Kendall: Chapter 16 - Education 

Education is the social process of  passing on to society members the 
things it is important to know. 

Sources:

   1) church 
   2) family
   3) peers
   4) Formal Organizations

In western societies,  FORMAL EDUCATION is the process by which
the state creates organizations that pass on literacy and other
skills,  but they also have a secondary function of socializing
(values, norms, etc) and bringing diverse groups together.

MASS EDUCATION: Providing free, public school for a wide segment of the
nation's population.

ILLITERACY:

Generally defined as being unable to operate at the 6th grade level in
reading and writing.

Some factoids:
  --Illiteracy in the US is INCREASING - about 14 percent
  --SCARY: More than 75 percent of students at 2-year colleges and more than 
   50 percent of students at 4-year colleges do not score at the proficient 
   level of literacy. This means that they lack the skills to perform complex 
   literacy tasks, such as comparing credit card offers with different 
   interest rates or summarizing the arguments of newspaper editorials (2006).

THEORIES:

FUNCTIONALISM: The OFFICIAL goals of organizations  are called (by 
functionalists) the MANIFEST functions.  LATENT FUNCTIONS are the consquences 
of the educational system that  are not part of the stated goals.
 
MANIFEST FUNCTIONS:  
     1) Transmitting culture
     2) Acculturation (of immigrants, outsiders, etc)  
     3)  Training for adult status (stuff we need to survive)

LATENT FUNCTIONS: 
     1) Hidden curriculums (other stuff learned: ethnocentrism,
        respect for authority, etc 
     2) Ideology (patriotism,  religion, meritoracy) Schools have a
         positive effect and negative effect (explain)

SYMBOLIC INTERACTION:
  --Labelling
  --gender interaction
  --language

CONFLICT THEORY:
  --inequality in curriculum
  --student discipline
  --resource distribution

PROBLEMS IN COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES
  --Costs of tuition
  --Racial ethnic differences in enrollment
  --lack of faculty diversity
  --Affirmative action issues

Despite fairly standard goals, schools differ:
   By type:   primary/secondary (grade and highschool) and post-secondary; 
           vocational/tech schools;  
           prep schools, etc (ie, by level and type)
   Area (suburban, city, inner city, rural)

This means that not all learn the same thing in the same way

SO:  Education, while seemingly neutral, becomes a battleground over ideas, 
values, etc (ask how)

(Conflicts over values, standards, curriculum content, what's
important to know, teaching methods, and other stuff

POINT: THE FUNCTION of education (both manifest and latent) is at issue

EXAMPLE: Meritocracy--distributing resources and rewards on the basis 
of abilities and credentials).  SATs, exams, and  IQ

EDUCATION is a stratifying mechanism:
   a) level attained
   b) performance
   c) type of school and what's studied

FUTURE ISSUES:
  --academic standards and functional illitercy (the inability to read
    or write at a skill level necessary to carrying out basic tasks)
  --Bilingual education
  --Charter schools (for profit/private)
  --Home schooling (1.7 million K12 in US are home-schooled)