Education

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Education
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Functionalist Perspective

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

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• Mobility
• Solution of social problems
• Substance abuse, teen pregnancy

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Latent Functions

• Custody of the young
• Provides pool of low wage,
• temporary workers
• Credentialing

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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
• Reported results to teachers

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• Actually 20 of students picked at random and
  assigned to spurt ahead group.

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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
• Teacher ability

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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
• Undergraduate education is mediocre
• Sports siphon money from educational efforts

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After the Baby Boom Generation

• To maintain funding, colleges needed to increase
  undergraduate enrollment

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To Increase Undergraduate Enrollment

• Gain notoriety and prestige
• Winning, big time athletic programs
• 1.
• 2. Belief in the

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• Active Greek life and party atmosphere

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Recruit prestigious research faculty
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• However, big time sports and star faculty cost a
  lot of money. Therefore,
• Star faculty want to focus on their research
• Dont burden star faculty with heavy teaching
  load
• Reward research more than teaching

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Impact on Undergrad. Education

• Increased class size
• Lower admissions standards

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• Placate with honors classes, learning communities
• Student subcultures
• Collegiates primary goal in college
• Academics primary goal is
• Vocationals primary goal is a
• Rebels primary goal is
• Unconcerned about good grades

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Student Subculture at ISU Percent of Soc. 134
Students
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Hours Studying/Week
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Hours of TV Video Games/Week
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Hours of Work/Week
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How Subcultures Spend their Time
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Experience with Alcohol
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Alcohol Usage by Subculture
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Value of Sperbers Beer and Circus

• Highlights problems confronting higher education
  today, especially public universities
• Functionalist theory
• Conflict theory
• Symbolic interactionist theory