Education and Schooling: A Sociological Perspective

Posted on Sep 1, 2024 in Social sciences

Education: A Global Survey

Schooling and Economic Development

  • The extent of schooling in any society is tied to its economic development.
  • In low- and middle-income countries, people learn at home, and limited schooling reflects national culture.
  • In low-income countries, there is little opportunity to go to school.

Schooling in India

  • Most poor families depend on the earnings of children, and this limits their chances for schooling.
  • 34% of the population is not able to read and write.
  • 60% of students attend secondary school, but very few enter college.
  • Patriarchy shapes opportunity: 64% of boys and 56% of girls attend secondary school.

Schooling in Japan

  • Japan has some of the world’s highest achievers.
  • Schools foster traditional values. 93% of young people graduate from high school.
  • Half attend “cram schools” to prepare for university entrance exams.
  • Japanese students outperform Canadian students in mathematics and science.

Schooling in Great Britain

  • Privilege for nobility in the Middle Ages.
  • British law now requires every child to attend school until age 16.
  • Public schools are what we call private boarding schools, for the wealthy.
  • University admission is based on a merit system with examinations.
  • Graduates of Oxford and Cambridge become the country’s elite.

Schooling in Canada

  • In 1867, education was made a provincial responsibility.
  • By about 1920, Canada had compulsory education to the end of elementary school or the age of 16 in most provinces.
  • The principle of mass education fulfilling requirements of the Industrial Revolution for a literate and skilled workforce.
  • More than 270 publicly funded post-secondary institutions (70 universities).
  • 61% of Canadians (aged 25 to 64) have some kind of post-secondary certification.
  • Canada has a smaller percentage of people with university degrees than the U.S.
  • After the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, classical education was replaced by business, engineering, and science.
  • There is a gradual shift to engineering, mathematics, and science degrees, but we lag behind other countries.
  • Functional illiteracy: reading and writing skills insufficient for daily living.
  • Official illiteracy is low in Canada, but there are concerns with the functional literacy of adults.

Functions of Schooling

Socialization

  • Technologically simple societies depend on families to transmit their way of life.
  • Industrialized societies turn to teachers and the schooling system to teach basic skills, values, and important cultural lessons.

Cultural Innovation

  • Done through research.
  • Faculty at colleges and universities create culture as well as pass it on to students.

Social Integration

  • Schooling molds a diverse population into one society sharing norms and values.
  • Canadian educational policies have tried to support equality and unity within diversity.

Social Placement

  • Support meritocracy by rewarding talent as a foundation of future social position.

Latent Functions

  • Provides child care.
  • Reduces competition for jobs.
  • Helps establish networks and identify partners.

Schooling and Social Interaction

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  • Teachers’ expectations can affect self-image and academic performance.
  • Blue and brown eyes experiment: because the brown-eyed children were told they were superior, they became superior in their classroom performance.
  • Their behaviour fulfilled the prophecy.
  • Students are as good as teachers and themselves think they are.

Schooling and Social Inequality

  • Schooling contributes to social stratification.
  • Traditionally, schooling was deemed more important for males than females.
  • Social class background is a determinant of familiarity with computers, which is increasingly vital to education and employment.
  • Along with gender, social class is a strong predictor of aspirations to attend university.

Social Control

  • Schooling is a way of controlling people and reinforcing acceptance of the status quo.
  • Teaches compliance, punctuality, and discipline.

Hidden Curriculum

  • Subtle presentations of political or cultural ideas in the classroom.

Standardized Testing

  • Controversy surrounds such tests; they reflect the dominant culture.
  • Place the members of minorities at a disadvantage.

Streaming and Social Inequality

  • Assigning students to different types of programs (tracking or ability grouping).
  • Students from affluent families tend to be put in university-bound streams.

Education and the World of Work

  • Higher education expands career opportunities and increases earnings.
  • Involvement in the workforce increases, more dramatically for women, with increased education.
  • Skills most in demand and shortest in supply are a skill composite: the ability to integrate and use information, adapt to change, take reasonable risks, and conceptualize the future.
  • Leadership and conflict management skills are also needed.

Privilege and Personal Merit

  • Schooling transforms social privilege into personal merit.
  • When we congratulate the typical new graduate, we overlook the resources that made this achievement possible.
  • Credentials should be seen as symbols of family affluence, according to the social conflict approach.

Homeschooling

  • 2% of North American children are educated at home.
  • Less popular in Canada than the U.S.
  • It is legal here, and there is government and NGO support.
  • On average, students who learn at home outperform those who learn in schools.