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Chap1 Introduction PDF
Chap1 Introduction PDF
Module 1: Introduction
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Chhaapptteerr 11:: IIN
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ROOD
DUUC
CTTIIO
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Module Topics
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Schools and Socialisation
Chapter 3: Education and Social Mobility
Chapter 4: Education and Occupation
Chapter 5: Peer Group
Chapter 6 : Home
Chapter 7 : Academic Underachievers
Chapter 8 : Teaching Profession
LEARNING OUTCOMES
When you complete this chapter module you should be able to:
Define sociology and sociology of education
Elaborate on the importance of schooling
Compare the differences between the functionalist perspectives, the conflict
perspective and the interactionist perspective on schooling
Explain how school is a system
Elaborate on school as a bureaucracy
Elaborate on the culture of a school
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PREAMBLE
This chapter introduces you to some of the important concepts in this concept which
you should be familiar with. Among the important concept discussed are social.
Society, sociology and sociology of education. Also discussed are various
characteristics of the school from a sociological perspective such as the school as a
social system, the school as a bureaucracy and the role of the school as viewed from
the functionalist, conflict and interactionist perspective.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
a) What is your definition of education?
b) What does a sociologist do?
c) Explain what do you understand by ‗sociology of
education‘
WHAT IS SCHOOLING?
Society expects a lot from schools. The moment children enter school, parents
and the community expects the school to nurture the cognitive, psychomotor,
emotional and social aspects of children so as to prepare them to succeed in
education, earn a living, and start a family. Schools are expected to contribute to the
development of human capital. Schools impart knowledge through its educational
system with a formal curriculum that covers a range of subjects such as history,
language, mathematics and so forth.
Schooling refers to the more organised aspects of formal education that takes
place in schools and how the educational process influences individuals and societies.
It is part of education that is most highly valued. On the average students, teachers
and administrators spend about six hours a day and five days a week in school.
Children enter primary or elementary education at age six or seven (varying across
countries). In secondary school, the students spend between four to five years
schooling. A portion of these students to proceed to tertiary education spending
between 3 to 5 years at colleges and universities. Throughout the schooling years
children are involved in various types of school activities which takes up a large
amount of their waking hours. Schools have become an important part of children‘s
life and an important social context.
Besides the hours and days children spent in school, large amounts of money
are spent by parents, business and the government on schooling. Parents allocate a
substantial part of their income to ensure their children experience a good school life
in the form of materials, transport, food, uniform and so forth. The government
allocates large sums of money on education building schools, paying teachers‘ salary
and so forth. In most developed countries such as United States, Canada, Japan,
Denmark and other, expenditure on schooling is relatively high. Expenditure on
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Module 1: Introduction
schooling is seen as an investment to ensure economic and social progress and hence
place high priority on educating their children from kindergarten to college and
university. Similarly, developing countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and
the Philippines are setting aside a large portion of their budget for educating too are
emphasizing this aspect and today we see government in countries are allocating a
huge amount of their budget into educating their young ones. As more people have
access to education, it is hoped that the public may change their attitudes and
behaviours towards social problems such as drug use, alcoholism, and poverty.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
a) Why do you believe schooling is important?
b) Relate some of your experiences while you were in
school.
FUNCTIONALISM CONFLICT
INTERACTIONIST
1) FUNCTIONALIST THEORY
Functionalism emphasises the school as the medium
for transmitting education to the members of society.
Education is seen as one of the most important components of
society. Emile Durkheim, a famous French sociologist, made
many contribution to the sociology of education (see picture).
According to him, education and in particular a school is a
social institution that interacts with other institutions in
society. Education and society reflect each other. For example,
economic disparities that exist in society are also reflected in
education and schools. Functionalists first see the role
education plays in conveying basic knowledge and skills to the
next generation.
In an article written in 1911, entitled ‗Education, its
Nature and Role‘ published in Education et sociologie,
Durkheim asserted that every society has a certain ideal as to
Emile Durkheim
what a person should be intellectually, physically and morally.
(1858-1917)
This ideal is the crux of education. The function of education
and schooling is to perpetuate these ideals of society.
More recently, eminent sociologist Amitai Etzioni who wrote 24 books and
hundreds of article, believed that ―shared‖ value is one of the values that needs to be
taught in school, from kindergarten to university level. So how do schools disseminate
these ―shared values‖?
Amitai Etzioni
(1929 - )
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Module 1: Introduction
their age group. At the university level, they are then exposed to new areas of
study and experience.
Transmission of culture: It is the responsibility of the school to transmit
cultural norms and values of the society to the next generation. In doing so,
they disseminate the cultural values, attitudes and behaviour accepted by the
society so that the children will become productive members of their
community.
Social Placement: Schools are responsible to trained future work force. They
are to identify the most qualified person to fill the positions in society.
Students are taught specific subjects in schools and later enrolled into
programs at the college and university. Individuals that have the qualification
and requirements are then channelled into the job market.
Change and Innovation: Schools have the responsibility to meet the changes
and challenges in society. With new technology and new areas of study being
discovered, schools need to create new subjects and universities need to create
new programs to meet the societal needs. For example, introducing sex
education in school may help to solve part of the social problems created by
early pregnancy among teenagers in school. Medical faculty update their
equipments and technology to meet the discovery of new illnesses and drugs.
2) CONFLICT THEORY
Conflict theorists believe that schools create class, racial, and gender
inequalities among its students. According to them, these inequalities arise due to
certain groups within society that seek to maintain their privileged position at the
expense of others (Ballantine, 2001). They argue that access to quality education is
related to one‘s social status. Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist explained this
point by stating that children bring to school their own cultural capital; i.e. their
values, beliefs, attitudes, and language competencies. Cultural capital also comprises
their accepted attitudes towards education, dress code and manners, knowledge about
specific subjects (music, arts, books) and their own age group culture.
Cultural capital vary according to the socioeconomic status of families.
Generally, middle and upper class parents emphasise ―more‖ cultural capital
compared to working class or low income parents. For example, standardised tests
may disadvantage working class or low income students. A question may ask:
LEARNING ACTIVITY
Robert Rosenthal
(1933 - )
Stage 1 is when a person's belief (false at the time it is held) that a certain
event will happen in the future.
Stage 2 is when this expectation, or prophecy, leads to a new behaviour that
the person would have not undertaken in the absence of such expectation.
Stage 3 is when the expected events actually take place, and the prophecy is
fulfilled.
One of Merton's examples was the collapse of a solid and solvent financial
institution, the Last National Bank, in the early 1930s. The process began with the
belief, false at that time, that the institution was at the verge of bankruptcy. That led to
a massive withdrawal of savings by panicked depositors, which in turn led to the
actual collapse of the bank.
Rosenthal and Jacobson borrowed the term 'Pygmalion effect' from a play by
George Bernard Shaw ('Pygmalion') in which a professor's high expectations radically
transformed the educational performance of a lower-class girl. 'Pygmalion in the
Classroom' describes an experiment carried out in an elementary school (which the
authors call Oak School) to test the hypothesis that in any given classroom there is a
correlation between teachers' expectations and students' achievement (see Figure 1.3).
In the experiment, Rosenthal and Jacobson gave an intelligence test to all of
the students at an elementary school at the beginning of the school year. Then, they
randomly selected 20 percent of the students ─ without any relation to their test
results ─ and reported to the teachers that these 20% of students were showing
"unusual potential for intellectual growth" and could be expected to "bloom" in their
academic performance by the end of the year. Eight months later, at the end of the
academic year, they came back and re-tested all the students.
Those labelled as "intelligent" children showed significantly greater increase
in the new tests than the other children who were not singled out for the teachers'
attention. This means that "the change in the teachers' expectations regarding the
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Module 1: Introduction
reproducing in the classroom the social cycle of advantages and disadvantages. It also
implies, conversely (and this has important policy implications), that a change in
teachers expectations can lead to an improvement in intellectual performance from
those who are usually expected to achieve the least (Schugurensky, 2002).
Although many people had suspected for years that teachers' expectations
have an impact on students' performance, 'Pygmalion in the classroom' was one the
first studies providing clear evidence to document this hypothesis. If we agree, based
on this evidence, that a relation between teachers' expectation and the performance of
certain students, then a subsequent question arises: How, specifically, do teachers
influence a higher achievement of those average students arbitrarily labelled as
'intellectually superior'? In other words, what are the specific classroom mechanisms
by which a teacher's expectations actually translates into a gain in performance?
Because the Oak School experiment did not attempt to examine this issue, it did not
provide conclusive evidence on this, but suggested that a combination of subtle
changes in teaching strategies and communication patterns (e.g. teachers paying more
attention and giving more encouragement and positive reinforcement to the children
from whom more gains were expected) took place during the academic year and
played an important role in effecting student performance (Schugurensky, 2002).
'Pygmalion in the classroom' was followed by many other school-based
studies that examined these mechanisms in detail from different perspectives.
Prominent among the works on this subject conducted by U.S. scholars are "Student
social class and teacher expectations: the self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education"
by Ray Rist (1970); "Social class and the hidden curriculum of work" by Jean Anyon
(1980); "Keeping track: How schools structure inequality" by Jeannie Oakes (1984),
and "Failing at fairness: How America's schools cheat girls" by Myra Sadker and
David Sadker (1995).
Although Rosenthal and Jacobson's work has received several methodological
and theoretical criticisms, their pioneering and imaginative research on the Oak
School certainly opened a 'black box' in the empirical study of equality of educational
opportunity, and provided a lasting contribution to the field.
Ray Rist conducted research similar to the Rosenthal-Jacobson study in 1970.
In a kindergarten classroom where both students and teacher were African American,
the teacher assigned students to tables based on ability; the ―better‖ students sat at a
table closer to her, the ―average‖ students sat at the next table, and the ―weakest‖
students sat at the farthest table. Rist discovered that the teacher assigned the students
to a table based on the teacher's perception of the students' skill levels on the eighth
day of class, without any form of testing to verify the placement. Rist also found that
the students the teacher perceived as ―better‖ learners came from higher social
classes, while the ―weak‖ students were from lower social classes.
Monitoring the students through the year, Rist found that the students closer to
the teacher received the most attention and performed better. The farther from the
teacher a student sat, the weaker that student performed. Rist continued the study
through the next several years and found that the labels assigned to the students on the
eighth day of kindergarten followed them throughout their schooling. While
interactionist theorists are able to document this process, they have yet to define the
exact process of how teachers form their expectations or how students may
communicate subtle messages to teachers about intelligence, skill, and so forth.
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Module 1: Introduction
LEARNING ACTIVITY
a) Do agree that the ‗Pygmalion Effect‘ occurs in schools?
b) List some of the negative consequences of the ‗self-
fulfilling prophecy.
c) How would you go about reducing the ‗Pygmalion
Effect‘ in primary and secondary schools?
LEARNING ACTIVITY
ENVIRONMENT
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Module 1: Introduction
FEEDBACK
ORGANSATION
D B
INPUT OUTPUT
FEEDBACK
ENVIRONMENT
ENVIRONMENT
FEEDBACK
OUTPUT
INPUT Improved student
Students, ORGANISATION achievement,
human Teachers Change in student
resources, Students attitudes,
financial Management Enhanced skills of
resources, Curriculum students, Improved
information others socioemotional
intelligence
FEEDBACK
ENVIRONMENT
LEARNING ACTIVITY
a) Why is the school considered a social system?
b) Describe your school, college, university or educational
institution as a social system.
c) Why are educational institution described as ‗open‘ social
systems?
SCHOOL AS A BUREAUCRACY
a consistent and clear system of recruitment and a career path for individuals,
and loyalty to the organisation is reflected in the performance of individuals,
a hierarchy which differentiates status, authority and power among individuals
system of information flow upwards and downwards in the hierarchy and
patterns of cooperation among individuals.
PRINCIPAL
ASSISTANT
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL
PRINCIPAL
Administration
Support Services
Schools are run on a bureaucratic structure. In Malaysia, at the top we have the
Ministry of Education supported by several Divisions to look into every aspect of the
educational system. All procedures concerning school curriculum and co-curriculum;
the number of teaching days, texts books, national examination procedures and dates
of examination, various clubs and sports that can be conducted in schools are decided
at the ministry level. Similarly, procedures on appointment of teachers, promotion,
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Module 1: Introduction
and salary scheme are set by the ministry. Below the Ministry and its several
Divisions are the State Education Departments that oversee the running of schools in
each state. Further down the hierarchy is the District Education Department that
monitors the operations of schools in each district. Finally, we have the schools, each
with its own bureaucratic structure to run the daily activities.
Figure 1.2 is a simplified organisation chart of a hypothetical secondary
school. At the top of the hierarchy is the Principal who is assisted by two or three
assistant principals. In the example above, one Assistant Principal oversees four
departments divided according to the subjects taught in school. In each of these
departments is a Head of Department and several subject matter experts, i.e. the
teachers. Each department will be responsible for determining teaching of their
respective subjects in the classroom. The other Assistant Principal oversees the
Administration of the school which will involve issues relating to finance, purchasing,
recording keeping, correspondence and so forth. Also, under the purview of the
Assistant Principal is the management of Support Services such as janitorial services,
landscaping services, building maintenance and so forth.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
a) Why would you regard your educational institution as a
bureaucracy?
b) Draw an organisation chart of your education institution.
c) Is your educational institution ―over bureaucratic‖ or ―
over centralised? Explain.
head of a University. None of them any longer do the thing they most enjoy or are
good at. They spend their time as fund raisers, personnel officers, chairs of
committees. It is a widespread tendency: if you can do anything really well, stop
doing it and become an administrator.
A further effect is waste of time and effort, much of it never accounted for
despite the fact that bureaucracy is supposed to be based on accountability. In case an
institution might need to justify an action, huge amounts of time are spent on
concocting audit trails, lengthy agendas, minutes, papers to cover every aspect of
everything. The time and energy in doing all this when set against the cost of any
likely harmful outcome is probably out of all proportion. Yet it is held to be
irresponsible not to do it.
[source: Alan McFarlane, How the world works? What is bureaucracy for? March.
2007]
LEARNING ACTIVITY
What are your thoughts about the commentary by
Alan McFarlane?
SCHOOL CULTURE
Each school has its own climate which refers to the school environment or
atmosphere. This climate exists along its corridors, classrooms, among its students
and teachers. It is a feeling you get when you enter the school compound. The school
culture is part of the school climate. Culture refers to a group‘s shared beliefs,
customs, and behaviour. A school‘s culture includes the obvious elements of
schedules, curriculum, demographics, and policies, as well as the social interactions
that occur within those structures and give a school its look and feel as ―friendly,‖
―elite,‖ ―competitive,‖ ―inclusive,‖ and so on. School culture is variously defined by
its:
Rituals
Expectations
Relationships
Curricular focus
Extra-curricular activities
Decision-making processes
Graduation requirements
and any other aspect of ―the way things are done in a school‖.
sense of spirit. It may have a special song, symbolising what is important. It may have
special traditions and meanings that are uniquely its own. Each school has its own
culture; values, norms, attitudes, beliefs, customs and procedures which make up the
school system. School culture is important in instilling a feeling of loyalty among its
members. For example, in many American schools, setting up of the school cheering
squad is important. The school believes that the presence of a cheering squad during
any interschool matches will boost the morale of their school players. When a team
goes down to the field, the players are accompanied by the cheering squad. This will
create a feeling of togetherness and this is a culture unique to the school.
Other aspects of school culture include ceremonies that are unique in each
school. Similarly, students in the school may have their own culture which involves
their language, dress, music, and activities and this is passed on to the next generation
of new students entering the school. This culture may emerge from the immediate
community in which the school is located.
For example, if the surrounding community is an affluent society then we can
expect students in this school to have the language, behaviour and life style of the
affluent society. Teachers too have their own culture to represent the adult society.
There are teachers who tend to be less approachable and create a distance from
students. These styles and outlooks reflect what teachers believe about their role.
Source: Shaping School Culture. Excerpts from an interview with Dr. Kent
Peterson. Apple Learning Exchange, 2004.
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Module 1: Introduction
LEARNING ACTIVITY
KEY WORDS:
SUMMARY:
Conflict theorists believe that schools create class, racial, and gender
inequalities among its students
Schools are seen as a social system, responsible to shape the behaviour and
values of children either through formal or informal curriculum.
Schools set goals and these goals are based on community expectations of
what is to be taught in schools.
Schools are basically bureaucratic in nature and help to formalised its daily
functions.
School culture refers to the school‘s shared beliefs, customs, and behaviour.
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Module 1: Introduction
REFERENCES:
Jackson, P.W., Boostrom, R.E.,& Hansen, D.T. (1993). The moral life of schools. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Merton, R.K. (1948). The self-fulfilling prophecy. Antioch Review, pp. 193-210.
Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How high schools structure inequality. New Haven,
CT: Yale University.
Ray C. Rist, (1970). Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfilling
prophecy in ghetto education, Harvard Educational Review, 40, 72-73.
Saphier, J. & King, M. (1985) Good Seeds Grow in Strong Cultures. Educational
Leadership, March 1985 (Vol. 42, No. 6, p. 67-74)