Education

1
Education
2
Functionalist Perspective

• Education serves the following functions
• General socialization
• Perpetuates society

3

• Special skills
• Creation of knowledge

4
Latent Functions

• Custody of the young
• Provides pool of low wage,
• temporary workers
• Credentialing

5
Conflict Perspective

• U.S. schools reproduce social inequality
• Class and race influence quality of education
  received

6
Symbolic Interactionism

• Education as a self-fulfilling prophesy
• Tracking
• Rosenthal-Jacobsen Experiment

7
(No Transcript)
8
U.S. Education System

• If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to
  impose on America the mediocre educational
  performance that exists today, we might well have
  viewed it as an act of war! (A Nation at Risk
  1983)

9
(No Transcript)
10
Explanations

• More students with poorer preparation taking the
  exam
• Social promotion
• Social problems affecting students

11
Average Annual Salaries (BLS 2004)
12
Higher Education as Beer and Circus

• How big time athletics is crippling undergraduate
  education (Murray Sperber)
• Current situation at large public universities

13
After the Baby Boom Generation

• Enrollments declined
• To maintain funding, colleges needed to increase
  undergraduate enrollment

14
To Increase Undergraduate Enrollment

• Gain notoriety and prestige
• Winning, big time athletic programs

15

• Increase retention of undergraduates
• Easy courses and majors

16
Student Life at Some Large Public Universities
17
(No Transcript)
18
Princeton Reviews Party Schools 2004-05

• Based on student surveys about school academics,
  campus life and student body, as well as study
  hours, politics, and opinions.

19
Recruit prestigious research faculty
20

• However, big time sports and star faculty cost a
  lot of money. Therefore,
• Star faculty want to focus on their research
• Reward research more than teaching

21
Impact on Undergrad. Education

• Great researchers are not necessarily great
  teachers
• Greater use of graduate students, adjuncts

22

• Placate with honors classes, learning communities
• Student subcultures
• Collegiates primary goal in college is social
  life
• Academics primary goal is to get good grades,
  pursuit of learning, grad. school
• Vocationals primary goal is a occupational
  training
• Rebels primary goal is ideas and learning, but
  critical of the academic process. Unconcerned
  about good grades

23
Student Subculture at ISU Percent of Soc. 134
Students
24
Hours Studying/Week
25
Hours of TV/Week
26
Hours of Work/Week
27
How Subcultures Spend their Time
28
Alcohol Usage by Subculture
29
Value of Sperbers Beer and Circus

• Highlights problems confronting higher education
  today, especially public universities
• Functionalist theory
• Conflict theory
• Symbolic interactionist theory