that alternative programs are tied to fields that are stratified by race and class. They noted that some proponents of the different schools found it easier to access social and cultural capital to exert influence than others. Advocates for the Cree school had to find individuals with cultural capital (university professors) to back them in order to be considered legitimate, while advocates for the Christian school had individuals with vast stocks of economic, social, and cultural capital in the core of their membership.

The school setting is an example of a field (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002). Students bring their social, cultural, and economic capital and their habitus to this field, and the power relations within this field (teachers, principals) interact with them to bring about certain outcomes. Getting good grades is valued in the educational field, but a student’s cultural capital may impact on his or her grades because teachers have been found to reward students who possess cultural capital more favourably than students who do not (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002). See Box 2.5 for how Canadian researchers have used Bourdieu’s framework in education research.

Social Capital Approaches

While Bourdieu discusses multiple forms of capital, other theorists have focused solely on the important role that social capital plays in the educational outcomes of young people. Most notable among these theorists is James Coleman (1946–1995), who found that children who attended Catholic and private high schools (both of which are privately funded in the United States) had a much lower dropout rate than those who went to public schools, even when parental socioeconomic characteristics were taken into consideration. Coleman (1988) argued that it was the social capital in the students’ communities and families that accounted for this difference, arguing that social ties were much stronger among those who went to Catholic and private high schools. Coleman theorized that children’s educational achievement was driven by strong parental interest, which had additional effects that extended into the community. Additionally, strong bonds between parents and children, and among extended family, led to intergenerational closure which resulted in informal social control and monitoring of children.

In contrast to Bourdieu, Coleman was a theorist mostly influenced by rational choice theory —the idea that people’s actions are the result of decisions based on re a son. Coleman argued that social capital was not simply a possession of individuals but that it was a public good whose benefits may be received not only by those who a c tively contribute to it, but also by all members of the social structure. Being active in a parent–teacher associ a tion may, for example, benefit an individual’s child, but it will also serve to strengthen the ties within the community, which has positive effects for all members.

Field (2003:24) documents how Coleman’s later definition of social capital is explicated almost exclusively in terms of children’s development. The ties that develop in a community through the civic engagement of parents have the “spillover” effect of not only improving the educational attainment of children, but also ensuring their healthy cognitive development. Coleman (1988) asserted that social capital is something that individuals can possess but that it also serves to reinforce the social structure. However, Coleman’s rational choice background meant that he interpreted the “public good” aspect act of investing in social structures not as an intended consequence of individuals’ actions, but rather as an “unintended consequence of their pursuit of self-interest” (Field 2003:25).

Coleman also contrasts with Bourdieu in his understanding of the holders of social capital and the good that it served. While Bourdieu maintained that social capital was held by the privileged elite, Coleman’s conceptualization of social capital involves all members of the social structure. Field also indicates that Coleman’s view is

. . . naively optimistic; as a public good, social capital is almost entirely benign in its functions, providing a set of norms and sanctions that allow individuals to co-operate for mutual advantage, and with little or no “dark side.” Bourdieu’s usage of the concept, by contrast, virtually allows only for a dark side for the oppressed and a bright side for the privileged. (2003:26)

The third major theorist associated with social capital is Robert Putnam (b. 1941). To Putnam, “social capital refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (2000:19). In this view, social capital is more a characteristic of societies than individuals (Portes 1998). Putnam emphasized membership to voluntary organizations as key indicators of social capital in communities, with the steady decline since the 1960s as proof that social capital is on the decline in the United States.

Putnam identified two different types of social capital: bonding capital and brid g ing capital . Bonding capital is considered “exclusive” in the sense that it occurs within established groups in order to reinforce group solidarity, whereas bridging cap i tal is “inclusive” in that it is used for information diffusion and linkage to other groups. Bon d ing capital is useful for reinforcing group solidarity and identity, while bridging capital is useful for diffusion of information and network expansion (Putnam 2000:22–23).

While Putnam regarded social capital as a characteristic that is contingent upon the s o cial and economic specificities of individual societies, Field (2003) notes that Putnam has been criticized for failing to clearly account for the processes underlying the cre a tion and maintenance of social capital in communities. Like Coleman, Putnam’s understan d ing of social capital is rather celebratory of “the good old days,” with little consideration of the potentially negative aspects of social capital. Both Coleman and Putnam regard social cap i tal as a remedy for various social problems in American cities. See Box 2. 6 for an example of how social capital theory has been used to study university education in Ca n ada.

Box 2.6 – Immigrants and the Role of Social Capital in University Education

Abada and Tenkorang (2009) were interested in social capital’s impact on the pursuit of university education among immigrants in Ca n ada. Particularly, they wanted to examine how diffe r ent ethnic groups used different forms of social capital to their advantage. Social capital theorists tend to discuss social cap i tal in very broad terms, and therefore there are a lot of different ways of understanding what social capital actually is. Coleman emphasized the role of the family in providing s o cial support while Putnam focused on civic engagement (ties to the community). Abada and Tenkorang looked at the role of family characteristics (i n cluding how much of a sense of “family belonging” individuals had), the extent to which individuals participated in co m munity events, and how much trust they had for family members, people in their neighbou r hood, and people in their workplace. Abada and Tenkorang also argued that la n guage usage among friends could be thought of as s o cial capital, as speaking in one’s mother tongue may be u n derstood as maintaining ties among members of ethnic groups.

Abada and Tenkorang found that intergenerational relations in the family facilitated the pursuit of post-secondary education among immigrants, supporting Coleman’s idea for the importance of intergenerational closure (i.e., parents interacting with parents of other children) on achievement. In terms of minority language retention, however, the researchers found that this can actually inhibit academic achievement, suggesting that while it may have positive effects in connecting individuals to their communities, it may also prevent them from making connections with external social networks that lead to a larger variety of opportunities. The researchers also found that different aspects of social capital mattered more to different ethnic groups. In particular, trust was found to be much more important to the success of Black youth compared to the other ethnic groups examined. The researchers suggest that a chronic misunderstanding of this group’s culture by the education system has potentially led to a greater mistrust of school authorities, which may have made trust a key issue among Black youth.

Micro/Meso/Macro Aspects of Social Capital

Social capital, as described above, is unique in that it is one of the few concepts assoc i ated with sociology of education that is explicitly discussed in terms of its micro, meso, and macro aspects (see Figure 2. 4). Bourdieu discusses social capital as a characteristic that people have—their connections and networks. This is a micro- s ocial approach to social cap i tal. Putnam, on the other hand, speaks of social capital as it being a property of soci e ties— a very macrosocial approach. He also suggests the idea of bridging capital, which connects groups to each other—which is a mesosocial idea. Coleman, in contrast, speaks of social capital that emerges out of individual actions (e.g., the micro acts of pa r ents) that serves to create closer-knit communities (a macro effect). To Coleman (1987), the ability of ind i vidual effects to serve the public group was evidence of a m i cro–macro linkage.

At the macro level, society, there are collective values. At the meso level, community, there are intracommunity networks. At the micro level, individual, there are individual ties.

Social Mobility Approaches

Social mobility approaches within the sociology of education examine how social class positions influence the educational achievement and attainment of individuals. S o cial mobility refers to the ability of individuals to move from one social class to another. Much previous research has shown that social class background matters for educational achievement and attainment—this is not news. But how researchers approach this process does indeed vary considerably. Below, the approaches of Raymond Boudon and John Goldthorpe are considered.

French sociologist Raymond Boudon (b. 1934) identified what he called primary and seco n dary effects of class differentials on educational attainment (Boudon 1973). Primary effects are differences between classes and educational attainment that relate directly to academic performance. In other words, children from working-class families doing worse on standardized tests than their peers in the higher social classes would be considered a primary effect. Primary effects are dependent on characteristics of the family of origin, such as wealth, material conditions, and socialization.

Secondary effects , however, refer to the difference between the classes and educational attainment that relate to educational choices irrespective of educational performance. In a very simplistic example, a secondary effect would be if two individuals who were doing equally well at school were from opposite social classes and the working-class student decided to pursue an apprenticeship in the trades and the middle- or upper-class student decided to go to university. Unlike primary effects, secondary effects are entirely dependent upon choices made by individuals and their families. In a similar vein, many researchers have found that even when children from the working class perform at the same levels as middle- and upper-class children, they tend to have less ambitious educational goals (Jackson, Erikson, Goldthorpe, and Yaish 2007).

One assumption underlying the idea of secondary effects in Boudon’s theory is that children from the lower social classes have limited ambitions because they are socialized that way. Boudon (1981) argued that middle-class families had to encourage their own children to aspire to higher levels in order to simply maintain their status. Working-class children, however, may not be pushed as hard because the requirements to maintain the same social class is necessarily lower than for the middle classes. Researchers from around the world have asked how relevant primary and secondary effects are on the academic achievement of children. Nash (2005) found that in Canada, the secondary effects were found among high school students, showing that students who had high aspirations were likely to have higher grades and come from higher social origins. Nash also found, however, that these secondary effects on school achievement were relatively minor compared to overall primary effects.

Dutch researchers (Kloosterman, Ruiter, de Graaf, and Kraaykamp 2009) have also explored how primary and secondary effects impact on the transition to post-secondary education (i.e., beyond high school). They also explored whether secondary effects had diminished over time, given the emphasis placed on the importance of post-secondary credentials in Dutch culture. The authors found that in Dutch society, the importance of primary effects in determining educational inequality had grown between 1965 and 1999.

Similarly, Swedish (Erikson 2007) and British (Jackson et al. 2007) research has also found that the impact of primary effects on the transition to post-secondary education has significantly increased over time. In the Netherlands and Sweden, the lessened effect of secondary effects (and increase of primary effects) from the late 1960s to the 1990s were at a similar level, while in Britain the effect of primary characteristics was much greater. Overall, this suggests that cross-nationally, individual social backgrounds are at the root of educational inequality and that aspirations play a lesser, yet still important, role.

Goldthorpe and Associates

John Goldthorpe (b. 1935) changed British sociology in the 1970s when he and his colleagues embarked on an extensive study of social mobility in the UK. Conventional research in this vein focuses on intergenerational mobility between the social class positions. Social class positions are determined by characteristics of their occupations (or their fathers’ occupation). Goldthorpe and his colleagues are best known for their creation of this way of measuring and understanding social class, an idea that is more engrained in British culture—but is no less important in determining the life chances of individuals in Canada.

More recently, Goldthorpe (1996) and colleagues (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997) have been examining the role of social class and educational attainment in an approach that is inspired by Boudon’s. Specifically, Goldthorpe is interested in why individuals tend to stay in the same social class, despite popular belief that upward mobility is possible to anyone who desires it. Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) proposed a formal rational action theory of educational differentials that states that the differences we observe in educational attainment by social class is due to rational decisions made by individuals. Breen and Goldthorpe acknowledge that the secondary effects of social class do play an important role in explaining educational differentials by class, but strongly reject that this is due to influences of a “(sub)cultural kind . . . operating through class differences in values, norms or beliefs regarding education or through more obscure ‘subintentional’ pro-cesses” (p. 278). Rather, they argue, these differences come about through individuals rationally weighing the costs and benefits associated with pursuing additional education. People engage in a process of considering how likely they are to succeed at additional schooling, the associated tuition fees, the anticipated payoffs and time investments, and weigh these against potential alternatives. And all these factors themselves vary according to a person’s social class position. For example, someone from a working class background may decide it is simply not worth it to invest all the time and effort into a university degree when they will be saddled with the responsibility of repaying a huge student debt when they are done. Recent Canadian research by Caro, McDonald, and Willms (2009) has considered this theoretical position when examining the academic achievement of children in Canada. The authors found a gap between academic achievement and social class that increasingly widened as children got older.

Bronfenbrenner and Ecological Systems Theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) was the founder of ecological systems theory . As an educational psychologist, Bronfenbrenner made numerous contributions to American education policy during his life. Most significantly, he was co-founder of the Head Start program in the United States. Head Start began in 1965 as a set of educational, nutritional, health, and parental involvement intervention programs aimed at low-income children in the United States. 3 These programs stem from Bronfenbrenner’s theory about the nature of child development and how children are profoundly affected by various aspects of their environment. His ecological systems theory asserts that child outcomes are the results of the many reciprocal effects between the child and his or her environment. For example, how children are treated by parents and by their peers has a strong influence on their development. Children who are mistreated by their parents and bullied by their peers will have less favourable developmental outcomes than those who are raised in a positive and nurturing environment and get along well with other children.

The environment in which the child is raised has profound impacts on their outcomes as human beings in society. This is not limited, however, to just interactions with parents, peers, teachers, and family members. Bronfenbrenner theorized that a child’s environment had five distinct elements which interacted together and all had the potential to impact on a child’s development: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem . The micro, macro, and mesosystems relate very closely to the way microlevel , mesolevel , and macrolevel were defined earlier in this chapter. Microsystems refer to the immediate setting in which the individual lives and his or her individual experiences with family members, caregivers, friends, teachers, and others. The biological makeup of the child (including temperament) is also included in the microsystem. The mesosystem refers to how various microsystems connect to one another; so for example, mesosystems are concerned with how children’s interactions with their parents may carry over into how they interact with their teachers. The exosy s tem level contains people and places with which the child may not be directly involved yet still be impacted by. A child may not have any direct interaction with a parent’s workplace, but the outcomes of the interactions that occur there will have an impact on him or her. Parental job stress or job loss will definitely impact the child in terms of the parent’s disposition in the home (in the case of job stress) or the economic resources he or she can provide (in the case of job loss). Macrosystems concern the larger environment in which children live—urban or rural, developed or underdeveloped, democratic or non-democratic, multicultural or not, for example. The final system, the chronosystem , relates to the socio-historical changes and major events that influence the world. For example, the chronosystem is vastly different for people during a time of war than during a time of peace. The way that particular ethnicities are regarded during specific historical times is also a chronosystem feature. For example, the way that Aboriginals in Canada have been treated historically in Canada is part of the larger chronosystem of how they experience social life. How Muslims are regarded in post–September 11 North America is also part of the chronosystem.

As you can see, elements of all these systems work together to shape the development of children, and many of them are beyond the control of the parent. This theory recognizes that while parents have an important role in shaping the lives of their children, there are bigger, external forces over which they have no control, but which similarly impact on their child’s development. Figure 2.5 illustrates how these systems all relate to each other and different characteristics that comprise each system.

5 Circles increasing in size with the Individual Child in the centre. The remaining circles, from inside to outside, are: microsystem with mesosytem, exosystem, macrosystem, and the final, largest circle being chronosystem. The various groups and interactions from this section are shown visually.

The Healthy Families Project in Canada is an example of a policy that is based upon theoretical assertions made by ecological systems theory. The Healthy Families Project was an intervention that involved extensive home visitation to families who had children deemed to be at very high risk for future criminal behaviour. 4 The project was carried out in five test sites across the country between 2001 and 2004: three in Edmonton, one in Whitehorse, and one in Charlottetown. The goal of such interventions from an ecological systems perspective is to improve the environmental contexts of children, where possible, mostly targeted at improving parenting techniques. In terms of the effectiveness of the program, results indicated noticeable benefits of the intervention. In Prince Edward Island, for example, an increase in parents’ knowledge of child development and their child’s temperament were noted, although the intervention was not successful at improving family function overall (Elnitsky et al. 2003). They also found that the intervention was associated with a sharp drop in child welfare involvement, and was more effective overall with younger first-time parents.

Feminist Approaches

Feminist theory within the sociology of education is concerned with how gender produces differences in education, whether it concerns access to education, treatment in the classroom, achievement, or learning processes. Feminist theory and feminism in general has undergone tremendous shifts since its beginning in the late nineteenth century compared to how it is popularly understood in academic research today. There are three general “waves” that are associated with feminism (Gaskell 2009). First wave feminism is associated with the women’s rights and suffrage movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The concern of feminists of this generation was to achieve equal rights to men.

Second wave feminism, which occurred in the 1960s and extended into the early 1990s, focused on women’s equality, financial independence, women’s access to work, and sexual harassment. An important theoretical orientation that developed during this time period was standpoint theory, which is associated with the work of prominent Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith. Among her contributions to sociology, Smith is known for feminist standpoint theory , which calls for a sociology from the standpoint of women. Standpoint theory focuses on the settings, social relations, and activities of women that are their own lived realities. Unlike other feminist approaches that emphasize how sex roles shape the domination of women, standpoint theory focuses on how knowledge plays a central role in social domination of women and how a dearth of women’s voices in the construction of this knowledge contributes to oppression. In Mot h ering for Schooling, Griffith and Smith (2005) used a similar approach to show how mothers’ work in getting children ready for school, volunteering at schools, and helping with homework is necessary for the school system to function, but it also serves to hinder women in working for income. The authors show how this gendered labour is closely tied to the success or failure of children at school and how the school system depends on this invisible and uncompensated labour.

Having emerged in the early 1990s, third wave feminism is what is most commonly (but not exclusively) associated with feminist approaches in research today. Also known as critical feminism, third wave feminism is largely a response to the White middle-class focus of second wave feminism. Not only concerned with gender, third wave feminist scholarship also focuses on the intersection of race and class in producing inequality.

Box 2.7 – Examples of How Feminist Researchers Approach the Sociology of Education

Zine (2008) uses a feminist approach to study identity among Muslim girls at an Islamic school in Toronto. She notes how these girls construct a gendered and religious identity “within and against the dominant patriarchal discourses promoted in Islamic schools” (p. 35). Zine examines how the girls’ identities have been shaped by resisting the dominant Islamophobic discourses prevalent in mainstream society as well as the patriarchal discourses in parts of the Muslim community. The author highlights how these girls have multiple discourses of oppression that they resist when forming their identities.

Currie, Kelly, and Pomerantz (2007) studied teenage girls at a high school in Vancouver to illustrate how a discourse of “meanness” was used to maintain covert forms of power. Teenage girls reported how popularity was maintained through the use of relational aggression, which refers to subtle forms of aggression that are couched in “mean” gossip creation, “backstabbing,” being given the “silent treatment,” and being ridiculed and called names. The authors found that the girls described myriad unspoken rules about what constituted the right type of femininity, which involved interactions with boys and manners of dress. The authors stressed that this type of aggression is usually absent from discussion of girls’ aggression because it embedded in girls’ identities and is often invisible to teachers.

Often dubbed postmodern feminism , the critical feminist scholarship of third wave feminism frequently scrutinizes the meaning surrounding gender and how power relations play themselves out in subtle ways. The work included under critical feminist or postmodern studies in the sociology of education is incredibly varied. There is no single theory or theorist that can be associated with this perspective. Other feminist scholars (Dillabough and Acker 2008; McNay 2000) have adapted the work of major theorists, such as Bourdieu, so that they are more overtly focused on issues of gender. Many self-identified postmodern feminists draw on the work of Michel Foucault, a theorist associated with discourse anal y sis (and poststructuralism). Discourse refers to the way that a certain topic is talked about—the words, images, and emotions that are used when talking about something. Postmodern feminists who use a Foucauldian approach would be interested in examining how language is used to maintain gendered power relationships. Many critical feminist scholars draw upon the work of several theorists to fine-tune their particular theoretical orientation. Box 2.7 provides some examples of some recent Canadian critical feminist scholarship in the sociology of education.

Critical Race Theory

As suggested by the name, critical race theories put race at the centre of analysis, particularly when analyzing educational disadvantage. Critical race theory (CRT) has its roots in legal scholarship from the United States. Examination of the racialized nature of the law has been extended to examine how race is embedded in various aspects of social life, including education (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Tate 1997). Critical race theorists assert that inequalities experienced in education cannot be explained solely by theories of class or gender—that it is also race and the experience of being racialized that contributes to stratification of many aspects of social life, including education. In general, critical race theorists do not assert that race is the only thing that matters, but that race intersects with many other important factors that determine life chances, like class and gender. Like their predecessors studying law, critical race theorists examining education emerged from studying African Americans and school achievement. Acknowledging that gender and race do account for many differences observed in educational attainment, it still remained a fact that middle class African-Americans had significantly lower academic achievement than White Americans (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995).

Discourses and Cultural Hegemony

Critical race theory is not simply about overt racism. Scholars and educators—and most people in general—like to view themselves as nonracist. Critical race theorists examine the often very subtle ways that racism plays itself out in various social structures. In fact, they point to how racism has become “normal” in society (Ladson-Billings 1998). Their mandate is not simply to highlight race as a topic of study, but also to point to how traditional methods, texts, and paradigms, combined with race and class, contribute to discourses which impact upon communities of colour (Solorzano, Ceja, and Yosso 2000). There are dominant discourses in Canadian society which, critical race theorists argue, favour White culture. A very simple example is to look at how the topic of “family” is discussed in classrooms. A curriculum that is based upon North American “White” culture may assume that “family” means two parents (a male and a female) and their children. When teachers are discussing “the family,” this may be what they are assuming everyone understands and experiences in their home life. If, however, a child comes from a different background where “family” constitutes an extended family or even an entire community, he or she would be subject to a dominant discourse that does not reflect his or her lived reality. See Box 2.8 for an additional example of how discursive practices influence curriculum.

Box 2.8 – Canada the Redeemer: Discourse and the Understanding of Canadian History

Schick and St. Denis (2005) describe how curriculum is a major discourse through which White privilege is maintained. Drawing on the term “Canada the Redeemer,” coined by Roman and Stanley in 1997, they argue that curriculum has normalized Whiteness by creating a national mythology around the history of Canada. In particular, the discourse that is perpetuated is one that characterizes Canada as being “fair.” The intentionally ironic phrase “Canada the Redeemer” refers to the discourse that surrounds Canadian culture as being perhaps a “little bit racist” but “nowhere as bad as the United States,” and that Canada “saves” people from racism and provides a safe haven. The mainstream discourse of Canadian culture tends to emphasize that Canada is a peaceful and multicultural society and that early pioneers’ hardships and toil tamed the land into what we enjoy today. Shick and St. Denis argue that this discourse favours a particular “White” perspective and reveals only a very specific view of how Canada originated—one that is highly debatable, particularly if the perspective of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples are taken into account.

Schick and St. Denis argue that Whiteness as the dominant cultural reference is embedded in everyday taken-for-granted “knowledge”—so much so that it in effect becomes invisible and permeates all aspects of curriculum. White students may believe that hard work and meritocracy allowed their ancestors to earn their place in society, but this fails to acknowledge that racist policies limiting Aboriginal education actually enabled the success of White students. Canadian history curriculum has traditionally taught that Canada was particularly generous to White European settlers, “giving away” land to these newcomers. Such a historical discourse fails to recognize that this free land was originally taken by violent and coercive means from the original inhabitants. The authors, speaking about the discourse surrounding Canada’s national identity, state that “one point of pride about how Canada is different from the United States depends on the construction of an egalitarian, not racist, national self-image. There is a great deal at stake in keeping this mythology intact” (p. 308). The authors suggest that it is necessary that anti-racist pedagogies are promoted within the classroom. These ways of teaching students specifically address the taken-for-granted, day-to-day practices of how White identities are produced and maintained. Antiracist pedagogies specifically confront the notion of “White culture” being normative and “natural” and reconceptualize these assumptions as being a major force in the perpetuation of subtle forms of racism.

The idea of cultural power also relates back to Italian sociologist Antonio Gramsci, who popularized the term hegemony (Gramsci, Hoare, and Smith 1971). While Gramsci himself was associated with Marxism, aspects of his writings on power relationships have been useful for critical race theorists and feminist scholars alike. Cultural hege m ony refers to popular beliefs and values in a culture that reflect the ideology of powerful members of society. In turn, these values are used to legitimate existing social structures and relationships. It is a form of power used by one group over another, largely by consensus. The widely accepted definition of the family described above would fit into this category of cultural hegemony in Canada. Cultural hegemony also exists, to a much larger extent, in the dominance of “Whiteness” and White values in much of Canadian society. Pidgeon (2008) has written about how the typical Canadian definition of “success” in post-secondary education refers to finishing a program and making financial gains as a result. Success, however, for Aboriginal students means something much more complex. According to Pidgeon, “Success in university for many Aboriginal nations means more than matriculating through prescribed curriculum to graduation. The benefits of university-trained Indigenous peoples extend beyond financial outcomes. Higher education is valued for capacity building within Aboriginal nations toward their goals of self-government and self-determination. Higher education is also connected to empowerment of self and community, decolonization and self-determination” (2008:340). The author argues that counter-hegemonic discourses around the notion of success must be entertained by university officials to improve Aboriginal student retention.

Racialization

Racialization is the process by which various groups are differentially organized in the social order (Dei 2009). These groups exist within hierarchies of power that value the identity and characteristics of one group over all others. According to CRT, “Whiteness” and the culture surrounding Whites is prioritized in our culture, and various social institutions, including those responsible for education, embrace those values (whether they acknowledge it or not) which place racialized individuals at an inherent disadvantage. White privilege is embedded in a discursive practice that legitimizes hierarchies that are based on race (Schick and St. Denis 2005). An important task for teachers, students, administrators, and researchers is to question how the privilege associated with Whiteness keeps existing power positions in place. See Box 2.9 for additional discussion of Whiteness.

If White culture is understood as the “norm,” and the practices and beliefs from this culture are embedded in the curriculum of our places of education, students from non-White backgrounds will be at a disadvantage in variety of ways. First, their own cultural knowledge and practices are, by default, considered illegitimate at worst, or “weird” or “exotic” at best. Second, they are made to adapt to White culture in order to succeed. In the words of Ladson-Billings (1998:18), they are made to follow a curriculum based upon a “White supremacist master script.” Third, teaching strategies developed from the dominant culture may fail with racialized students, thus labelling such students as “high risk.”

Box 2.9 – What Is Meant by “Whiteness”?

Critical race theorists speak a lot about “Whiteness.” But what is Whiteness? Is it appearance? is it a race? or a culture? How should we understand Whiteness? Within CRT, Whiteness refers to people who are phenotypically (i.e., appear as) Caucasian and have experienced the socialization of living in a culture where they are the dominant group. Whiteness implies the general shared value and cultural experiences of Caucasians in Canada as the dominant group. Their values and ways of thinking are the default for “normal” in Canadian society and for all societies where colonialism has resulted in racial inequality. In a qualitative study of White student teachers, Solomon, Portelli, Daniel, and Campbell (2005) illustrate how they resisted and downplayed their own racial identities. They tended to argue that their successes in life were due to merit and hard work alone and that White privilege did not exist in Canadian society. Many voiced hostility at the suggestion that their achievements were the outcome of anything but their own diligence. It is not surprising that many student teachers reacted to the suggestion that they possessed “White privilege” (and that this permeated into areas of their lives and clouded their judgment) with some degree of hostility. Indeed, anti-racist educators have identified this as an uncomfortable yet necessary stage of anti-racist pedagogy (McIntyre 1997; Schick and St. Denis 2005; Solomon et al. 2005).

Millington, Vertinsky, Boyle, and Wilson (2008) used a critical race approach in their examination of Chinese-Canadian masculinities and physical education (PE) curriculum in Vancouver, British Columbia. The authors examined how, historically, Chinese boys are stereotyped as “unmanly” by White boys, as they are characterized as studious and passive. The authors note how this specific definition of masculinity prevailed in a Vancouver high school. This White, middle-class definition of masculinity was realized through the rewarding of physically aggressive performances in PE class by these males and by their physical and verbal intimidation of the Chinese-Canadian males. The researchers noted how the types of games played in the PE curriculum—like football and dodgeball—rewarded this kind of behaviour, while marginalizing the Chinese-Canadian boys. Furthermore, the teachers did not see these unfolding dynamics as acts of racism, although they had a key role in facilitating such hegemonic masculinities.

In contrast, Levine-Rasky (2008) uses CRT in an analysis of a neighbourhood school referred to as Pinecrest, within a large Canadian city. From the 1960s to the late 1980s, the school that served a particular area was comprised of a relatively homogenous student body which reflected the make-up of the neighbourhood—Jewish from a high socioeconomic background. Starting in the 1990s, a neighbouring community that was made up largely of new immigrants was beginning to grow. As a result, children from the neighbouring community started attending Pinecrest, eventually resulting in a stark shift in the demographic of the school. Levine-Rasky spoke to parents in the neighbourhood, many of whom themselves attended Pinecrest as children, to see if they sent their own children there. Nearly half of their own children who were entitled to attend Pinecrest (due to the catchment area) did not. The author explored the reasons these parents had for sending their children elsewhere and found that many of these parents were engaged in maintaining their “Whiteness” and “middle-classness.” Rather than being overtly racist or ethnocentric, the parents often indicated their reservations stemmed from their belief that immigrant children may somehow disrupt the educational process by requiring disproportionate attention or having parents who did not understand the value of education.

An important extension of critical race theory is anti-racist pedagogy, which refers to classroom techniques and curricular approaches that address racialization. This will be covered in Chapter 5.

Chapter Summary

In this chapter, several theoretical perspectives have been described, all of which have application to the study of the sociology of education. The chapter began by introducing theoretical terminology that is embedded within many theoretical perspectives: macro-social theory, microsocial theory, mesosocial theory, middle range theory, agency/structure, and ontology and epistemology. The first theoretical perspective that was discussed was structural functionalism, which is associated with the work of Émile Durkheim, and later, Talcott Parsons. The critical perspective of Karl Marx, which emphasizes the idea of social class and conflict between classes, and those who were influenced by Marxist theory (neo-Marxists) were then discussed, as was the linkage between Marxism and critical pedagogy. The next classical theorist considered was Max Weber, as well as the neo-Weberians, who emphasized the idea of credentialism within the sociology of education.

Meyer’s institutional theory was next introduced, which juxtaposes the democratic entitlement to education with the “loose coupling” that such education actually serves in the job market. The microsocial approaches of symbolic interaction and phenomenology were then briefly addressed. Next, theories focused on the reproduction of culture were considered. Social capital was also introduced, and it was shown that social capital can be understood as macro-, meso-, and microtheoretical theoretical concept. Theorists that regard education as a major component of social mobility were then discussed, with emphasis placed on the notion of “primary” and “secondary” effects.

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory understood the process of child development (and hence the role of education) as being influenced from several spheres (i.e., systems) that interacted with each other to contribute to children’s life chances. The chapter ended with newer contributions from feminist and critical race theorists, who prioritize gender and race in their understanding of educational processes and practices in Canada.

Some approaches, like functionalism and Marxism/neo-Marxism, described the overarching nature of society, while others like symbolic interaction and phenomenology emphasized that subjective meaning was core to understanding social processes. Other theories occupied a middle range, focusing only on trying to explain distinct aspects of social life, like the social mobility approaches and their attention to the relationship between social class and educational attainment. Each theoretical perspective has its own strengths and weaknesses and the prominence of many fades as new theories develop.

When considering a particular topic area in the sociology of education, one should think about the particular theoretical perspective(s) that would be appropriate to explore it. Some will be more fitting than others. An interest in how students experience racism in the classroom, for example, is probably best addressed through the use of critical race theory while structural functionalism probably will not be helpful here. Questions around how society reproduces itself through subtle means can be approached from the perspective of the cultural and social reproduction theories that have been presented—but institutional theory or symbolic interaction probably will not be much help. A researcher must also consider his or her own beliefs about the nature of reality. What is given priority, agency or structure? What bridges the two? In terms of ontology, is meaning all essentially subjective, or is it that scientists have the task of uncovering objective facts? These are not at all easy issues to resolve and have engaged philosophers and social theorists for centuries. But all these preconceptions influence what social theories will make their way into sociology of education research.

Review Questions

1. Define what is meant by macrosocial , microsocial , mesosocial , and middle-range theories .

2. Explain why ontology, epistemology, agency, and structure are important underlying concepts within the theories of the sociology of education.

3. What is meant by structural functionalism ? Who are two major theorists associated with this approach and what is the difference between their approaches?

4. Define Marxism in terms of how it relates to the sociology of education. What is neo-Marxism? Who are some key neo-Marxists within the sociology of education and what are their contributions?

5. What are Weber’s main contributions to the sociology of education? What major terms have neo-Weberians added to discussions in sociology of education?

6. Define symbolic interactionism . How is it different from phenomenology?

7. According to cultural reproduction theory and social mobility approaches, what are the underlying forces that shape educational outcomes?

8. Identify and define the “systems” within ecological systems theory and how they relate to one another.

9. What is meant by “waves” of feminism? What is meant by postmodern feminism ?

10. According to critical race theory, what is meant by racialization ? What is meant by “ Whiteness” ?

Communicate where five theorists discussed in this chapter fit on the spectrum. Explain the rationale behind your placements.
How are Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Boudon’s idea of secondary effects similar and how are they different?
How is “Whiteness,” as described by critical race theorists, also related to habitus and to cultural hegemony ?
Select three theorists and explain how they attempt to link agency and structure.
How would Marx, Bourdieu, Boudon, and Goldthorpe explain the differences behind educational attainment by social class?
Look on the internet for information about intervention programs that have been informed by ecological systems theory, including the programs mentioned in the chapter. What were the programs? How were they informed by ecological systems theory? Were they effective?
Look up the phrase “the myth of meritocracy.” What does it mean? Where does it come from? How can it be applied to the theories that have been discussed in this chapter?
What topics would you be interested in studying in the sociology of education? What theoretical position(s) would be most appealing to your interests and why? Discuss in groups.
Using sociological abstracts through e-resources in your university or college library, find a recent journal article on education that considers more than one theoretical approach. Which theories does the author(s) use? Which aspects of the theories are considered? Were the theories supported by findings? Why or why not?
Think about your experiences in the education system up to this point. From the perspective of a postmodern feminist or critical race theorist, can you identify any instances of cultural hegemony? Have you experienced any curriculum, for example, that you recognize as promoting a hegemonic view, whether it be gendered and/or racist?

bonding capital

bridging capital

bureaucracy

chronosystem

correspondence principle

credential inflation

credentialism

critical race theory (CRT)

cultural capital

cultural hegemony

cultural reproduction

ecological systems theory

economic capital

epistemology

feminist standpoint theory

hidden curriculum

institutional theory

interpretivism

macrosocial theory

macrosystems

mesosocial theory

microsocial theory

microsystems

middle-range theory

phenomenology

postmodern feminism

poststructuralism

primary effects

racialization

rationalization

resistance theory

secondary effects

social capital

social mobility

state ideological apparatus

status groups

structural functionalism

symbolic interaction theory

Refers to the individual’s ability to act and make independent choices.

Refers to aspects of the social landscape that appear to limit or influence the choices made by individuals.

A body of theories that understand the world as a large system of interrelated parts that all work together.

The social structures that reproduce the social order of the ruling class in Althusser’s theory of ideology; the education system, along with religion, the law, the media are the forces within this apparatus.

The idea that the education system is set up to serve (or correspond to) the class-based system so that classes are reproduced and so that elites maintain their positions.

The method by which schools are able to reproduce the class system; the subtle ways that students are taught to be co-operative members of the class system.

The general philosophy of teaching that recognizes and attempts to rid the classroom and teacher–student interactions of relationships and practices that perpetuate inequalities.

A reinterpretation of rule breaking or delinquency as acts of class-based resistance in which marginalized students do not comply with the values, discipline, and expected behaviours of middle-class school structures; resisting behaviours also serve to reproduce class position—preventing the acquisition of the skills and training required for jobs outside the realm of manual labour.

The process in which society became more secular, scientific knowledge began to develop, and an increasing reliance on scientific and technological explanations began to emerge and more and more social actions were the outcome of beliefs related to scientific thought instead of customs or religious belief.

An administrative structure that follows a clear hierarchical structure and follows very specific rules and chains of command.

An identifier that serves to divide society into groups with competing interests; associated with honour and privilege, independent of class membership.

Moral communities concerned with upholding the privilege of their members in society; membership is often limited based on credentials and such groups work against class unification by cutting across classes.

The requirement of obtaining specific qualifications for membership in particular groups; the actual skills obtained through these credentials are often not explicitly associated with the job’s task.

The decreasing value of the expected advantage associated with educational qualifications over time; for example, the notion that a bachelor’s degree is now equivalent to what a high school diploma used to be.

The notion that the expansion in education is related to the democratic belief in the good of expanding education rather than actual demand for the levels of training.

A theory that asserts that the world is constructed through meanings that individuals attach to social interactions.

A branch of philosophy that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

A wide collection of theories reacting to structural functionalism that favour the importance of social structures in explanation of social life over individual action; associated with the writings of French philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, whose only main agreement was that structuralism was flawed.

A term associated with the work of Pierre Bourdieu that refers to the high-status cultural knowledge possessed by individuals that is acquired by experience and familiarity with high-culture activities, such as going to the opera, ballet, or theatre as well as the appreciation of art, literature, and classical music and theatre attendance.

The process by which cultural capital is maintained in which high status classes reward individuals who exhibit the traits and possess the knowledge of the upper class, therefore maintaining their power.

Characteristics that are quickly and relatively easily converted into money, such as educational attainment, job skills, and job experience.

The networks and individual relationships that potentially lead to access to resources.

A type of social capital that is “exclusive” in the sense that it occurs within established groups in order to reinforce group solidarity.

A type of social capital that is “inclusive” in that it is used for information diffusion and linkage to other groups.

The ability of individuals to move from one social class to another.

According to Boudon, the differences between classes and educational attainment that relate directly to academic performance; dependent on characteristics of the family of origin, such as wealth, material conditions, and socialization.

According to Boudon, the differences between the classes and educational attainment that relate to educational choices irrespective of educational performance, such as choosing apprenticeship over university, regardless of achievement in secondary school.

A theory by Bronfenbrenner that asserts that child outcomes are the results of the many reciprocal effects between the child and his or her environment; for example, how children are treated by parents and by their peers has a strong influence on their development.

In ecological systems theory, the ways in which various microsystems connect to one another; for example, how children’s interactions with their parents may carry over into how they interact with their teachers.

In ecological systems theory, the people and places with which individuals may not be directly involved but by which they are still impacted; for example, the effect a parent’s workplace may have on a child.

In ecological systems theory, the larger environment in which individuals live—urban or rural, developed or underdeveloped, democratic or non-democratic, multicultural or not, for example.

In ecological systems theory, the socio-historical changes and major events that influence the world.

A theory that calls for a sociology from the standpoint of women and focusing on the settings, social relations, and activities of women that are their own lived realities.

The critical feminist scholarship of third wave feminism that frequently scrutinizes the meaning surrounding gender and how power relations play themselves out in subtle ways.

A theory that puts race at the centre of analysis and examines how race is embedded in various aspects of social life, including education; does not assert that race is the only thing that matters, but that race intersects with many other important factors that determine life chances, such as class and gender.

The popular beliefs and values in a culture that reflect the ideology of powerful members of society; these values are used to legitimate existing social structures and relationships.

The process by which various groups are differentially organized in the social order and exist within hierarchies of power that value the identity and characteristics of one group over all others.

A branch of philosophy that studies knowledge, including how we pursue knowledge.

The belief that how we understand society is fundamentally different from the natural sciences and that it is wholly inappropriate to study society in similar manners; contrary to positivism.

A theory that focuses on society at the level of social structures and populations; also often referred to as grand theories.

A theory that occupies a position between the macro and micro, directing its attentions to the rule of social organizations and social institutions in society, such as schools and communities.

A theory focused on individuals and individual action, such as the individual experiences of students.

In ecological systems theory, immediate setting in which the individual lives and his or her individual experiences with family members, caregivers, friends, teachers, and others; also includes the biological makeup of the individual.

A theory that focuses on specific aspects of social life and sociological topics that can be tested with empirical hypotheses.

A branch of philosophy that considers the way we understand the nature of reality.

The belief that the social world should be studied in a similar manner to the scientific world; contrary to interpretivism.

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Department of Sociology

Education and Society

Schools and colleges are transforming the lives of individual learners and their families. They play a core role in society. At the same time, they are continuously transformed by politics, markets, and scientific, technological, and cultural change. Sociologists of education and higher education at Harvard are engaged in basic and applied research, both contemporary and historical, and focusing on the United States as well as on cross-national and cross-cultural analyses. The broad array of research in this cluster applies core sociological concepts, such as equity and (in)equality; race and ethnicity; social networks; immigration; stratification; organizations; culture; social mobility; socialization and others to the study of education. The research cluster has links to the Graduate School of Education (GSE), the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Education, the Secondary Field in Education Studies and the Mahindra Seminar on Universities: Past, Present and Future.

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Max Weber, Education, and the Rise of Modern Societies

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First Online: 01 March 2024
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Ma. Glenda Lopez Wui 2 &
Enrique Niño P. Leviste 2

Max Weber is one of the founders of modern sociology. Sociologists study the social processes that produce, sustain, or reform education. This chapter features Weber’s insights on education within the context of social processes related to the modern capitalist society. It discusses the following themes: role of education in structuring social order; rationalization, bureaucratization, and credentialism; education as academic and political calling; and social action in education. Weber extended the Marxist emphasis on economic structure as the basis for group stratification to include the spheres of status and party. Neo-Weberians illustrated the function of education in structuring stratification in the domains of class, status, and party. Weber was critical of the social order brought forth by the modern capitalist society, which is governed by rationality characterized by efficiency and institutionalized regularity of action. In line with rationality, bureaucratization was developed to proficiently manage organizations. However, bureaucratization’s segmentation and de-personalization of the work process negatively impact worker’s autonomy and creativity. Credentialism, which helps advance bureaucratization, created a system of social closure where only individuals with specific education credentials obtain positions in organizations. Amid the social pathologies created by the modern capitalist system, Weber highlighted the academia’s moral responsibility to use science to investigate and produce solutions to social problems. This chapter also examines the implications of Weber’s ideas on rationalization and secularization on religious education and on social action emphasizing the meanings attributed by actors to their actions with respect to education research. Weber’s insights inspired further investigations into various education-related concerns.

Rationalization
Bureaucratization
Credentialism
Social action

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Wui, M.G.L., Leviste, E.N.P. (2024). Max Weber, Education, and the Rise of Modern Societies. In: Geier, B.A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Thinkers . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81037-5_116-2

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14.1: The Sociology of Education

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Explain the different views held by functionalist, conflict, and interactionist sociologist with regards to education.
Describe some of the issues affecting American education system.

Universal Generalizations

Every society has developed a system education to ensure its new members become functioning members of society.
The basic function of education is to teach children the knowledge and skills they will need in the world.
For societies to survive, they must transmit the core values of their culture to the following generations.
Education is used throughout societies to socialize their young to support their communities’ own social and political systems.
Schools help to teach socially acceptable forms of behavior.
All societies must have some system for identifying and training he young people who will do the important work of society in the future.
Most Americans believe education is the key to social mobility and possible economic success.
Since the foundation of the United States, education has been highly valued.

Guiding Questions

How do we learn what it means to be an American?
What is the purpose of education?
How does education influence society?
What is the difference between formal and informal education?
What is the functionalist view on education?
What is the conflict perspective on education?
How do sociologists view education using the interactionist view?

The Sociology of Education

Students standing on the grounds of a high school or college campus.

From the moment a child is born, his or her education begins. At first, education is an informal process in which an infant watches others and imitates them. As the infant grows into a young child, the process of education becomes more formal through play dates and preschool. Once in grade school, academic lessons become the focus of education as a child moves through the school system. But even then, education is about much more than the simple learning of facts.

Our education system also socializes us to our society. We learn cultural expectations and norms, which are reinforced by our teachers, our textbooks, and our classmates. (For students outside the dominant culture, this aspect of the education system can pose significant challenges.) You might remember learning your multiplication tables in second grade and also learning the social rules of taking turns on the swings at recess. You might recall learning about the U.S. Constitution in an American Government course as well as learning when and how to speak up in class.

Schools also can be agents of change, teaching individuals to think outside of the family norms into which they were born. Educational environments can broaden horizons and even help to break cycles of poverty and racism.

Of course, America’s schools are often criticized—for not producing desired test results, or for letting certain kids slip through the cracks. In all, sociologists understand education to be both a social problem and a social solution.

Education in the United States

Education is the social institution through which a society teaches its members the skills, knowledge, norms, and values they need to learn to become good, productive members of their society. As this definition makes clear, education is an important part of socialization. Education is both formal and informal . Formal education is often referred to as schooling , and as this term implies, it occurs in schools under teachers, principals, and other specially trained professionals. Informal educationmay occur almost anywhere, but for young children it has traditionally occurred primarily in the home, with their parents as their instructors. Day care has become an increasingly popular venue in industrial societies for young children’s instruction, and education from the early years of life is thus more formal than it used to be.

The major sociological perspectives on education fall nicely into the functional, conflict, and symbolic interactionist approaches (Ballantine & Hammack, 2009).Ballantine, J. H., & Hammack, F. M. (2009). The sociology of education: A systematic analysis (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. "Theory Snapshot" summarizes what these approaches say.

Theory Snapshot

The functions of education.

The Functionalist Perspective on Education

Manifest Functions

Latent Functions

Functionalists recognize other ways that schools educate and enculturate students. One of the most important American values students in the United States learn is that of individualism—the valuing of the individual over the value of groups or society as a whole. In countries such as Japan and China, where the good of the group is valued over the rights of the individual, students do not learn as they do in the United States that the highest rewards go to the “best” individual in academics as well as athletics. One of the roles of schools in the United States is fostering self-esteem; conversely, schools in Japan focus on fostering social esteem—the honoring of the group over the individual.

Conflict Theory on Education

Conflict theorists do not believe that public schools reduce social inequality. Rather, they believe that the educational system reinforces and perpetuates social inequalities arising from differences in class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Where functionalists see education as serving a beneficial role, conflict theorists view it more negatively. To them, educational systems preserve the status quo and push people of lower status into obedience.

The fulfillment of one’s education is closely linked to social class. Students of low socioeconomic status are generally not afforded the same opportunities as students of higher status, no matter how great their academic ability or desire to learn. Picture a student from a working-class home who wants to do well in school. On a Monday, he’s assigned a paper that’s due Friday. Monday evening, he has to babysit his younger sister while his divorced mother works. Tuesday and Wednesday, he works stocking shelves after school until 10:00 p.m. By Thursday, the only day he might have available to work on that assignment, he’s so exhausted he can’t bring himself to start the paper. His mother, though she’d like to help him, is so tired herself that she isn’t able to give him the encouragement or support he needs. And since English is her second language, she has difficulty with some of his educational materials. They also lack a computer and printer at home, which most of his classmates have, so they have to rely on the public library or school system for access to technology. As this story shows, many students from working class families have to contend with helping out at home, contributing financially to the family, poor study environments and a lack of support from their families. This is a difficult match with education systems that adhere to a traditional curriculum that is more easily understood and completed by students of higher social classes.

Education and Inequality

Conflict theory does not dispute most of the functions just described. However, it does give some of them a different slant and talks about various ways in which education perpetuates social inequality (Hill, Macrine, & Gabbard, 2010; Liston, 1990).Hill, D., Macrine, S., & Gabbard, D. (Eds.). (2010). Capitalist education: Globalisation and the politics of inequality . New York, NY: Routledge; Liston, D. P. (1990). Capitalist schools: Explanation and ethics in radical studies of schooling . New York, NY: Routledge. One example involves the function of social placement. As most schools track their students starting in grade school, the students thought by their teachers to be bright are placed in the faster tracks (especially in reading and arithmetic), while the slower students are placed in the slower tracks; in high school, three common tracks are the college track, vocational track, and general track.

To conflict theorists, schools play the role of training working class students to accept and retain their position as lower members of society. They argue that this role is fulfilled through the disparity of resources available to students in richer and poorer neighborhoods as well as through testing (Lauen and Tyson 2008).

Conflict theorists also say that schooling teaches a hidden curriculum , by which they mean a set of values and beliefs that support the status quo, including the existing social hierarchy (Booher-Jennings, 2008) Booher-Jennings, J. (2008). Learning to label: Socialisation, gender, and the hidden curriculum of high-stakes testing. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29 , 149–160. Although no one plots this behind closed doors, our schoolchildren learn patriotic values and respect for authority from the books they read and from various classroom activities.

Interactionist Perspective on Education

Symbolic interactionist studies of education examine social interaction in the classroom, on the playground, and in other school venues. These studies help us understand what happens in the schools themselves, but they also help us understand how what occurs in school is relevant for the larger society. Some studies, for example, show how children’s playground activities reinforce gender-role socialization. Girls tend to play more cooperative games, while boys play more competitive sports (Thorne, 1993)Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Research also shows that teachers’ views about students can affect how much the students learn. When teachers think students are smart, they tend to spend more time with them, to call on them, and to praise them when they give the right answer. Not surprisingly these students learn more because of their teachers’ behavior. But when teachers think students are less bright, they tend to spend less time with them and act in a way that leads the students to learn less. One of the first studies to find this example of a self-fulfilling prophecy was conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968).Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom . New York, NY: Holt. They tested a group of students at the beginning of the school year and told their teachers which students were bright and which were not. They tested the students again at the end of the school year; not surprisingly the bright students had learned more during the year than the less bright ones. But it turned out that the researchers had randomly decided which students would be designated bright and less bright. Because the “bright” students learned more during the school year without actually being brighter at the beginning, their teachers’ behavior must have been the reason. In fact, their teachers did spend more time with them and praised them more often than was true for the “less bright” students. To the extent this type of self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, it helps us understand why tracking is bad for the students tracked down.

Other research focuses on how teachers treat girls and boys. Several studies from the 1970s through the 1990s found that teachers call on boys more often and praise them more often (American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, 1998; Jones & Dindia, 2004).American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. (1998). Gender gaps: Where schools still fail our children . Washington, DC: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation; Jones, S. M., & Dindia, K. (2004). A meta-analystic perspective on sex equity in the classroom. Review of Educational Research, 74 , 443–471. Teachers did not do this consciously, but their behavior nonetheless sent an implicit message to girls that math and science are not for girls and that they are not suited to do well in these subjects. This body of research stimulated efforts to educate teachers about the ways in which they may unwittingly send these messages and about strategies they could use to promote greater interest and achievement by girls in math and science (Battey, Kafai, Nixon, & Kao, 2007).Battey, D., Kafai, Y., Nixon, A. S., & Kao, L. L. (2007). Professional development for teachers on gender equity in the sciences: Initiating the conversation. Teachers College Record, 109 (1), 221–243.

Key Takeaways

According to the functional perspective, education helps socialize children and prepare them for their eventual entrance into the larger society as adults.
The conflict perspective emphasizes that education reinforces inequality in the larger society.
The symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on social interaction in the classroom, on school playgrounds, and at other school-related venues. Social interaction contributes to gender-role socialization, and teachers’ expectations may affect their students’ performance.

Education in the United States is a massive social institution involving millions of people and billions of dollars. About 75 million people, almost one-fourth of the U.S. population, attend school at all levels. This number includes 40 million in grades pre-K through 8, 16 million in high school, and 19 million in college (including graduate and professional school). They attend some 132,000 elementary and secondary schools and about 4,200 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities and are taught by about 4.8 million teachers and professors (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Statistical abstract of the United States: 2010 . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Retrieved from www.census.gov/compendia/statab Education is a huge social institution.

Correlates of Educational Attainment

About 65% of U.S. high school graduates enroll in college the following fall. This is a very high figure by international standards, as college in many other industrial nations is reserved for the very small percentage of the population who pass rigorous entrance exams. They are the best of the brightest in their nations, whereas higher education in the United States is open to all who graduate high school. Even though that is true, our chances of achieving a college degree are greatly determined at birth, as social class and race/ethnicity have a significant effect on access to college. They affect whether students drop out of high school, in which case they do not go on to college; they affect the chances of getting good grades in school and good scores on college entrance exams; they affect whether a family can afford to send its children to college; and they affect the chances of staying in college and obtaining a degree versus dropping out. For these reasons, educational attainment depends heavily on family income and race and ethnicity.

Figure 14.1.6 "Race, Ethnicity, and High School Dropout Rate, 16–24-Year-Olds, 2007" shows how race and ethnicity affect dropping out of high school. The dropout rate is highest for Latinos and Native Americans and lowest for Asians and whites. One way of illustrating how income and race/ethnicity affect the chances of achieving a college degree is to examine the percentage of high school graduates who enroll in college immediately following graduation. As Figure 14.1.7 "Family Income and Percentage of High School Graduates Who Attend College Immediately After Graduation, 2007" shows, students from families in the highest income bracket are more likely than those in the lowest bracket to attend college. For race/ethnicity, it is useful to see the percentage of persons 25 or older who have at least a 4-year college degree. As Figure 14.1.8 "Race, Ethnicity, and Percentage of Persons 25 or Older With a 4-Year College Degree, 2008" shows, this percentage varies significantly, with African Americans and Latinos least likely to have a degree.

Why do African Americans and Latinos have lower educational attainment? Two factors are commonly cited: (a) the underfunded and otherwise inadequate schools that children in both groups often attend and (b) the higher poverty of their families and lower education of their parents that often leave them ill-prepared for school even before they enter kindergarten (Ballantine & Hammack, 2009; Yeung & Pfeiffer, 2009).Ballantine, J. H., & Hammack, F. M. (2009). The sociology of education: A systematic analysis (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; Yeung, W.-J. J., & Pfeiffer, K. M. (2009). The black-white test score gap and early home environment. Social Science Research, 38 (2), 412–437.

Issues in Education

As schools strive to fill a variety of roles in their students’ lives, many issues and challenges arise. Students walk a minefield of bullying, violence in schools, the results of declining funding, plus other problems that affect their education. When Americans are asked about their opinion of public education on the Gallup poll each year, reviews are mixed at best (Saad 2008). Schools are no longer merely a place for learning and socializing. With the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling in 1954, schools became a repository of much political and legal action that is at the heart of several issues in education.

Equal Education

Until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, schools had operated under the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which allowed racial segregation in schools and private businesses (the case dealt specifically with railroads) and introduced the much maligned phrase “separate but equal” into the United States lexicon. The 1954 Brown v. Board decision overruled this, declaring that state laws that had established separate schools for black and white students were, in fact, unequal and unconstitutional.

While the ruling paved the way toward civil rights, it was also met with contention in many communities. In Arkansas in 1957, the governor mobilized the state National Guard to prevent black students from entering Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower, in response, sent members of the 101st Airborne Division from Kentucky to uphold the students’ right to enter the school. In 1963, almost ten years after the ruling, Governor George Wallace of Alabama used his own body to block two black students from entering the auditorium at the University of Alabama to enroll in the school. Wallace’s desperate attempt to uphold his policy of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” stated during his 1963 inauguration (PBS 2000) became known as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door.” He refused to grant entry to the students until a general from the Alabama National Guard arrived on President Kennedy’s order.

Armed National Guardsmen escorting black students up the outside stairs of a brick high school building.

Presently, students of all races and ethnicities are permitted into schools, but there remains a troubling gap in the equality of education they receive. The long-term socially embedded effects of racism—and other discrimination and disadvantage—have left a residual mark of inequality in the nation’s education system. Students from wealthy families and those of lower socioeconomic status do not receive the same opportunities.

Today’s public schools, at least in theory, are positioned to help remedy those gaps. Predicated on the notion of universal access, this system is mandated to accept and retain all students regardless of race, religion, social class, and the like. Moreover, public schools are held accountable to equitable per-student spending (Resnick 2004). Private schools, usually only accessible to students from high-income families, and schools in more affluent areas generally enjoy access to greater resources and better opportunities. In fact, some of the key predictors for student performance include socioeconomic status and family background. Children from families of lower socioeconomic status often enter school with learning deficits they struggle to overcome throughout their educational tenure. These patterns, uncovered in the landmark Coleman Report of 1966, are still highly relevant today, as sociologists still generally agree that there is a great divide in the performance of white students from affluent backgrounds and their non-white, less affluent, counterparts (Coleman 1966).

No Child Left Behind

In 2001, the Bush administration passed the No Child Left Behind Act , which requires states to test students in designated grades. The results of those tests determine eligibility to receive federal funding. Schools that do not meet the standards set by the Act run the risk of having their funding cut. Sociologists and teachers alike have contended that the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act is far more negative than positive, arguing that a “one size fits all” concept cannot apply to education.

Bilingual Education

New issues of inequality have entered the national conversation in recent years with the issue of bilingual education, which attempts to give equal opportunity to minority students through offering instruction in languages other than English. Though it is actually an old issue (bilingual education was federally mandated in 1968), it remains one of hot debate. Supporters of bilingual education argue that all students deserve equal opportunities in education—opportunities some students cannot access without instruction in their first language. On the other side, those who oppose bilingual education often point to the need for English fluency in everyday life and in the professional world.

Charter Schools

Charter schools are self-governing public schools that have signed agreements with state governments to improve students when poor performance is revealed on tests required by the No Child Left Behind Act. While such schools receive public money, they are not subject to the same rules that apply to regular public schools. In return, they make agreements to achieve specific results. Charter schools, as part of the public education system, are free to attend, and are accessible via lottery when there are more students seeking enrollment than there are spots available at the school. Some charter schools specialize in certain fields, such as the arts or science, while others are more generalized.

Home Schooling

Homeschooling refers to children being educated in their own homes, typically by a parent, instead of in a traditional public or private school system. Proponents of this type of education argue that it provides an outstanding opportunity for student-centered learning while circumventing problems that plague today’s education system. Opponents counter that home-schooled children miss out on the opportunity for social development that occurs in standard classroom environments and school settings.

Proponents say that parents know their own children better than anyone else and are thus best equipped to teach them. Those on the other side of the debate assert that childhood education is a complex task and requires the degree teachers spend four years earning. After all, they argue, a parent may know her child’s body better than anyone, yet she seeks out a doctor for her child’s medical treatment. Just as a doctor is a trained medical expert, teachers are trained education experts.

The National Center for Education Statistics shows that the quality of the national education system isn’t the only major concern of homeschoolers. While nearly half cite their reason for homeschooling as the belief that they can give their child a better education than the school system can, just under 40 percent choose homeschooling for “religious reasons” (NCES 2008). To date, researchers have not found consensus in studies evaluating the success, or lack thereof, of homeschooling.

Teaching to the Test

The funding tie-in of the No Child Left Behind Act has led to the social phenomenon commonly called “teaching to the test,” which describes when a curriculum focuses on equipping students to succeed on standardized tests, to the detriment of broader educational goals and concepts of learning. At issue are two approaches to classroom education: the notion that teachers impart knowledge that students are obligated to absorb, versus the concept of student-centered learning that seeks to teach children not facts, but problem solving abilities and learning skills. Both types of learning have been valued in the American school system. The former, to critics of “teaching to the test,” only equips students to regurgitate facts, while the latter, to proponents of the other camp, fosters lifelong learning and transferable work skills.

School Vouchers and School Choice

Another issue involving schools today is school choice . In a school choice program, the government gives parents certificates, or vouchers, that they can use as tuition at private or parochial (religious) schools.

Advocates of school choice programs say they give poor parents an option for high-quality education they otherwise would not be able to afford. These programs, the advocates add, also help improve the public schools by forcing them to compete for students with their private and parochial counterparts. In order to keep a large number of parents from using vouchers to send their children to the latter schools, public schools have to upgrade their facilities, improve their instruction, and undertake other steps to make their brand of education an attractive alternative. In this way, school choice advocates argue, vouchers have a “competitive impact” that forces public schools to make themselves more attractive to prospective students (Walberg, 2007).Walberg, H. J. (2007). School choice: The findings . Washington, DC: Cato Institute.

Critics of school choice programs say they hurt the public schools by decreasing their enrollments and therefore their funding. Public schools do not have the money now to compete with private and parochial ones, and neither will they have the money to compete with them if vouchers become more widespread. Critics also worry that voucher programs will lead to a “brain drain” of the most academically motivated children and families from low-income schools (Caldas & Bankston, 2005).Caldas, S. J., & Bankston, C. L., III. (2005). Forced to fail: The paradox of school desegregation . Westport, CT: Praeger.

School Violence

The issue of school violence won major headlines during the 1990s, when many children, teachers, and other individuals died in the nation’s schools. From 1992 until 1999, 248 students, teachers, and other people died from violent acts (including suicide) on school property, during travel to and from school, or at a school-related event, for an average of about 35 violent deaths per year (Zuckoff, 1999).Zuckoff, M. (1999, May 21). Fear is spread around nation. The Boston Globe , p. A1. Against this backdrop, the infamous April 1999 school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two students murdered 12 other students and one teacher before killing themselves, led to national soul-searching over the causes of teen and school violence and on possible ways to reduce it.

The murders in Littleton were so numerous and cold-blooded that they would have aroused national concern under any circumstances, but they also followed a string of other mass shootings at schools. In just a few examples, in December 1997 a student in a Kentucky high school shot and killed three students in a before-school prayer group. In March 1998 two middle school students in Arkansas pulled a fire alarm to evacuate their school and then shot and killed four students and one teacher as they emerged. Two months later an Oregon high school student killed his parents and then went to his school cafeteria, where he killed two students and wounded 22 others. Against this backdrop, Littleton seemed like the last straw. Within days, school after school across the nation installed metal detectors, located police at building entrances and in hallways, and began questioning or suspending students joking about committing violence. People everywhere wondered why the schools were becoming so violent and what could be done about it (Zuckoff, 1999).Zuckoff, M. (1999, May 21). Fear is spread around nation. The Boston Globe , p. A1.

Violence can also happen on college and university campuses, although shootings are very rare. However, two recent examples illustrate that students and faculty are not immune from gun violence. In February 2010, Amy Bishop, a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who had recently been denied tenure, allegedly shot and killed three faculty at a department meeting and wounded three others. Almost 3 years earlier, a student at Virginia Tech went on a shooting rampage and killed 32 students and faculty before killing himself.

Functions of Education

by kdkasi | Feb 24, 2018 | Social Institutions

There are many functions of education few of them are given below;

Transmission of Culture

Education instill and transmit the social norms values and beliefs into the next generation. Teacher himself or herself have been through the similar phase of learning, after learning the social norms, teachers forward it to the next generation. Though, the exact social norms are not taught and transmitted to the next generation there is few changes in it due to social change and the personal experience of teacher. For instance, scientific theories have progressed and changed over the time, with the help of research and development. The old theories and the development in them are taught to the students.

Social integration

Education unify the individuals in society and create the sense of solidarity among them. It helps the individuals and groups to cooperate with one another and find a common ground for social life. Nations are built because of education because it unify people into an organized unit.

Career Selection

Education helps individuals to think about their career which they want to pursue in future. It prepares them for future endeavors. Provide them with all the necessary information regarding the social life and professional life.

Techniques of Learning Skills

Education teaches an individual various techniques of learning professional skills. There are different educational institutions for learning different professional skills. For example if a person wants to pursue a career in engineering, there are engineering colleges and universities which will equip him/her with the skills required for his/her career.

Socialization

Human beings are social animals, in order to learn social skills and social norms of society, one have to socialize. Educational institution provide us the platform, to interact with different people of our own age and common interest. It help us to groom our personality and acquire quality personality traits.

Rational Thinking

Education helps us to think rationally and conclude any event, situation and issue with reasonable explanation.

Adjustment in Society

Education groom the personality of individual which helps him/her to adjust in any environment, group, community and society.

Love for nation and country are instill in people from very young age through educational institution. They learn their duties and obligation towards nation and their country.

Functionalist Perspective on Education

Charlotte Nickerson

Research Assistant at Harvard University

Undergraduate at Harvard University

Charlotte Nickerson is a student at Harvard University obsessed with the intersection of mental health, productivity, and design.

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Functionalists view education as a system that fulfills crucial societal needs. It transmits cultural values and knowledge (socialization), prepares individuals for various roles (social integration), promotes order and stability (social control), and equips individuals with workforce skills (economic development).

Key Takeaways

Functionalism contends that all of the roles and institutions in a society are essential to its function. Although functionalist ideas have circulated since antiquity, Durkheim was the first to formalize a functionalist perspective on sociology.
Durkheim considered education to reflect the needs and customs and beliefs of the society providing it. To him, it served an essential function in instilling societal values and socializing children. He also considered education to teach skills essential for establishing the division of labor in society.
Schultz, another functionalist, considered education to be an investment that people made in themselves in order to gain access to higher-paying and higher-status jobs.

close up of a student's hand writing on a paper in an exam

The Functionalist View of Society

Functionalism is what sociologists call a structural-consensus theory. By structural, sociologists mean that functionalists argue that there exists a social structure that shapes individual behavior through the process of socialization.

Functionalists believe that all of the institutions, roles, norms, and so on of a society serve a purpose beneficial, if not indispensable for, the long-term survival of the society.

The theory rose to prominence in the works of 19th-century sociologists who viewed societies as organisms.

Emile Durkheim, for instance, argued that it was necessary to understand the needs of the social organism to which social phenomena correspond (Pope, 1975).

1. Socialization and Social Solidarity (Durkheim)

Emile Durkheim believed that schools are essential for imprinting shared social values into children. The education system meets a functional pre-request of society by passing on the culture and values of society.

This is achieved through the hidden curriculum and PSHE lessons. This helps to build social solidarity as it teaches students the core values of society.

Durkheim discussed the phenomenon of education as a social fact. He considered education social in nature, origins, and functions. He opposed the idea of one perfect educational system for all societies.

Instead, Durkheim argues that education varied in each stage of human civilization because each society must have a system of education corresponding to its own needs and reflecting the customs and beliefs of day-to-day life. Thus, education can be studied through the lens of sociology (Durkheim, 1956).

Durkheim defined education as the influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life, intended to arouse and develop in children a number of physical, intellectual, and moral states demanded of them by both the political society as a whole and the special niche of society that he is destined to occupy (Durkheim, 1956).

By this definition, Durkheim believed that education methodologically socialized the younger generation. It did so by performing two major functions in advanced industrial societies – transmitting the shared values of society and teaching the specialized skills for an economy based on a division of labor (Durkheim, 1956).

Education, in Durkheim’s view, created a sufficient amount of homogeneity for society to survive through instilling a sense of social solidarity in the individual. This involves instilling a sense of belonging to wider society, a sense of commitment to the importance of working toward society’s goals, and a feeling that the

Durkheim argued that, to become attached to society, children must feel intimately connected and committed to the society. He believed that teaching history in particular accomplished this (Durkheim, 1956).

Teaching Social Roles

Durkheim also argued that schools in complex societies teach how people can cooperate with people who are neither their kin nor friends in a way that neither the family or friendship can.

Thus, school is the only institution that can prepare children for membership in wider society by enforcing a set of rules applied to all children.

2. The Division of Labor

Durkheim argued that education’s crucial function in an advanced industrial economy is the teaching of specialized skills required for a complex division of labor .

In traditional, pre-industrialised societies, skills could be passed on through family or direct apprenticeships. This means that formal education in school was not necessary.

However, because factory-based production involves the application of advanced scientific knowledge, years of formal education in schools became more necessary.

Education was also essential to modern societies in Durkheim’s view because social solidarity is largely based on the interdependence of specialized skills.

Just as social solidarity is based on cooperation between people with different skill sets, school serves as an ideal environment for children to learn to work and socialize with people from different backgrounds.

3. Developing Human Capital (Schultz)

Another functionalist perspective on education is that of T.W. Schultz. Schultz viewed the function of education as the development of human capital.

Investment in education benefits the wider economy, as education can provide properly trained, qualified and flexible workforce.

To Schultz, human capital was the acquisition of all of the useful skills and knowledge needed for a deliberate investment. Schultz considered much of the investment that people do to be for human capital.

For example, direct expenditures on education and health, as well as earnings foregone by mature students attending school and workers doing training on-the-job are all examples of human capitals.

In this view, education is an investment in human capital that people make in order to have access to better paying jobs, spend less time in the unemployment market, and make speedier transitions to their desired careers (Wahrenburg & Weldi, 2007).

4. Role Allocation (Davis and Moore)

The education system provides a means to selecting and sifting people into the social hierarchy. In a meritocratic society access to jobs and power, wealth and status are directly linked to educational achievement.

Davis and Moore examined education through the lens of role allocation. They believed that education selects talented individuals and allocates them to the most important roles in society.

For example, the higher monetary and status rewards for those who have the jobs of, say, a doctor or a pilot encourage competition.

Accordingly, Davis and Moore believed that education sifts and sorts people according to their ability (Grandjean & Bean, 1975).

5. Bridge between Family and Society

Parsons believed that schools provide a link between the family and wider society which allows students to move from the ascribed status and particularistic values of the home to the meritocratic and universalistic values of wider society.

Parsons viewed education as being part of meritocracy . In a meritocratic system, everyone has equality of opportunity. Achievements and rewards are based on effort and ability — achieved status — over the situations of how someone was born and raised — acquired status.

Consequently, education instills values of competition, equality, and individualism.

In this view, education is a secondary agent of socialization, creating a bridge between family and society. Within the family, children are judged by the standards of their parents.

However, in wider society, the individual is treated and judged in terms of universal standards that are applied to everyone, regardless of their kinship ties (Parsons, 1937).

Similarly, the child’s status is ascribed, or fixed by birth, in the family.

Meanwhile, status in adult life is, in some part, achieved. Individuals, for instance, achieve their occupational skills. In both cases, it is necessary for children to move from the standards and status of their family to the universal standards and achieve status in society (Parsons, 1937).

School, Parsons argued, prepares children for this transition, representing society in a microcosm. According to Parsons, schools also install the values of achievement and equality of opportunity.

These values have important functions in advanced industrialized societies, which require a motivated and highly skilled workforce.

Both low and high achievers in the school system will see the system as just and fair because status is achieved in a situation where everyone has an equal chance of success (Parsons, 1937).

Criticisms of the Functionalist Perspective on Education

Functionalist perspectives on education have been criticized for several reasons:

General Criticism

Firstly, functionalists ignore dysfunctional aspects of education, such as negative conflict. Sociologists have also noted that the functionalist view is more applicable in societies with a single dominant and shared culture.

In multicultural societies with, say, different ethnic groups with different cultures and values, it may be difficult to reconcile differences through education.

Furthermore, functionalists tend to assume that education successfully socializes individuals. However, numerous studies suggest that not all pupils conform to the values taught by school.

Marxists have put forth a notable critique of functionalism. Bowles and Gintis (1976), for example, argued that education perpetuated a meritocracy myth — that one’s educational achievements and failures are solely one’s fault and based on the quality of one’s efforts — when, in reality, factors such as race and class heavily influence one’s opportunities and achievement.

Feminists have taken another Marxist idea: that of the hidden curriculum — the idea that schools indoctrinate values not only by what is taught explicitly, but what is taught by the structure of the school itself. They have argued that this hidden curriculum maintains and reinforces patriarchy , not meritocracy (Acker, 1987).

Outside of Marxism, the sociologist Wong criticized functionalism for seeing children as passive puppets of socialization when the process is much more complex and involves teacher-pupil relationships.

There is also, ultimately, a weak link between educational achievement and economic success (Wahrenburg & Weldi, 2007).

Criticism of Durkheim

There are several reasons why scholars have criticized Durkheim’s functionalist perspective on education. For example, postmodernists may criticize Durkheim for his assumption that society needs shared values.

For example, in many countries, such as the United States, it is debatable as to whether or not there is single culture, and there are communities that are largely cut off from the mainstream.

Marxists, meanwhile, have criticized the relationship between school and work. #

While Durkheim sees school as a fundamentally neutral institution that transmits values and skills to individuals in a way that enables economies to function, Marxists have argued that schools teach proletariat children to be passive and submit to authority, making them easier to exploit later in life (Bowles & Gintis, 2011).

Criticism of Parsons

The main criticisms of Parsons’ view on education come from Marxism , and particularly the idea that schools are meritocratic. In reality, even in situations where schools may treat pupils the same way, inequalities within the class structure result in unequal opportunities.

For example, a working-class child may have lesser access to quality education than the child of upper-class parents, especially when the latter provide their kin with services such as tutoring and enrollment in elite educational institutions and preparatory schools.

Ultimately, this results in a widening of pre-existing class inequality, with the parents of the bourgeoisie being able to maintain their hold over intergenerational wealth by giving their children access to stronger economic opportunities through higher educational achievement (Morrow & Tours, 1995).

Acker, S. (1987). Feminist theory and the study of gender and education. International review of education, 33 (4), 419-435.

Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life . Haymarket Books.

Davis, K., & Moore, W. E. (1945). Pp. 47-53 in Class, Status and Power, edited by R. Bendix and SM Lipset.

Durkheim, E. (1956). Education and sociology . Simon and Schuster.

Grandjean, B. D., & Bean, F. D. (1975). The Davis-Moore theory and perceptions of stratification: some relevant evidence. Social Forces, 54 (1), 166-180.

Morrow, R. A., & Torres, C. A. (1995). Social theory and education: A critique of theories of social and cultural reproduction . SUNY Press.

Parsons, T. (1937). Remarks on Education and the Professions. The International Journal of Ethics, 47 (3), 365-369.

Pope, W. (1975). Durkheim as a Functionalist. Sociological Quarterly, 16 (3), 361-379.

Wahrenburg, M., & Weldi, M. (2007). Return on investment in higher education: Evidence for different subjects, degrees and gender in Germany . Johann Wolfgang Goethe Univ., Chair of Banking and Finance.

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Education in society.

Changes in developed economies and societies stemming from the Industrial Revolution have shifted responsibilities for the education of young people from the family and community to schools. Schools are now a major institution, educating the vast majority of children and youth in the developed world and functioning as a primary engine of change in developing countries. Although education brings about changes in society as a whole as well as in individuals, schools are also influenced by larger social forces. Sociological theories address these central roles that schools play in society from differing perspectives.

The functionalist paradigm emphasizes the role that education plays for society. Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology, was among the first educational researchers to focus on the function schools serve for the larger society. Durkheim (1961) argued that the main goal of education was to socialize individuals so that they share values with the larger society. Ensuring that all students received the same moral education allowed for a more integrated society with less social conflict about wrong behaviors or attitudes. A second important functionalist perspective on education developed in economics through research on human capital (Schultz 1961). The human capital perspective describes education as a set of investments that increase individuals’ knowledge and skills, which in turn improves national labor productivity and economic growth. Education then becomes an important tool for societies to increase the efficiency and size of their economy.

While the functionalist perspective emphasizes the role of education for society as a whole, the conflict paradigm focuses on divisions within society that education maintains or rein forces. Max Weber (2000) was one of the first to argue that education serves dual and potentially conflicting functions for society. First, schools can be an equalizing institution where individuals, regardless of their social status, can gain access to high status jobs through their own talent and hard work. Second, schools can rein force existing status hierarchies by limiting opportunities to individuals from high status backgrounds. In other words, Weber recognized schools’ potential to either facilitate or block social mobility. Weber’s incorporation of the notion of social status into the function of schools in society was extremely influential in shaping sociological research on education. Randall Collins (1979), Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and others furthered Weber’s ideas on status attainment by arguing that schools socialize individuals to accept their place in an unjust, capitalist society. This work shifted the emphasis found in human capital theory away from schools as providers of skills and training to schools as providers of hollow credentials that are rewarded in the labor market. Critically, these credentials do not represent higher levels of skills, but simply serve as status markers that employers use to sort workers into low and high prestige occupations.

Both historically and when comparing countries today, the structure of a country’s educational system is closely linked to its economic and political history. Developed countries are generally characterized by a history of relatively steady economic growth, a stable political system, and freedom from the devastation of war. This common context enables developed countries to form a cohesive formal schooling system that serves all children until at least the age of 15 or 16. In recent decades, developed nations have incorporated the ideals of equality of educational opportunity and providing opportunities to children from disadvantaged backgrounds into their goals for educational policy.

Though all developed nations provide universal education and many are motivated by similar ideals, the structure of schooling can vary drastically from developed country to developed country (for an overview, see Brint 1998). In Japan, France, and Sweden, the school system is run by a central governmental ministry of education that ensures standardized curricula and funding. Other countries, such as Germany, Canada, and the US, are more decentralized and allow local or regional governments to maintain control over public education. Additionally, the school systems in these nations vary in how they structure opportunities to learn and earn credentials. In his classic article, Ralph Turner (1960) contrasted the English and US school systems, characterizing the former as a “sponsored” system, in which talent is identified in the early years and nurtured in a stratified system. The US system, on the other hand, is a “contest” system, consisting of a series of contests in which all students compete on a level playing field. Though “sponsored” and “contest” systems are ”ideal types,” most developed nations’ school systems reflect aspects of sponsored or contest systems.

In the developing world, many countries have been independent from colonizing powers for approximately only 50 years and do not have the same history of political stability, economic security, and times of peace that privilege developed countries. These instabilities (along with problems related to poverty) affect the ability of developing countries to provide and prioritize universal education. In many developing countries, the school system is inherited in large part from former colonizers and is heavily shaped by the policies of the World Bank. The World Bank promotes a model of schooling that emphasizes primary schools, private spending, balances equity and efficiency, and discourages vocational education. Though the structure and experience World Bank policies provide can improve schooling priorities in developing nations, they sometimes do not recognize that factors unique to a particular country may require modifications. A central question concerning the role of education in developing nations concerns how important education systems are to economic growth. Much of the research on education in developing nations examines this question and generally finds that having a disciplined and educated labor force is a positive and important step in economic development.

Though commonalities in the structure of schooling exist across countries in the developed and developing world, each country is generally unique in the development of its particular educational system. Systems of education not only reflect national values and attitudes, they also play a major role in shaping national culture and social status hierarchy. In the US, the idea of public schooling – or the common school – developed in the early nineteenth century as a response to political and economic shifts in American society (see Parkerson & Parkerson 2001 for a history). Prior to common schooling, the majority of Americans were educated by their families, and only children from wealthier families could afford formal schooling. As the US moved away from a barter and trade economy toward markets where goods were exchanged for cash, white Protestant Americans from the middle and working classes recognized that the fragmented and informal system of schooling was no longer adequate preparation for their children to be competitive in the market driven economy. This realization led these Americans to demand that a quality primary education be made available to their children. The ideal of equality emphasized during the American Revolution meant that there was already growing political support among the Protestant political elite for the idea of public education for white children.

The end result of these forces was the development of the common school. Common schools had two main goals: first, to provide knowledge and skills necessary to being an active member of economic and social life; and second, to create Americans who value the same things – namely, patriotism, achievement, competition, and Protestant moral and religious values. Significantly, these goals were important both to individuals trying to make it in the new economic and social order and to the success of solidifying the young United States into a coherent nation. Religious diversity was not tolerated in the nascent nation, and Catholic immigrants were often seen as threats to the dominant Protestant way of life. Therefore, though common schools were open to all white Americans, the emphasis on Protestant values (which went hand in hand with anti-Catholic attitudes) alienated many Catholics. This religious tension eventually led Catholics to pursue alternative schooling and resulted in the development of Catholic private schools.

Though common schools provided more equitable access to education than the previous informal system, these schools still reflected the values of the ruling elite – white Anglo Saxon Protestants – in US society. In addition to appreciating Protestant values over those of other religions, educating white boys was generally seen as more important than educating white girls as white boys were more likely to benefit from their education upon entry into the formal labor market. Furthermore, African Americans, freed or enslaved, were almost categorically excluded from common schools in the early 1800s as the flawed ”ideal of equality” applied only to white Americans.

Despite the development of the common school, elite white Protestant Americans were able to maintain educational superiority by opting out of the common school system. The elite private and boarding school system began before the American Revolution and flourished during the nineteenth century (at the same time that the common school system was expanding). Though the growing public education system diminished the percentage of secondary students in private schools, private schools maintained an exclusivity that appealed to elite parents eager to pass on status and advantage to their children. In Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools (1985), authors Cookson and Persell explore the admissions process and the demographic characteristics of ”the chosen ones,” America’s most privileged students. Historically, these elite schools tended to have a homogeneous student body in terms of family background, religion, and race, and admission was based not on openly stated academic requirements but on a complicated balance of merit, family wealth, social standing, and an individual’s ability to fit the school’s ideal. Thus, the presentation of self as a person of status – someone with ambition, confidence, and poise – was just as important as academic capacities to gaining access to America’s most elite secondary education. Though these private schools continue to promote an elite social class identity, currently they also face pressure to diversify the racial composition of their student bodies.

While elite private schools have historically allowed privileged Americans to opt out of public schooling, religious schools have offered an important private alternative to non-elite, and sometimes marginalized, Americans throughout the history of the US. Catholic schools were a part of Colonial America and are among some of the oldest educational institutions in the US. In contrast to elite private schools, religious schools had a moral purpose of teaching religious beliefs and producing religious leaders. Beginning in the 1800s, Catholic schools provided an alternative to the public school where children read the Protestant version of the Bible. Today, Catholic schools serve a more diverse student population in terms of race, social class, and religious beliefs. Catholic schools today are known for providing good opportunities to learn and prepare for college (Bryk et al. 1993). Critics suggest that Catholic schools select more promising students, an option not available to public schools.

Though research on elite and Catholic private schools suggests that access to a private versus public education affects students’ academic opportunities, inequalities between schools within the public sector have long plagued the American educational system, with serious implications for children with no choice other than public schooling. As mentioned previously, the common school system generally excluded African American children until after the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Though the end of slavery meant that the common school system finally included African American children, they were generally educated in separate facilities (see Orfield & Eaton 1996 for a history). By 1896, the idea of ”separate but equal” schools was officially sanctioned by the Supreme Court through its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. Racially segregated schools became the norm across the US, though whether this segregation was by law or by practice varied by state and region. Equitable distribution of resources between racially segregated schools never existed; white schools received substantially more financial and academic support. ”Separate but equal” schools were eventually declared inherently unequal in the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), and schools were ordered to desegregate ”with all deliberate speed.”

Though Brown is perhaps one of the most widely celebrated Supreme Court decisions, schools in the US have failed to reflect the ideals of desegregation and educational equality put forth in the ruling. Early research in sociology of education recognized that stratification in educational attainment was related to students’ family background, such as race or ethnicity, rather than simply differences in achievement test scores (e.g., Coleman et al. 1966). These differences were social and had to do with the schools’ social context rather than factors that could be affected by redistribution of funding levels alone. Since the Coleman Report (1966) and its political consequences of busing that shocked the nation, educational researchers and policymakers have struggled to know how to provide equality of educational opportunity within a context of socioeconomic inequality.

Beginning around 1980, sociologists of education turned their attention to stratification systems at work within schools. Secondary schools tend to group students in courses or ”tracks” (such as academic, general, or vocational), and through these groupings schools can either reinforce or disrupt the relationship between family background and attainment. Typically, the high school curriculum is organized into sequences of courses in which subject knowledge gained from one course pre pares a student for the next course. Mobility between sequences is restricted and forms the foundation of a stratification system for adolescents. Furthermore, schools tend to provide more resources, such as higher quality instruction, to students in higher level courses, which can have serious consequences for low ability students (Hallinan 1994). The result is that students’ course taking patterns follow a trajectory or sequence of courses over the years of high school in which mobility between course sequences is unusual. This is especially true in mathematics, where mobility into the elite college preparatory classes is nearly impossible after the sequence has begun. Students’ placement in these sequences explains much of why family background is linked to students’ attainment and is strongly related to a variety of

outcomes that indicate students’ basic life chances.

Research on stratification within schools further confirmed the results of Coleman’s earlier analysis on equity in education – schools are more effective at educating students from privileged family backgrounds. Because schools have been idealized as a great equalizing force, understanding why family background is linked strongly to education became the next important goal of sociology of education.

Annette Lareau (1987), building on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1973) idea of cultural capital, offered one explanation of how parents transmit advantages to their children when she found that parents interacted with teachers and schools very differently depending on their social class backgrounds. In addition to conditioning how parents interact with the school, parents’ cultural capital also influences how they socialize their children. Lareau describes middle class parents’ childrearing strategies as ”concerted cultivation” or active fostering of children’s growth through adult organized activities (e.g., soccer, music lessons) and through encouraging critical and original thinking. Working class and poor parents, on the other hand, support their children’s ”natural growth” by providing the conditions necessary for their child’s development, but leaving structure of leisure activities to the children. These different styles have implications for students’ abilities to take advantage of opportunities in schools.

Coleman’s concept of social capital articulated another way that families transmit advantages to their children. In parenting, social capital refers to ”the norms, the social networks, and the relationships between adults and children that are of value for the child’s growing up” and can exist within families and communities (Coleman 1987: 334). Social capital within families taps how close parents and children are and how closely parents are able to monitor their child’s development. For example, Coleman (1988) found that a higher percentage of children from single parent families (who have less social capital in the home) drop out during high school than children from intact families. Social capital in communities is also important, as Coleman et al. (1982) demonstrated: students in Catholic high schools were less likely to drop out compared to their peers in other private and public schools, not because of school related differences (such as quality curriculum), but rather because of the close knit adult relationships surrounding Catholic schools. The cohesive Catholic community allowed adults to better transmit norms about staying in school to teenagers.

Though the principal manifest function of schools is undoubtedly to provide opportunities for learning, schools also serve as the primary location for social interaction with peers and for the development of adolescent cultures. Since Durkheim first emphasized schools as a socializing institution, sociologists have investigated how schools’ adolescent cultures affect adolescents’ priorities, goals, and behaviors. James Coleman’s The Adolescent Society (1961) recognized the importance of ”adolescent culture” in schools to the decisions, both academic and social, that adolescents make. Coleman stated that adolescents turn to each other for social rewards, not to adult communities; therefore, understanding the value systems of adolescent society is key to understanding what motivates students. Importantly, for some adolescents, the goals of formal schooling – achievement, engagement – are reflected in the adolescent culture; however, when students rebel against the formal goals of schooling, it can reinforce preexisting inequalities based on family back ground.

Fordham and Ogbu (1986) have examined how adolescents’ oppositional culture to schooling develops and how it explains in part the links between family background and students’ achievement. Given the history of racism in the US, Fordham and Ogbu argue that doing well in school has come to represent ”acting white” to African American youth in an urban school. This may lead many African American students who are academically able to perform significantly below their capabilities. It also creates a tension for African American students who want to succeed academically; not only do they have to cope with the challenge of coursework, but they also have to deal with the burden of appearing to act white. More recently, this perspective has been challenged by researchers who argue that African American students actually hold educational values in high esteem and do not reject academic success.

Much of the sociological research on education has focused on equity – with good reason. Education has serious implications for adolescents’ future lives. Individuals’ academic credentials affect the jobs they are able to get and the incomes they earn. Individuals with a college degree earn higher wages than those with a high school degree who earn more than high school dropouts (Arum & Hout 2000). Educational attainment also has serious implications for health throughout the life course. More highly educated individuals experience better health (including self-perceived health, morbidity, and mortality) than people with less education (Ross & Mirowsky 1999). Education also shapes the social relationships that individuals form. People tend to marry others with similar amounts of education. Taken together, these findings indicate that education plays a powerful role in individuals’ lives. Though we don’t fully understand how education affects these diverse aspects of the human experience, it is clear that education is an important social institution.

References:

Arum, R. & Hout, M. (2000) The Early Returns: The Transition From School to Work in the United States. In: Arum, R. & Beattie, I. R. (Eds.), The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education. McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 423-34.
Bourdieu, P. (1973) Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. In: Knowledge, Education, and Cultural Change. Tavistock, London.
Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions ofEconomic Life. Basic Books, New York.
Brint, S. (1998) Schools and Societies. Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Bryk, A. S., Lee, V. E., & Holland, P. B. (1993) Catholic Schools and the Common Good. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Coleman, J. S. (1961) The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of Teenagers and Its Impact on Education. Free Press, New York.
Coleman, J. S. (1987) Families and Schools. Educational Researcher 16(6): 32 8.
Coleman, J. S. (1988) Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital. American Journal of Sociology 94 (Supplement): S95-S120.
Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, J., Mood, A. M., Weinfall, F. D., & York, R. L. (1966) Equality of Educational Opportunity. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, DC.
Coleman, J. S., Hoffer, T., & Kilgore, S. (1982) Cognitive Outcomes in Public and Private Schools. Sociology of Education 55(2/3): 65 76.
Collins, R. (1979) The Credential Society: A Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification. Academic Press, New York.
Cookson, P. W. & Persell, C. H. (1985) Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools. Basic Books, New York.
Durkheim, E. (1961) Moral Education: A Study in the Theory and Application of Sociology of Education. E. K. Wilson & H. Schnurer. Free Press, New York.
Fordham, S. & Ogbu, J. U. (1986) Black Students’ School Success: Coping With the Burden of ”Acting White.” Urban Review 18(3): 176-206.
Hallinan, M. T. (1994) Tracking: From Theory to Practice. Sociology of Education 67(2): 79-84.
Lareau, A. (1987) Social Class Differences in Family School Relationships: The Importance of Cultural Capital. Sociology of Education 60: 73-85.
Orfield, G. & Eaton, S. E. (1996) Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New Press, New York.
Parkerson, D. H. & Parkerson, J. A. (2001) Transitions in American Education: A Social History of Teaching. Routledge Falmer, New York.
Ross, C. E. & Mirowsky, J. (1999) Refining the Association Between Education and Health: The Effects of Quantity, Credential, and Selectivity. Demography 36(4): 445-60.
Schultz, T. W. (1961) Investment in Human Capital. American Economic Review 51(1): 1-17.
Turner, R. H. (1960) Sponsored and Contest Mobility and the School System. American Sociological Review 25: 855-67.
Weber, M. (2000) The ”Rationalization” of Education and Training. In: Arum, R. & Beattie, I. R. (Eds.), The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education. McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 16-19.

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16.2 Sociological Perspectives on Education
Table 16.1 Theory Snapshot. Education serves several functions for society. These include (a) socialization, (b) social integration, (c) social placement, and (d) social and cultural innovation. Latent functions include child care, the establishment of peer relationships, and lowering unemployment by keeping high school students out of the full ...
16.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Education
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) Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility. This function is referred to as social placement.
Sociology of Education: Meaning, Scope, Importance, Perspectives
Sociology of Education is the discipline or field of study which deals with the institution of education, and all the other factors related to it, in society. Sociology of education is also defined as the academic discipline which "examines the ways in which individuals' experiences affect their educational achievement and outcomes ...
Functionalist Theory on Education
Functionalism. Functionalists view education as one of the more important social institutions in a society. They contend that education contributes two kinds of functions: manifest (or primary) functions, which are the intended and visible functions of education; and latent (or secondary) functions, which are the hidden and unintended functions.
Sociological Perspectives on Education
The Functions of Education. Functional theory stresses the functions that education serves in fulfilling a society's various needs. Perhaps the most important function of education is socialization.If children are to learn the norms, values, and skills they need to function in society, then education is a primary vehicle for such learning.
Sociology of Education
Education and sociology. New York: Free Press. This seminal work merges education and sociology into one distinct discipline: sociology of education. For Durkheim, the key function of the education system was to socialize and integrate individuals into larger society. Putnam, Robert D. 1995. Bowling alone: America's declining social capital.
How does education function?
Abstract. Niklas Luhmann speaks of the function of education in relation to modern society. Only within modern society, he argues, is it possible to speak of the differentiation of a specific function system of education. It is, more particularly, the differentiation of other function systems that leads to the question about the function of ...
PDF CHAPTER 1 What Is Sociology of Education?
What Is Sociology of Education? 3. contributed to its early content. He was particularly concerned with the functions or purposes of edu-cation for society, the relationship between education and social change, the role of education in pre-paring young people to adhere to societal norms, and the social system that develops in classrooms and ...
Theoretical Perspectives on Education
Manifest and Latent Functions of Education According to functionalist theory, education contributes both manifest and latent functions. Manifest Functions: Openly stated functions with intended goals. Latent Functions: Hidden, unstated functions with sometimes unintended consequences. Socialization. Courtship.
Sociology of Education: Theoretical and Conceptual Perspectives
In the first section of this chapter we give a definition of sociology; many of the terms and concepts in sociology of education come directly from sociology. The main part of the chapter then provides a general outline of the functions of schooling, several of which lie outside our taken-for-granted assumptions about the purposes of education.
Sociology of education
The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is mostly concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.. Education is seen as a fundamentally optimistic human endeavour characterised by aspirations for ...
Education
Education Key Concepts - brief definitions of key concepts relevant to the A-level sociology of education module.. The role and functions of education . This really means 'the perspectives' on education - mainly Functionalism, Marxism, and the The New Right, but it might also be useful to know about Feminism and Postmodernism, especially for evaluation purposes.
Education System (Sociology): Role & Function
The role and functions of the education system in sociology. The sociology of education is the study of human social relationships, patterns, events, institutions, and their development in the context of education. Sociologists investigate and examine people's experiences of education and outcomes by identifying trends.
Émile Durkheim: Father of the Sociology of Education
The establishment of the sociology of education is attributed to Émile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology. Durkheim's fervent commitment to the sociological foundations of research methods and the inherent nature of education distinguish the sociological perspective on education from its counterparts in other social sciences, thereby inaugurating the inception of theoretical ...
Theories in the Sociology of Education
2. Theories in the Sociology of Education. Understand what is meant by macrosocial, microsocial, mesosocial, and middle-range theory. Explain how agency, structure, ontology, and epistemology are related to major underlying assumptions within sociological theories of education.
Education and Society
Education and Society. Schools and colleges are transforming the lives of individual learners and their families. They play a core role in society. At the same time, they are continuously transformed by politics, markets, and scientific, technological, and cultural change. Sociologists of education and higher education at Harvard are engaged in ...
Max Weber, Education, and the Rise of Modern Societies
Max Weber is one of the founders of modern sociology. Sociologists study the social processes that produce, sustain, or reform education. This chapter features Weber's insights on education within the context of social processes related to the modern capitalist society. It discusses the following themes: role of education in structuring ...
14.1: The Sociology of Education
The Functions of Education. Functional theory stresses the functions that education serves in fulfilling a society's various needs. Perhaps the most important function of education is socialization. If children need to learn the norms, values, and skills they need to function in society, then education is a primary vehicle for such learning.
Functions of Education
Social integration. Education unify the individuals in society and create the sense of solidarity among them. It helps the individuals and groups to cooperate with one another and find a common ground for social life. Nations are built because of education because it unify people into an organized unit.
Functionalist Perspective on Education
Functionalism contends that all of the roles and institutions in a society are essential to its function. Although functionalist ideas have circulated since antiquity, Durkheim was the first to formalize a functionalist perspective on sociology. Durkheim considered education to reflect the needs and customs and beliefs of the society providing it.
Education in Society
Sociological theories address these central roles that schools play in society from differing perspectives. The functionalist paradigm emphasizes the role that education plays for society. Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology, was among the first educational researchers to focus on the function schools serve for the larger society.
Five Functions of Sociology
In this paper we have propounded five basic functions of sociology -. a diagnostic function, a partisan function, an unmasking function, a theoretical function, and a sociotechnical function. The only questions. that remain to be solved are: how these functions are related to each.
What are three functions of sociology of education?
The sociology of education is a specialization within sociology that studies educational systems as social institutions and the interactions of individuals within society with education. This involves an understanding of how education can help shape or propagate aspects of society as well as challenges some members of society experience within ...

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Sociology of Education by Sheneka M. Williams LAST REVIEWED: 19 August 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 15 December 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0065

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