Let's do this !: Relationship between Sociological Theoretical Pers...

Let's do this !: Relationship between Sociological Theoretical Pers...: Introduction Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” But how are we su...

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

References

The following are the references I used for the previous articles of this series (part 1, 2, and 3)

Barakett, J. & Cleghorn A. (2008). Sociology of education : An introductory view from Canada, 

2^nd Edition. Toronto: Pearson.

Bowles S. & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America: Education Reform and theContradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic Books Inc. pp. 131–132, 147.  Retrieved onOctober 18, 2012 from http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-5-learning-personalities/bowles-and-gintis-on-schooling-in-capitalist-united-states/

Bellamy, L. (1994). Capital, habitus, field, and practice: An introduction to the work of Pierre 

Bourdieu. In L. Erwin & D. MacLennan (Eds.). pp. 120-134. Sociology of Education Canada, 

Toronto: Copp, Clark, Longman.

Bernstein, B. (1973). Social Class: language and reproduction. Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol 

12, 473-485

Bourdieu, P. (1973). The forms of capital. In J.G. Richardson, (Ed.). Handbook of Theory and 

Research for the Sociology of Education.  Pp. 241-258. New York: Greenwood Press.

Collins, R. (1977). Functional and conflict theories of educational stratification. In J. Karabel & A. 

H. Halsey (Eds.). pp. 118-136. Power of Ideology in Education. N.Y: Oxford University Press.

Collins, R. (1993). WHAT DOES CONFLICT THEORY PREDICT ABOUT AMERICA'S 

FUTURE? Sociological Perspectives, 36(4), 289-313.

Collins, R. (2004). Conflict theory of educational stratification. In J. Ballantine & Spade (Eds.). 

Schools and Society. Pp. 41-48. Tomson-Wadsworth. 136. New York: Greenwood Press

Davis, K., & Moore, W. E. (1945). SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION. American 

Sociological Review, 10(2), 242-249.

Gintis, H. & Bowles, S. (1981). Contradiction and reproduction in educational theory. In R. Dale et 

al. Schooling and the National Interest. Pp. 45-59. England: The Falmer Press.

Strawn, A. M. (2009). Social Theory in the Function of Education. Petroleum - Gas University Of 

Ploiesti Bulletin, Educational Sciences Series, 61(1), 35-40.

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).

Relationship between Sociological Theoretical Perspectives and Schooling (part 2 of 4)

Randall Collins is one of the most well-known critics of the functionalist theory of education. He blames the functionalists for bringing stratification in schools in the form of Status Groups (Collins, 1977). Status groups are associational cohorts in which individuals share the same culture, value or background (language, religion, tastes in styles for instance). The concept of status had previously been introduced by Karl Marx who saw a capitalist class (dominant) and a working class (dominated), and Max Weber who mentioned the conflict and struggle between status groups. Based on the inputs of these two sociologists, Collins points out the weakness of functionalism. He refers to the conflict theory to emphasize the inequality of social groups, especially when it comes to education (Collins 2004). Conflict theory looks at why and how conflicts exist in our society and what effect it has (Collins, 1993). Collins argues that school teaches status culture in its hidden curriculum because schools are controlled by the dominant group that expects its values and views to be accepted by students. In addition, since formal education (training is school) is considered for job-related placement, employers use those standards to hire their staffs (Collins, 1977). Consequently, only those who are able to be in that dominant status group at school have a chance to hold high positions in the future.

Although Collins adequately describes status culture and its inequality in society, he does not communicate how schools actually teach status culture. Additionally, he mentions a type of ‘hidden’ curriculum but he fails to explain what it means precisely and how it affects students. These are a few limitations in Collins’ theory. Let us now look at another concept that was introduced by Bourdieu.

The French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu also rejects the functionalist theory. Like Collins, he sees a dominant and dominated society. However, he does not believe that schools reflect the dominant society (Bourdieu, 1973). For him, schools are relatively autonomous and do not follow the power of the dominant elite. It is more subtle than that. He states that schools are institutions—among many others—where social, cultural, economic and even academic matters are reproduced to symbolize what he calls cultural capitals (Bourdieu, 1973). He presents three fundamental types of capital: Economic capital, Cultural capital, and Social Capital. For him, all these three capitals can be convertible into money/economy and be institutionalized in different ways. Economic capital can be institutionalized in the form of property rights, cultural capital in the form of educational qualification, and social capital in the form of title of nobility (Bourdieu, 1973). Bourdieu believes that school success is based on the cultural capital that we receive from our family and not necessarily by individual talent or achievement. In other words, we all have capitals. It is like a baggage we carry with us. Some have more capitals than others (based on what their family exposed them to), and thus, they have higher capitals. Therefore, they probably have a higher chance of succeeding in school (Bellamy, 1954).

Bourdieu (1973) adds that Cultural capital can occur in three states: the embodied state (like long lasting dispositions), the objectified state (such as cultural goods), and the institutionalized state (like education qualification). In any case, he strongly believes that this cultural capital is transferred by schools through instruction methods such as meritocracy and the curriculum design (Bourdieu, 1973). Collins had mentioned the hidden curriculum a bit, but Bourdieu is the one who explains it in more detail by illustrating how schools teach the superiority of a particular form of high culture (distribution of knowledge, classroom interaction, and process of educational experience). Overall, Bourdieu’s main ideology is that the institutionalized forms of cultural capitals found in schools help reproduce social relations outside it. If that is the case, critics of his theory have a hard time understanding how he can claim that schools are autonomous.

Let us now move to a concept that sees things a bit differently. Gintis and Bowles (1981) propose a correspondence theory that presents a link between the school system and the nature of work. They claim that aspects of work correspond to features of the education system. For instance, the way discipline is taught in schools is similar to what is expected at work. Self-image or social class identification are some examples for this (Bowles & Gintis, 1976). In addition, the relationship between members of schools is similar to the relationship between members of a workplace (the faculty is organized by hierarchy, teachers have authority over students, older students are seen as superior than younger ones). Furthermore, the division of labor found in school is also reflected again as a rule by employers. Those who did not do well in school will have lower levels of work with little responsibly where they will do simple repetitive tasks. On the other hand, those who did well will have higher levels of work (Gintis & Bowles, 1981). This aspect comes back to what Collins explained: formal education is considered for work placement. Gintis and Bowels go further by explaining how not only is educational training considered for job placement, but it is even expected to mirror the same standards.

The principal of contradiction is worth mentioning when talking about Bowles and Gintis’ concept of correspondence theory. Indeed the failure of correspondence between schools and the production of capitalism may be observed. For example, the situation of people who get higher education but fail to find jobs illustrate this contradiction. The two social theorists also mention that there is a site of social practice. It is basically a unified place of social life characterized by social structures (Gintis & Bowles, 1981) and they are “all sites in capitalist social formation” (p. 49).

Bowles and Gintis were deeply criticized. They wanted a more equal society but did not seem to think that school could change society. Although they both criticized the system where school reproduced class inequality, they were both part of the system since they were graduates of Harvard University. In addition, their theory was considered too determinist because they saw teachers to be the means of capitalism and students to be victims of the system; but in reality all teachers and all students do not fall in this category. Moreover, as opposed to what they claimed, it is argued that formal education does not necessarily mirror what is expected in the job market. In fact, there are complaints about how school does not teach the required skills that are needed for jobs.

Another renowned theorist in the field of school and society is Basil Bernstein who is at the macro-level analysis. He illustrates the importance to look at the way children interact and speak in order to view socialization at its best. He therefore focused on speech and presented the difference between elaborated codes and restricted codes (Bernstein, 1973). Elaborated codes are usually used by middle and upper class families where mothers (or the significant other) focus on both the speech and the act of what the child has done. On the other hand, restricted codes only focus on the act of the child: for example a parent from a working class will say “don’t do that!” to his/her child who did something wrong, but will not explain why. According to Bernstein, family is the primary socialization agency. Therefore, children who have access to elaborated codes at home will do better in school because that is the code used there. In order to resolve this, Bernstein proposes to give more resources (such as books, computers, or funds) to schools in poor areas so that they can inculcate an elaborated code. One can criticize that this would not help much since the children will go back home anyways, where they will be exposed to restricted codes. Another criticism that Bernstein received is how he does not really describe who the parent/significant others is. In addition, the way he sees working class children as deficit system of society is critiqued. Also, he talks about working class and middle class but he does not describe what class is exactly. All we know is the he sees those classes as two standardized groups, but is everyone in a class the same?

This is the end of part 2. Now, check out Part 3.

All references will be added on part 4.

Relationship between Sociological Theoretical Perspectives and Schooling (part 1 of 4)

Introduction

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” But how are we supposed to change the world when our school systems fail to offer the possibility to be creative, to question matters or to encourage social change? The purpose of this article is to describe the link between prominent sociological theories and the school system. I will start by giving a short historical background and will introduce the functionalist theory on stratification.  Second, I will contrast that model with the works of theoreticians such as Collins, Bourdieu, Bowles and Gintis, and finally Bernstein. In this section, I will discuss the key message of their theories, how they differ or relate to each other, and what types of criticisms they have received. Lastly, I will demonstrate how the socialization process affects school-work, school achievement and the social status of the individual. For that, I will focus on Mead’s Socialization Theory and show how it relates to the other theorists mentioned above. In this segment, I will also present a real-life example to illustrate how all the different social models presented in this article affect schooling till this date.

1945, one of the worst wars in our world’s history has ended. New prosperity returns; It’s time for a new life, new homes, new families, new beginnings. Soldiers are coming back home and hope is being restored and. Birth rates peak from the late forties to the fifties: The baby-boomers have arrived. As economic expansions arise, changes in society and in education follow.  Indeed, the high numbers of children that are born need to go to school. Governments, churches and the community in general have to find space for all of them: Mass education is created.

Although school was open to all, success was not necessarily possible for all. Functionalism became the accepted form of social standard. This meant that only limited numbers of students could be well-trained to be able to have successful careers. The Functionalist theory was concerned with stability rather than social change. It viewed society like the human body (Strawn, 2009). It has different organs and each plays a certain role so that the whole system works to maintain health. Hence, according to functionalists, school and society had to have that type of objective too. School will teach children a certain knowledge and value so that they have a specific place in society when they grow up. Then, as adults, they shall function based on that knowledge they acquired. This way, a stable and healthy society is maintained (Strawn, 2009). The functionalist theory of education is built upon Davis and Moore’s general theory of stratification which claims that one need a particular kind of talent to hold a professional position and that position can only be filled by individuals who have the required training or people that are skilled by nature (Davis and Moore, 1945). Therefore, individuals with low skills will have low jobs and people with high skills will have better careers. Only a few people in society can attain high positions since it requires more talent, more training, and thus more time. Therefore, people that manage to get this preparation should be entitled to gain rewards that pay back for their sacrifices (Davis and Moore, 1945).

The Functionalist theory has been widely criticized throughout the years. Many theorists view it as a system that only benefits a few—mostly the upper class—and promotes social inequality. In an attempt to counterattack this, theorists like Collins, Bourdieu, Bowles/Gintis, and Bernstein have condemned this concept. Let us look at the focus of their theories and the differences between each.

This is the end of part 1. Now, check out Part 2. 

All references will be added on part 4.