Page 180 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

152 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
How will you provide learning opportunities for students to develop understandings of psychological principles? When students participate in “Student of the Week” or “Show and Tell” how will you help them deepen their understanding of individual development and identity?
Sociology
Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. The family is the basic social unit in most societies and the source of some of the most fundamental learning. Sociologists investigate the structure of social groups, organizations, and society as a whole, and how people interact within those contexts. In particular, they look at contrasting social status and the role and expecta- tion associated with it (e.g., gender, social class, race, and ethnicity; minority group membership; childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; power and positions of leadership; business ownership, management, and labor; social, political, and religious organizations; crime, poverty, and other social problems; the media and mass communications). These areas of interest overlap considerably with those of anthropologists. However, anthropologists study small groups or societies and focus on belief systems, whereas sociologists study large and complex modern societies and focus on social status and role expectations.
Sociology is not formally taught in the K–12 curriculum except for a single course (usually an elective) in high school, but the curriculum contains a lot of sociological con- tent. History instruction frequently makes reference to advances in gender or racial equity, social movements, labor relations, and other sociological topics. Studies of the family, the neighborhood, and the community in the primary grades typically include content dealing with social status and roles, occupations, and social organizations, and material on these and other sociological topics are included in what is taught about the development of the state and nation in the middle grades.
Children’s Knowledge and Thinking about Sociology
Children enter school not only well aware of sex differences but usually somewhat knowledgeable and often strongly opinionated about gender roles and expectations. They identify with their own sex and want to learn about and display behaviors associated with it and avoid behaviors associated with the opposite sex. Most of their gender-related think- ing is focused on salient aspects of the cultural universal, childhood: preferences for toys, games, books, hobbies, and so forth that are associated with their own sex. However, they also have some knowledge of gender typing in adult roles and occupations, including awareness of associated status differences (Durkin, 2005).
Children also enter school with some awareness of social and economic differences, at least at the level of recognizing extremes of wealth and poverty. Primary-grade children usually cannot explain these differences or else offer explanations confined to differences in personal characteristics such as intelligence or ability (i.e., wealthier people have jobs that require more education, effort, or talent). By the middle grades, their explanations
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