Relationship between Sociological Theoretical Perspectives and Schooling (part 3 of 4)

         Now that I have described the key messages of each theorist and have illustrated some of their limitations, let us look at something that none of the theories above explain in detail, but mention nonetheless: The self. Status groups, cultural capital, correspondence theory or language codes mean little if we do not first focus on the self. Mead’s socialization theory deals with the development of the self—the me and the I—which represent societal attitudes and individuality of the person (Barakett & Cleghorn, 2008). This development is done through language and social interaction. Our environment shapes our self, and in this environment, the first individual a baby encounters and has frequent interaction with is the significant other. This is how the child gets his/her first conversations, and thus social experience (Barakett & Cleghorn, 2008). Hence, the child starts to communicate and starts to see the world through certain images that are called symbolic representation. Needless to say, our primary socialization occurs in the family (the first people we interact with). Then, comes school which is our secondary socialization process, followed by our peers and finally the media. All these are part of our socialization process; they shape our values and belief systems.

Conclusion

The objective of this article was to illustrate the link between prominent sociological theories and the school system. In order to do that, I started with a short historical background of 1940’s 1950’s and then introduced the functionalist theory. Second, I presented the works of Collins, Bourdieu, Bowles and Gintis, and finally Bernstein. In this section, I discussed their key messages, talked about the limitation of the theories and illustrated how each theory differed or related to each other. Based on these theories, I finished by explaining how schooling was linked to the socialization process and how it affected individuals and schooling. For that, I focused on Mead’s Socialization Theory.

I mentioned Nelson Mandela’s quote in the beginning of this paper: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Despite the fact that our school system may not allow us to do that yet, it is important that we remember that socialization starts with the self, at home, and that we can base the core of our identity there so that future students are capable of becoming agents of social change.

This is the end of part 3. Please read part 4 to find all the references used in these series (part 1, 2 and 3).