Education

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Education
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• Insight provided by the three perspectives
• Contemporary issue related to education
• Beer and Circus Undergraduate Education at Large
  Public Universities

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Functionalist Perspective

• Education serves the following functions
• General socialization
• Shows individuals where they fit in

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• Special skills
• Solution of social problems
• Substance abuse, teen pregnancy

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Latent Functions

• Keeps down unemployment rate
• Sociality, finding a spouse

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Conflict Perspective

• U.S. schools reproduce social inequality
• The hidden curriculum
• Class and race influence quality of education
  received

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Symbolic Interactionism

• Education as a self-fulfilling prophesy
• Rosenthal-Jacobsen Experiment
• Students in San Francisco given IQ tests
• Reported results to teachers

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• This group did spurt ahead although initial
  ability was no different than other students.

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U.S. Education System

• If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to
  impose on America the mediocre educational
  performance that exists today, we might well have
  viewed it as an act of war! (A Nation at Risk
  1983)

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Explanations

• More students with poorer preparation taking the
  exam
• Social promotion
• Low expectations --- teachers/peers/parents

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KIPP Charter Schools

• Knowledge Is Power Program
• Started by two Teach for America teachers, David
  Levin and Michael Feinberg, in 1992
• 60 percent more time in school than average
  public school students, typically from 730 a.m.
  until 500 p.m. on weekdays, every other
  Saturday, and for three weeks during the summer.

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Explanations

• More students with poorer preparation taking the
  exam
• Social promotion
• Low expectations --- teachers/peers/parents

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Average Annual Salaries (BLS 2004)
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Contemporary Issue

• The Quality of Higher Education in the United
  States
• Or

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• Beer and Circus How Big Time Sports is
  Crippling Undergraduate Education
• By Murray Sperber

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Higher Education as Beer and Circus

• Current situation at large public universities
• Drinking is excessive and problematic
• Sports siphon money from educational efforts

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After the Baby Boom Generation

• Public spending for higher education declined as
  a percent of costs
• To maintain funding, colleges needed to increase
  undergraduate enrollment

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To Increase Undergraduate Enrollment

• A. Gain notoriety and prestige
• Belief in the Flutie Factor

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2. Recruit prestigious research faculty

• Pohl Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation in
  2003. Recipient of a National Science Foundation
  CAREER award in 2004 and was named an Alfred P.
  Sloan Research Fellow in 2005.

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• C. Active Greek life and party atmosphere

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Princeton Reviews Party Schools 2006

• Based on student surveys about school academics,
  campus life and student body, as well as study
  hours, politics, and opinions.

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• However, big time sports and star faculty cost a
  lot of money.
• Of the 1,266 schools in the NCAA in 2006,
• (Wall Street Journal, 10-19-07)
• Therefore,

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• Divert money from undergrad. education
• Star faculty want to focus on their research
• Teaching undergrad. courses is a misuse of the
  great persons talent

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Impact on Undergrad. Education

• Great researchers are not necessarily great
  teachers
• Greater use of graduate students, adjuncts

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Percent Distribution of Grades in 100 and 200
Level Courses. LAS College, ISU
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Grade Distribution by ISU Colleges. 100-200
level courses. 2004-05
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• Placate with honors classes, learning communities
• Student subcultures
• Collegiates
• Academics primary goal
• Vocationals primary goal is a occupational
  training
• Rebels primary goal is ideas and learning, but
  critical of the academic process.

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Soc. 134 Student Subcultures
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How Students Spend their Time (Soc. 134) 21-5
hrs/wk, 36-10, 411-20
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Experience with Alcohol
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How Subcultures Spend their Time (Hours/Wk)
There are 168 hours in a week
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Value of Sperbers Beer and Circus

• Functionalist theory
• Vocational skills, maintains status quo
• Conflict theory
• reinforces class structure, inequality
• Symbolic interactionism theory
• subcultures, identity