The sociology of education

Reinforcing or counteracting privilege

The rest of the course

12/3 -12/5 Education

12/5 Einstein

12/10 (2:00) Optional Review

Final exam

Course Themes:

1. Feedback dynamics

2. Levels: micro and macro

3. Unintended consequences

4. Systems

5. Self-fulfilling prophecies

Functional and Conflict Aspects of Education

Functional:

Every society must socialize its children

Industrial societies must do so with technical skills

Organic solidarity requires equal educational opportunity

Durkheim

Conflict

Education is key to “Who gets what and why”

Universal free public education has tried to give poor kids a chance.

Separate education is unequal education.

Marx

Does education reinforce or counteract existing

privilegeThe normative system in the U.S. supports equal educational opportunity.

However, since the second class, we have seen that there are enormous disparities of education and educational resources by race, class, gender and neighborhood.

The educational system of disadvantaged children is often overloaded.

The American Dream Formula

Much of chapter 17 (*pp. 557-71) is organized around discussions of the American Dream Formula:

Success = Talent + Skills + Education

What is the relation between this and the American Creed** or Organic Solidarity**?

How can the American Dream Formula be used to legitimate privilege?

Norms and Realities: Where there isn’t a

problem …The American Creed is a normative position about what should be the case;It is consistent with organic solidarity: the view that there should be equal life chances.The American Dream Formula is a statement about what it takes to achieve success in the US.It often overstates openness and equal opportunity.Where there isn’t a problem, you need no solution.

Equal educational opportunity

Proponents of the American Dream Formula often presume that equal educational opportunity already obtains.

Then inequalities are ascribed either to talent or to motivation (noncognitive skills).

However, education is far from equal in terms of resources, teachers, networks, facilities, role models or learning environments.

Meritocracy (*p.560-1)The ideal that life chances should be achieved (based on performance) rather than ascribed (based on race, gender or class background) is valid.

However, in practice, “meritocratic” allocations of positions and chances operate by the “Matthew Principle**”

And the Matthew Principle often reinforces and legitimates ascribed privileges.

Possible Racist, Sexist, or Class biased implications of

belief in meritocracyIf the system is set up so that superior people get ahead I.e. those with greater talent and/or motivation

then those groups that do not get ahead

must be inferior.

Belief that the system is and should be meritocratic often conceals privilege behind the myth of the self-made man.

SAT and ACT tests

Proponents of “meritocracy” advocate exclusive use of such tests.

The text illustrates some issues of bias by the 50-point gender gap on the SAT (*p.574), a point we have discussed earlier (*pp. 427-8)

Since such tests are used to allocate positions and scholarships, their use deprives millions of women of their first school choice or of support.

Are the tests biased?

There are known biases in the wording and choice of questions.But the essential issues hinge on their use as a measure of ability to allocate position.If women (or any other group) have had less chance to acquire the skills tested,use of the tests will deprive able women of the chance to show that ability.Merton** and Cole** have shown that any “meritocratic” structure will operate by the Matthew Principle.

Expectancy Effects

Many of the effects of privilege on resources, facilities, networks, quality of teachers, scholarships, etc. are well-understood.Rosenthal’s* Pygmalion in the Classroom (1968) demonstrated a more pervasive and subtle set of effects.Teachers were given an expectation that randomly selected students would bloom.The students bloomed.

Why do students conform to teacher expectations?The finding has been replicated in many countries, at many ages, in many subjects.

Teachers who expect a student to succeed unintentionally and powerfully reinforce and encourage that student.

Thus, a great deal of the apparatus of tests, student records and tracking in American schools serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy

Expectancy effects with rats

Rosenthal showed that even the minimal contact of an experimentor with a rat can produce powerful expectancy effects.

He hung the signs “maze bright” and “maze dull” on two cages of rats.

The maze bright rats, though they were no different, were liked better, handled more, and their measured intelligence increased.

Expectancy effects in psychological experiments.

When an experimenter expects subject to do something Even if the experimentor is reading identical

instructions, And neither wishes nor intends to convey

expectations (e.g. to choose a certain kind of picture as more

“successful”)

His or her expectancy is conveyed in many ways, and subjects conform to it.

Double-blind experiments

One of the main implications of Rosenthal’s work is that psychological experiments must be ‘double-blind’

Not only is the subject not told the hypothesis,

But the experimenter must conceal from the person administering the experiment, whether the subject is a control.

Is it possible or desirable to eliminate teacher

expectancies?

In a school classroom, teachers have expectations.

Moreover, no-one believes that students would learn more from a TV screenSome kinds of subtle communication are

intrinsic to the teaching/learning process

Is it possible for a school system to expect all students to succeed

The tables at the end of ch. 17 (*pp. 582-3) show that US students, on average, learn less, particularly less math and science, than many countries that spend less than ¼ or 1/10 as much on education,

Such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Swizerland.