Education Flashcards
What is the Rosenthal & Jacobson experiment?
- they were seeing if teacher expectations can impact students’ intellectual performance
- They tested the student’s abilities and were told that there were certain students that were gonna ‘spurt’ and teachers were instructed to watch these students progress but not to tell the student or their parents.
Findings of the Rosenthal & Jacobson experiment?
- A self-fulfilling prophecy had taken place – the teacher expected more from these particular students and they responded
what is the Correspondence principle?
- It is the sociological principle that schools correspond to (or reflect) the social structure of their society. What is taught in a nation’s schools corresponds to the characteristics of that society.
- correspondence principle demonstrates that
the Australian education system is designed to turn students into dependable workers who will not question their bosses
correspondence principle examples:
Capitalism: encourages competition
Social inequality: unequal funding of schools
Social class bias: Children of the poor into job training programs that demand little intellect.
Functions of educational system
- knowledge and skills
- values
- social integration
- gatekeeping
- replacing family functions
- Other functions
What are some conflict perspectives on education?
- Conflict theorists examine how the education system
reproduces the social class structure - They believe schools perpetuate the social divisions of society and help the higher classes maintain their dominance.
What are Latent and manifest functions of education?
Manifest = Intended functions
Latent = unintended functions
What is Symbolic violence?
- First founded by Pierre Bourdieu in the 1970s
- Symbolic violence describes a type of non-physical violence manifested in the power differential between social groups.
What is Habitus?
- refers to people’s embodied traits and behaviors. These habits, skills, and dispositions are learned through socialization and are so ingrained in our identities that they feel completely natural.
What are Bourdieu’s views on the role of education?
- He believes that the education systems of industrialised societies function in such a way as to legitimate class inequalities. Success in the education system is facilitated by the possession of cultural capital and of higher-class habitus.
What is Gatekeeping?
- The process in which education opens and closes doors of opportunity
- Education determines which people enter what occupations
- often achieved ‘tracking’ or sorting the students on the basis of their achievement or perceived abilities
- Schools have now banned ‘formal tracking’ - now student choice
What is Meritocracy?
Meritocracy describes a society where jobs and pay are allocated based on an individual’s talent and achievements rather than social status.
- It shows that the system is fair and supports all students, giving students equal opportunity to accomplish and recieve awards regardless of outside factors.
Education across different countries – global perspectives - Russia
Russia:
- Originally education was only available for the elite, but this soon changed for all over time.
- Socialist values dominated school textbooks
- Governments saw children as the way to indoctrinate new citizens.
- Capitalism = evil, communism = salvation of the world
- Education and university = free
- academic focus on maths and natural science
- To prevent critical thinking social sciences are not taught
- after the 1991 move from communism to capitalism brought rapid shift in culture, foreign and religous run schools were allowed and teachers were allowed to encourage free thinking students
What is Self-fulfilling prophecy?
- Refers to a false assumption of something that is going to happen, but then comes true
simply because it was predicted
What are Rist’s research findings?
- Rist demonstrated that a student’s socioeconomic status affected how teachers perceived that student’s aptitude at very early ages.
- Demonstrates the power of labels
