Lecture Notes in The Teacher, the Community, School Culture and Organizational Leadership
Lesson 2
The School as the Primary
Educative Agency (Part A)
Several Definitions of the word “school”
 The “school” is derived from the Greek word
‘skhole’, which means “leisure” and also, the most
indispensable agency of education. – Sharma
(2000)
 “School is a special environment, where a certain
quality of life and certain types of activities and
occupations are provided with the object of
securing the child’s development along desirable
lines.” – John Dewey
 “Schools are institutions developed by civilized
man for purpose of aiding in the preparation of
the young to be well adjusted and efficient
members of the society.” – J.S. Ross
 “Schools are institutions, which require full-time
attendance of specific age groups in teacher-
supervised classrooms for study of graded
curricula.” – Everett Reimer
 “Although the school is only one ‘teacher’ among
several ones that form the social institution of
education, it is indisputable that it is the primary
educative agency of the society.” – Scotter
(1991)
Arguments supporting that the school is
considered the most important agency of
education:
 Schools provide proof of educational
attainment
 Employment is difficult without proofs of
educational attainment (diploma and
transcript of records)
 It is unfounded to call someone educated if he
had never been through a school or college
 Although education can be obtained from
various places such as the family, the Internet,
mass media, etc., in modern society,
educational credentials are important proofs
of the type or amount of education one has
acquired
 Schools help attain national goals
 The school is best at being a medium through
which human resource development, peace,
order, education of poverty, and progress of
country can be realized
 With schools, professionals of different
specializations are nurtured, who in turn
contribute to nation-building
 A nation cannot be built without schools
 The state believes that its goals can be carried
out effectively by professionals who are
trained to educate individuals through fixed
and well-crafted curriculum and not through
other agencies
 Schools assist the family in providing
education
 The family cannot itself perform the task of
holistically educating a child, especially along
specialized occupational skills
 Universities and colleges are the only avenues
for providing training in specialized
occupations
 Higher forms of academic learning are
provided only by schools as compared to the
family, which is limited to provide such
education
 Schools aim to provide complete
development of individuals
 Schools do their best to develop the mind
(cognitive), body (psychomotor), morals, and
spirit (affective) among other things in an
individual
 Schools address total human development
 Knowledge has become so vast that schools
remain as the only formal agency to complete
this task
 Schools’ contributions to education are
indispensable
There is no substitute to the various thought
learning objectives, time schedule, and the
means of education prepared in school,
substantiated with the active and meaningful
face-to-face interaction of human beings in
the teaching and learning processes.
 The absence of other educative agencies after
formal education does not constitute a great
handicap for individuals but not vice versa.
The Interdisciplinary Study of Schools
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Lecture Notes in The Teacher, the Community, School Culture and Organizational Leadership
 No single field or discipline can claim monopoly
or exclusivity in the study of schools
 The study of schools may be analyzed in a variety
of ways, because such discipline has its own
assumptions and views of the world; its own
approach and orientation; its own direction and
focus of attention
 Several fields play an important part in the study
of schools such as:
 Philosophy – this looks into the deeper
meaning of the existence of schools in the life
of individuals and society
 Psychology – provides learning theories and
principles as well as development stages of the
learners that guide effective and meaningful
teaching and learning process
 Law – provides the legal framework to which
teaching and managing schools are practiced
 Economics – looks into the investments to
education and how this cost affects efficiency,
effectiveness, productivity and quality of
educational outcomes
 This proves that no single discipline has the sole
privilege of analyzing schools, but all these
disciplines bring out a meaningful and integrated
collection of understanding of schools as a formal
educative institution
Sociology and Understanding the
Sociological Lens to Study Schools
 Since the interdisciplinary study of schools
introduces a wide range of social science theories
and researches as they relate to education, it is
therefore believed that much of it rests on the
discipline of sociology, because fundamentally,
education is a social undertaking.
 Sociology is defined in a number of ways:
 “Sociology is a branch of social science that
uses systematic methods of empirical
investigation and critical analysis to develop
and refine a body of knowledge about human
social structure and activities.” – Anthony
Giddens
 “Sociology is the scientific study of social
interactions and of social organization.” –
Michael Hughes
 “Sociology is a systematic study of social life
(institutions, cultures and behavior patterns)
created by people and in turn influencing their
behavior in and continues interaction.” – R.
Schaefer
 “Sociology is the study of human behaviors as
they are affected by social interactions within
groups, organizations, societies, and the
planet.” – J. Ferrante
 By all of these, this implies that sociology, as a
field of discipline, is one umbrella of social
science; it is systematic in its investigation; it
deals with society’s structure (social institutions,
organizations, and culture); and it examines
individual and group social interaction and
relationships on a daily basis in local, national or
global scale.
 Sociologists observe and analyze schools,
particularly their educational practices and
ordinary activities that serve as link between
individual and society
 Sociologists use empiricism (gathering of facts
derived from sense-experience) to make theories
in order to avoid abstract speculations about
relationships
 The father of sociology, Auguste Comte (French
philosopher) saw the need for a scientific
approach toward studying structures and
interactions within society and the school in
particular, being an institution
 According to Comte, “…scientific method uncovers
sociological phenomena that are not always
obvious.”
 Sociologists view that the school is an ordered
organization to which administrators, teachers,
and students live, as reflected by structures,
systems and processes (social patterns,
interaction, and control) which can be understood
through scientific investigation.
--END OF LESSON PART A--
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