Education and Modern Society

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Education and Modern Society

• Society a group of people who share a culture
  in a particular territory.
• Societies have evolved with different levels of
  technology

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Education and Modern Society

• Hunting and Gathering survival, minimal or
  little inequality
• Horticultural domestication of animals,
  inequalities increased e.g. slaves
• 3. Agrarian large scale farming, use of plows
  etc., greater social inequality e.g. serfs and
  lords.

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Societies have evolved with different levels of
technology

• 4. Industrial societies factories, people moved
  from the farms to cities, inequality formed
  between capitalists and labourers.
• 5. Post-industrial computers global society

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Major Social Theorists

• Auguste Comte (1798 -1857)
• Karl Marx (1818 -1883)
• Emile Durkheim (1858 -1917)
• Max Weber (1864 -1920)
• George Herbert Mead (1863- 1931)

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Positivism applying the scientific method to
  the social world
• Experience of the French Revolution inspired his
  thinking on the twin problems of social order
  and social change

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• What holds society together?
• Why is there social order instead of anarchy or
  chaos?
• Once society becomes set on a particular course,
  what causes it to change?

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Concluded that the answer was in applying the
  scientific method.
• This would uncover the laws that underlie
  society.
• It would not only discover social principles but
  it would also apply them to social reform.

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• He called this new science
• SOCIOLOGY
• The study of society
• Credited with being the founder of sociology

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Influenced sociology but also left his mark on
  world history.
• Ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the
  three greatest modern thinkers (along with Freud
  Einstein)

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Believed people should take active steps to
  change society.
• Exiled to England from Germany for proposing
  revolution
• Believed that the engine of human history is
  class conflict.

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Said that the bourgeoisie are locked in
  inevitable conflict with the proletariat.
• Purported that this struggle can only be resolved
  by the members of working class uniting in
  revolution and breaking the chains of bondage
  from the Capitalist class.

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Karl Marx and Early Conflict theory

• Everything that happens in society is caused by
  economic relationships.
• Modern industrial society is divided into
• Those who own wealth capitalists or bourgeoisie
• Those who produce wealth labourers or
  proletariat (2 classes)

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Karl Marx and Early Conflict theory

• The result of revolution would be a classless
  society
• Free of exploitation
• Where all individuals, will work according to
  their abilities and receive according to their
  needs.

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Karl Marx and Early Conflict theory

• Marx did not consider himself a sociologist.
• However, his ideas have profoundly influenced the
  discipline particularly conflict theorists

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Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Contributed many important concepts to sociology
• First to study suicide
• Concluded People are likely to commit suicide
  if their ties to others in their communities are
  weak.

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Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Sought for the recognition of sociology as an
  academic discipline
• Sociology was seen as an offshoot history and
  economics
• Durkheim's received the first academic
  appointment in sociology in France in 1887 at the
  University of Bordeaux

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Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Studied how individual behaviour is shaped by
  social forces.
• Identified social integration the degree to
  which people are tied to their social group
• Conclude that people with weaker social ties are
  more likely to commit suicide.

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Early Functionalist theory Emile Durkheim

• Social Fact something that is external to and
  constraining upon the individual
• Mechanical Solidarity primitive societies get
  along because they are unspecialized and familiar
  with the same tasks. (religious and premodern)

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Early Functionalist theory Emile Durkheim

• Organic Solidarity division of labour and
  specialties produce different experiences and
  interests.
• Anomie feeling rootless and normless, lacking a
  sense of belonging- the opposite to what
  sociologists mean by community.
• Durkheim felt that modern society tended to
  produce feelings of isolation resulting from
  the division of labour.

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Early Functionalist theory Emile Durkheim

• Education
• Schools are key institutions in providing moral
  unity through forging a sense of nationhood and a
  commitment to common values and beliefs.
• Creating cohesion or social integration.
• Reducing the sense of anomie

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Durkheim and Moral Education

• Education
• Provides us with the DISCIPLINE to restrain our
  individual passions and drives. As we learn
  right and wrong we normally develop self
  discipline.
• Provides us with a sense of AUTONOMY the social
  rules become our own rules.
• Aims to develop our sense of appreciation FOR
  SOCIETY and to its common morality.

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Max Weber (1864-1920)

• (pronounced Veber)
• A contemporary of Durkheim
• Considered, along with Durkheim and Marx, one of
  the most influential sociologists

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Max Weber (1864-1920)

• Studied the rise of Capitalism
• How did it come about?
• Why did some countries adopt it enthusiastically
  while others lagged behind?
• Suspected that religion might be the key.

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Max Weber (1864-1920)

• The typical approach to life, during this time of
  history, was not to strive to get ahead, but to
  work only enough to maintain ones usual way of
  life.
• Weber Roman Catholic belief encourage this
  traditional way of life

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Max Weber (1864-1920)

• The Protestant belief system (especially
  Calvinism) encouraged people to embrace change.
• Catholic belief accumulation of material
  objects was a sign of greed and discontent
• Protestants denounced greed but encouraged hard
  work, saving money and investing money.

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Max Weber (1864-1920)

• Protestantism over took Catholicism after the
  Reformation of the 1500s
• Led to the development of Capitalism.
• Ideas and religion have created capitalism

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Max Weber and Interpretive theory

• The underlying foundation of modern society is
  rationalization and has created
• bureaucracy large scale enterprises in the
  political, educational and economic realm
• alienation dehumanizing us from each other.

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George Herbert Mead (1863- 1931)

• Mead stated that self-development and
  self-awareness require the capability to use
  language and interact symbolically
• Symbolic interaction a perspective focusing on
  how the self and social relationships develop
  through social experience and communication

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Symbolic Interaction - G.H. Mead

• It involves individuals responding to objects,
  situations, and events according to the meanings
  that these have for them.
• Argued that to interact with others the
  individual must take on the role of the other -
  to imagine how this other views him/her and to
  know what this other expects.
• Individuals act and react to one another
  according to these mental interpretations

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Symbolic Interaction - G.H. Mead

• The concept of self includes the me
• Self An individuals notion of who he or she is.
• Me The part of the self which represents
  inte4rnalized social attitudes and expectations.
• The self also includes the I.
• I The individuals reaction to situations from
  his/ her standpoint - produces spontaneity
  individuality.

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Symbolic Interaction - G.H. Mead

• Mead suggested that these societal and individual
  aspects of the self collaborate to form an
  interactive quality he called interactionist.

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Symbolic Interactionist Interpretive Theories
(Mead Cooley)

• Symbolic-Interactionist Model
• Introduced by the Chicago School of Sociology
• Links social structural realities such as wealth,
  power, and status position with patterns of
  interaction
• education is related to social inequality.

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Symbolic Interactionist and Interpretive Theories

• Attempt to understand how structural variables
  become incorporated into the individuals
  perceptions and interpretations and how the
  individual acts on the basis of these
  interpretations
• Interpretive procedures Basic rules and
  procedures drawn upon by teachers when
  interacting with students and with each other in
  an educational setting.
• Results in social differentiation in educational
  settings through teachers categorizing and
  classifying various student behaviours

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Symbolic Interactionist and Interpretive Theories

• Structures of dominance - the institutions and
  ideologies used by the dominant class to
  perpetuate and increase their advantaged position
• The schooling process - achievement testing,
  ability grouping, and tracking - reflects the
  structural needs of society.

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Symbolic Interactionist Theory- George Herbert
Mead and Charles Horton Cooley

• Generalized other over time the combination of
  many significant others grows into a concept of
  the generalized other so children can imagine
  what other people or society expects of them.

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Symbolic Interactionist Theory- George Herbert
Mead and Charles Horton Cooley

• Looking-Glass Self
• A childs self image or identity develops out of
  the interactions with parents, peers and
  teachers.
• Eventually they come to see themselves as others
  see them.