Sociology of Education: Exploring Equality, Social Class, and Family Influences
School’s Impact on Individuals and Groups
Sociology of Education (SoE): This field examines how schools influence individuals and groups, shaping their thoughts, lifestyles, and work. The landmark Coleman Report (1966) on Equality of Educational Opportunity sought to understand if the education system provides equal opportunities for all children based on merit.
Aim: To understand the limitations and possibilities of schooling. Schools were initially believed to alleviate social problems, with merit and talent replacing privilege and inheritance.
Socialization and the Construction of Reality
Berger & Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966) highlights the relationship between individuals and society through two key principles:
- Two Complementary Levels:
- Material (social structures) – Objective
- Spiritual (subjective)
- Simultaneous Moments:
- Externalization (work & language)
- Objectivation
- Internalization
Schutz’s concept of Intersubjectivity emphasizes that we share a common world and influence each other. Two key moments in this process are:
- Significant Other
- Generalized Other
Subjectivation explores how social and cultural practices develop and relate to each other, and why social and educational inequalities persist despite political activism, equal opportunities legislation, and public goodwill.
Equality and Social Justice in Higher Education
Working people strive for social justice and equality, and universities are often seen as ideal places to foster equal opportunities. Universities represent a new generation of market-led professionals influenced by postmodernism and the rise of neo-liberal politics.
Some argue that universities and higher education have a special mission to combat injustice. Equality studies face similar challenges as women’s studies.
Social justice advocates for a society and its institutions built on principles of equality and solidarity, primarily focusing on economic equality. These principles are grounded in the recognition of all human rights and the inherent dignity of all human beings.
Sociology, Social Class, and Education
Schools, while intended to promote equality, can also contribute to the reproduction of inequalities. Sociology helps us understand the complexities of social class inequalities in education through three main approaches:
- Internal School Factors (Bernstein): Schools have limited capacity to compensate for economic and social inequalities.
- External Factors (Gamoran): Differences in school performance reflect inequalities that exist outside of the school. The public image of the working class often attributes their academic achievement to cultural deficits (Jean Anyon, 1981). Both arguments shift the focus from individual reasoning to schools, parents, and children.
- Educational Policy: Aims to remediate social class inequalities. The current trend of viewing everyone as ‘classless’ obscures class as a marker of educational inequalities. Marketization and selection policies have led to polarized educational policies.
Louis Weiss (1990) observed positive attitudes towards schools as a response to the lack of working-class male jobs. Working-class students often face limited opportunities for success. All parents desire their children to be educational winners, but not all can succeed, while children learn that school failure is unacceptable.
Skeggs examines the formation of class and gender, and the concept of becoming ‘respectable.’ The imposition of middle-class values in schools can portray the working-class as incapable of possessing self-worth. Aspects of identity, such as class, gender, and ethnicity, always intersect.
The Role of Spatiality
Place and space also play a significant role in education. Middle-class families often strategize by choosing private schools. Spatiality highlights the differences both between and within social classes. Education has often been about the workings of one class upon another.
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
CRT emerged from scholars of color in the 1970s-80s and was introduced to education in the mid-1990s. Derrick Bell’s concept of Racial Realism examines how the world truly operates.
Roots of CRT: Race is often intertwined with social class. CRT draws upon radical diasporic writings and resistance movements of previous centuries, including slavery.
Principles of CRT:
- A dual concern to understand and oppose race and white supremacy.
- Challenges the notion of a color-blind approach, as marginalized students often attend under-resourced schools.
- Emphasizes the lived experiences of people of color.
- Offers a revisionist critique of civil rights.
- Highlights the contradiction between the liberal rhetoric of equal opportunities and the reality of racism.
- Acknowledges the intersection of race with class, gender, disability, and sexuality.
Education and Family
Social factors influence the family as a fundamental social institution. These factors include close relationships, sexuality, kinship, and social regulation. Historically, marriage served as an economic alliance, and the myth of romantic love often perpetuates gender stereotypes and differential sexual taboos.
The Structural Family: Family institutions regulate relationships between sexes, with heterosexual marriage often seen as a prerequisite for maintaining social order and equilibrium (Ritzer, 1996).
Feminist Demands for Societal Transformations: Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2001) discuss the risk society paradigm and reflexive modernity, where individuals are increasingly liberated from internalized gender roles. This leads to strong opposition to traditional notions of family, love, and freedom.
Different family structures exist, including extended families, nuclear families, and negotiated families.
Microsociological Levels:
- Giddens: Romantic love is often incompatible with long-term relationships, and mate selection is increasingly voluntary.
- Bourdieu: Male domination is manifested through symbolic violence, both psychological and physical.
- Bauman: Relationships are often characterized by a lack of roots and stability, and children can become objects of emotional consumption.
Family and School: While families were previously less involved in schooling, today there is greater education and a triangular relationship between family, school, and the local community.
Bolivar identifies six types of involvement between family and community, including acting as factors and motors (communication, volunteering, learning at home, collaboration, and decision-making).
Barriers to family involvement include linguistic, socio-economic, cultural, or institutional differences. There can also be a ‘clash’ between school culture and family culture.
Family involvement in their children’s formal education can take various styles, including conversational, authoritarian, and overwhelmed.