Sociological Perspective: Education
In the United States, from the age of five through sixteen, we are required to attend school full time. Some people further their education by attending a college or university after high school. Many people do well in education, but unfortunately others do not. When a person furthers their education by going on to a college or university, this confirms that they have studied well enough to stay in school and continue their education. Science tells us that if two highly intellectual people have children, their children have a much higher chance of being highly intellectual also. This idea is very similar to having two blue-eyed people producing blue-eyed children. However, this doesn't always happen. Separately from science, there are many different factors that influence these facts such as the school and friends. However, why do different groups of students consistently do worse than other students in education? For example, working class children, on average, do not do as well as middle class children. On average, black children do not do as well as white children (Bluhm Morley). This is proven by statistics on exam results and those pursuing higher education. By using the sociological perspective, we will look at the educatio
Moreover, Durkheim portrayed the division of labor in his functionalist theory. Education teaches individual skills necessary for future occupations. People take this education and it in turn gives them roles in society that they are to perform. Education conveys general values necessary for homogeneity, the quality of being uniform throughout society in an individual's role. Furthermore, specific skills provide necessary diversity for social cooperation, as people need to work together to be the source of goods in society. n system through the theories of functionalism, confliction, and symbolism. We will also observe the impacts of sociological variables in education through social class. Doing so, we'll answer a question, "How does education impact our society?" Using an example of this in the educational organization, we can view the bell system. The bell symbolizes the schedule and how a school day runs. When a student arrives at school, they may take the time to socialize with friends and prepare for first period. All of a sudden, a familiar bell goes off. The student automatically thinks to them self that s/he needs to get to class. The bell is stimulation to the brain which in turn is interpreted as a warning symbol to get to class and the response is the student rushing to get to class on time. Mead proposed an interpretive model for sociology which "inserts a middle term into the stimulus response couplet so that it becomes stimulus-interpretation-response."(Sources, pp.71) Sequentially, a student may be in class and interpret the bell to pack his/her things and leave. Dissimilar to this stimulation, the teacher doesn't feel the bell dismisses the class it is just a reminder to them what time it is; the teacher allows the students to leave, not the bell. Thus, one symbolic object can have several meanings. The sociology of education has been an important part of the development of the discipline of sociology. The socialization of children into society is accepted as being the role of our school's education system. The question so frequently raised today by educators, parents, and students alike is, "Do our schools carry out their role according to society's needs and in its best interests?" Certainly, as John Dewey nicely puts it, Education is a social process...Education is growth...Education is, not a preparation for life; Education is life itself. Much sociological studies have been conducted on the link between social class and achievement in grammar and secondary schools to go onto higher education. It is invariably trying to measure, describe and then explain why working class children consistently do less well in achieving higher education than their middle and upper class counterparts. First, social class is defined as a large group of people who rank closely to one another in terms of wealth, power, and occupational prestige (Bluhm-Morley; 2002). Social class is distinctively people who occupy the same layer of the economic social hierarchy. These layers divide society into strata of people who have unequal amounts of scarce and desirable resources, unequal like chances, and unequal social influences. People in the lower strata have disproportionate amount of fund. A study done by the University of California, San Diego, stated: "Affording the cost of studying and being in debt were also key reasons for not going to university. There were concerns, too, of current students and likely entrants (though the majority of them felt that the investment was worthwhile in the long run). Concerns about costs were wider and mor
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Approximate Word count = 2416
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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