Page 441 - Sociology and You

Chapter 12 Education 411 Figure 12.4 Focus on Theoretical Perspectives
Investigating education. This table illustrates differences in the ways the major theoretical perspectives in- vestigate education as a social institution. It is, of course, possible for a theoretical perspective to study edu- cation using one of the concepts associated in this table with another perspective. Explain, for example, how conflict theory would interpret the hidden curriculum and tracking.
Theoretical Perspective
Conflict Theory
Concept
Meritocracy
Example
Students attending better schools have an occupational advantage over students from poorer schools.
Functionalism Tracking Schools shape the occupational future of children by placing them in educational programs based on test scores and early
school performance.
Symbolic Hidden curriculum Schools teach children the values of Interactionism conformity and achievement.
picked at random from the school roster and were no different from other children in the school. At the end of the year, this randomly selected group of children significantly improved their scores on intelligence tests, while their classmates as a group did not. According to Rosenthal and Jacobson, the teachers expected the “late bloomers” to spurt academically. Consequently, the teachers treated these students as if they were special. This behavior on the part of the teachers encouraged the students to become higher academic achievers. (See Focus on Research on page 298. Also see Chapter 9, page 288, for a more general discussion of the self-fulfilling prophecy.)
Another early study by sociologist Eleanor Leacock (1969) found the self- fulfilling prophecy at work in a study of second and fifth graders in black and white low- and middle-income schools. And both studies demonstrate that self-fulfilling prophecies can transmit negative self-impressions as well as positive ones.
Do teachers foster sexism? As described in Chapter 10, children are taught to adopt the “appropriate” gender identity in school (Martin, 1998). Following a long line of earlier researchers, Myra Sadker and David Sadker (1995) have contended that America’s teachers are often unfair to girls be- cause they treat girls differently than boys based on assumptions and stereo- types of what is appropriate behavior. Well-meaning teachers unconsciously transmit sexist expectations of how male and female students should behave.
Student Web Activity
Visit the Sociology and
You Web site at soc.glencoe.com and click on Chapter 12—Student Web Activities for an activity on sexism in schools.