Lecture 12 Education

Lecture 12
Education
Introduction to Education
• 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.
• 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.
Education around the World
These children are at a

library in Singapore, where
students are outperforming
U.S. students on worldwide
tests
Education
• Education is a social institution through which a society’s children are
taught basic academic knowledge, learning skills, and cultural norms.
• Education the act or process of teach or acquiring general knowledge,
developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of
preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
• Every nation in the world is equipped with some form of education system,
though those systems vary greatly. The major factors affecting education
systems are the resources and money that are utilized to support those
systems in different nations. As you might expect, a country’s wealth has
much to do with the amount of money spent on education.
Education
• International differences in education systems are not solely a financial issue.
The value placed on education, the amount of time devoted to it, and the
distribution of education within a country also play a role in those
differences.
• For example, students in South Korea spend 220 days a year in school,
compared to the 180 days a year of their United States counterparts.
• Approximately students in Somalia spend only 45 days a year in school, 4
hours from the whole day and 9 months in a year.
• Students at the top of the rankings hailed from Shanghai, Finland, Hong
Kong, and Singapore.
Education
• Analysts determined that the nations and city-states at the top of the
rankings had several things in common. For one, they had well-
established standards for education with clear goals for all students.
• They also recruited teachers from the top 5 to 10 percent of university
graduates each year, which is not the case for most countries (National
Public Radio 2010).
• Finally, there is the issue of social factors. One analyst from the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the
organization that created the test, attributed 20 percent of performance
differences and the United States’ low rankings to differences in social
background.
Formal and Informal Education
• As already mentioned, education is not solely concerned with the
basic academic concepts that a student learns in the classroom.
• Societies also educate their children, outside of the school
system, in matters of everyday practical living. These two types of
learning are referred to as formal education and informal
education.
Formal Education
• Formal education describes the learning of academic facts and concepts
through a formal curriculum.
• Arising from the tutelage of ancient Greek thinkers, centuries of scholars have
examined topics through formalized methods of learning.
• Education in earlier times was only available to the higher classes; they had the
means for access to scholarly materials, plus the luxury of leisure time that
could be used for learning. The Industrial Revolution and its accompanying
social changes made education more accessible to the general population.
• Many families in the emerging middle class found new opportunities for
schooling.
informal education
• In contrast, informal education describes learning about cultural
values, norms, and expected behaviors by participating in a society.
• This type of learning occurs both through the formal education
system and at home. Our earliest learning experiences generally
happen via parents, relatives, and others in our community.
• Through informal education, we learn how to dress for different
occasions, how to perform regular life routines like shopping for and
preparing food, and how to keep our bodies clean.
informal education
Parents teaching their children

to cook provide an informal
education
Cultural transmission
• refers to the way people come to learn the values, beliefs, and
social norms of their culture.
• Both informal and formal education include cultural
transmission. For example, a student will learn about cultural
aspects of modern history in a U.S. History classroom. In that
same classroom, the student might learn the cultural norm for
asking a classmate out on a date through passing notes and
whispered conversations.
Access to Education
• Another global concern in education is universal access. This term
refers to people’s equal ability to participate in an education system.
• For this case in Somalia numerous problems had arisen with regard to
access to education in rural areas and along gender lines, quality of
educational conditions, responsiveness of school curricula, educational
standards and controls, management and planning capacity, and
financing.
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.
• characterized schools as “socialization agencies that teach children
how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic
roles. 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.
Manifest Functions
The teacher’s authority
in the classroom is a way
in which education
fulfills the manifest
functions of social
control.
social placement
• 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
Manifest and Latent Functions of Education
Manifest Functions: Openly stated Latent Functions: Hidden, unstated functions

functions with intended goals with sometimes unintended consequences
Socialization Courtship
Transmission of culture Social networks
Social control Working in groups
Social placement Creation of generation gap
Political and social integration

Cultural innovation
cultural capital, hidden curriculum, tracking.
• Cultural capital, or cultural knowledge that serves (metaphorically) as
currency that helps one navigate a culture, alters the experiences and
opportunities available to French students from different social classes.
• hidden curriculum, which refers to the type of nonacademic knowledge that
one learns through informal learning and cultural transmission.
• Conflict theorists point to tracking, a formalized sorting system that places
students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuate
inequalities.
• 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.

Lecture 12 Education

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Lecture 12 Education

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Lecture 12

These children are at a

Parents teaching their children

Manifest Functions: Openly stated Latent Functions: Hidden, unstated functions

Transmission of culture Social networks

Social control Working in groups

Social placement Creation of generation gap

Political and social integration

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