# Study Guide: Chapter 11 — Schools And Education > Organized by textbook section. Review the objectives, study topics, key takeaways, and questions for each section. ## 11.1: An Overview of Education in the United States ### Study Topics - Education in the United States Today - Correlates of Educational Attainment - Family Income and Race/Ethnicity - Explaining the Racial/Ethnic Gap in Educational Attainment - Figure 11.4 Percentage of All Bachelor’s Degrees Received by Women, 1960–2009 - Impact of Education on Income - Figure 11.5 Educational Attainment and Median Annual Earnings, Ages 25–34, 2009 - Impact of Education on Mortality - How the US Education System Compares Internationally - Lessons from Other Societies ### Key Terms - **credential society** — A society in which higher education is seen as evidence of the attainment of the needed knowledge and skills for various kinds of jobs. - **crime** — Behavior considered so harmful or offensive that it is banned by the criminal law. - **Discrimination** — With regard to racial and ethnic inequality, the arbitrary denial of rights, privileges, and opportunities to members of subordinate racial and ethnic groups. - **economy** — The social institution that organizes the production, distribution, and consumption of a society’s goods and services. - **educational attainment** — How far one gets in school, which has been shown to depend heavily on family income and race/ethnicity. - **family** — A group of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or a mutual commitment and who care for one another. - **health care** — The provision of medical services to prevent, diagnose, and treat health problems. - **Informal education** — Learning that occurs outside the schools, traditionally in the home. - **race** — A category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, and stature. - **Socialization** — The process whereby individuals learn the culture of their society. - **stereotypes** — Simplified, mistaken generalizations about people because of their race and/or ethnicity. ### Learning Objectives 1. Explain why compulsory education arose during the nineteenth century. 2. Summarize social class, gender, and racial and ethnic differences in educational attainment. 3. Describe the impact that education has on income. 4. Explain how the US education system ranks internationally. ### Key Takeaways - Until very recently in the record of history, formal schooling was restricted to wealthy males. - Students from low-income backgrounds tend to have lower educational attainment than students from wealthier backgrounds. - African Americans and Latinos tend to have lower educational attainment than non-Latino whites and Asians. - Gender influences educational attainment in a complex fashion; older women have lower educational attainment than older men, but younger women have greater educational attainment than younger men. - The United States ranks behind many other industrial nations in the quality of the education its citizens receive. ### Review Questions 1. Do you think the government should take steps to try to reduce racial and ethnic differences in education, or do you think it should take a hands-off approach? Explain your answer. 2. Should the government require that children receive a formal education, as it now does, or should it be up to parents to decide whether their children should receive a formal education? Explain your answer. ## 11.2: Sociological Perspectives on Education ### Study Topics - Table 11.1 Theory Snapshot - The Functions of Education - Figure 11.6 The Functions of Education - Education and Inequality - Symbolic Interactionism and School Behavior - Applying Social Research - Assessing the Impact of Small Class Size ### Key Terms - **conflict theory** — The view that society is composed of groups with different interests arising from their placement in the social structure. - **economy** — The social institution that organizes the production, distribution, and consumption of a society’s goods and services. - **Functionalism** — The view that social institutions are important for their contributions to social stability. - **hidden curriculum** — A set of values and beliefs learned in school that support the status quo, including the existing social hierarchy. - **race** — A category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, and stature. - **Socialization** — The process whereby individuals learn the culture of their society. - **Symbolic interactionism** — A perspective in sociology that focuses on the meanings people gain from social interaction. ### Learning Objectives 1. List the major functions of education. 2. Explain the problems that conflict theory sees in education. 3. Describe how symbolic interactionism understands education. ### Key Takeaways - According to the functional perspective, education helps socialize children and prepare them for their eventual entrance into the larger society as adults. - The conflict perspective emphasizes that education reinforces inequality in the larger society. - The symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on social interaction in the classroom, on school playgrounds, and at other school-related venues. Social interaction contributes to gender-role socialization, and teachers’ expectations may affect their students’ performance. ### Review Questions 1. Review how the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives understand and explain education. Which of these three approaches do you most prefer? Why? ## 11.3: Issues and Problems in Elementary and Secondary ### Study Topics - Schools and Inequality - People Making a Difference - Source: Ocean Discovery Institute, 2011 - School Segregation - School Choice: Education Vouchers and Charter Schools - Education Vouchers - Charter Schools - Single-Sex Schools and Classes - Children and Our Future - School Violence - School Discipline and Racial Discrimination ### Key Terms - **charter schools** — Public schools built and operated by for-profit companies and to which students normally apply for admission. - **corporation** — An organization that has a legal existence apart from that of its members. - **crime** — Behavior considered so harmful or offensive that it is banned by the criminal law. - **cyberbullying** — The use of the Internet, cell phones and smartphones, and other digital technologies to bully others. - **de facto segregation** — School segregation stemming from neighborhood residential patterns. - **de jure segregation** — School segregation stemming from legal requirements. - **differential association theory** — Edwin Sutherland’s view that deviance stems from interacting with primary group members who commit deviance and have values conducive to deviance. - **Discrimination** — With regard to racial and ethnic inequality, the arbitrary denial of rights, privileges, and opportunities to members of subordinate racial and ethnic groups. - **drug** — Any substance other than food that, when taken into the body, affects the structure and/or functioning of the body. - **educational attainment** — How far one gets in school, which has been shown to depend heavily on family income and race/ethnicity. - **family** — A group of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or a mutual commitment and who care for one another. - **stereotypes** — Simplified, mistaken generalizations about people because of their race and/or ethnicity. ### Key Takeaways - Schools in America are unequal: They differ greatly in the extent of their funding, in the quality of their physical facilities, and in other respects. Jonathan Kozol calls these differences “savage inequalities.” - Single-sex education at the secondary level has become more popular. Preliminary evidence indicates that this form of education may be beneficial for several reasons, but more evidence on this issue is needed. - Although school violence has declined since the 1990s, it continues to concern many Americans. Bullying at school is a common problem and can lead to more serious violence by the children who are bullied. - School choice programs are popular but also controversial. Charter schools on the average do no better than public schools, and sometimes worse. ### Review Questions 1. If you were the principal of a middle school, would you favor or oppose single-sex classes? Explain your answer. 2. Do you favor or oppose school vouchers? Why? ## 11.4: Issues and Problems in Higher Education ### Study Topics - Floundering Students - Social Class and Race in Admissions - Legacy Admissions - Graduation Rates - Campus Violence ### Key Terms - **Affirmative action** — Special consideration for minorities and women in employment and education to compensate for the discrimination and lack of opportunities they experience in the larger society. - **economy** — The social institution that organizes the production, distribution, and consumption of a society’s goods and services. - **family** — A group of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or a mutual commitment and who care for one another. - **legacy admissions** — A college admissions policy that gives preference to applicants who are children or other relatives of graduates of the institution. - **race** — A category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, and stature. ### Learning Objectives 1. Explain why certain college students flounder. 2. Describe what is meant by legacy admissions and summarize the criticism of this policy. 3. List any two factors that affect college and university graduation rates. 4. Describe the extent of physical and sexual violence on the nation’s campuses. ### Key Takeaways - The cost of higher education and other problems make it difficult for low-income students and students of color to enter college and to stay in college once admitted. - Many college students have academic and personal problems that lead them to flounder and to seek psychological counseling. - Many campuses continue to lack racial and social class diversity, and affirmative action remains very controversial. - Physical and sexual violence is a general problem on the nation’s campuses. At least one-fifth of college women are raped or sexually assaulted. ### Review Questions 1. If you were the director of admissions at a university, what steps would you take to increase the number of applications from low-income students? 2. Do you think alcohol use is to blame for most campus violence, or are there other important factors at work? Explain your answer. ## 11.5: Improving Schools and Education ### Study Topics - Teachers and School Reform - The Need for More General Social Reform - A School Reform Agenda ### Key Terms - **crime** — Behavior considered so harmful or offensive that it is banned by the criminal law. - **drug** — Any substance other than food that, when taken into the body, affects the structure and/or functioning of the body. - **family** — A group of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or a mutual commitment and who care for one another. ### Learning Objectives 1. Understand how helpful good schooling can be to improve the lives of low-income children. 2. Discuss the importance of good teachers. 3. List any three strategies that will improve the education of low-income students. ### Key Takeaways - Good schooling can be very helpful for low-income students, but these students’ socioeconomic backgrounds have more impact than schooling on their futures. - For this reason, more general social reform must accompany effective school reform. - Several strategies, including smaller classes and better-paid teachers, will help improve the learning of low-income students. ### Review Questions 1. Write a short essay in which you outline what a school’s superintendent might do to improve the learning of the school district’s elementary school students. 2. Why do you think the United States has not more vigorously pursued the school reform agenda outlined in this section? ## 11.6: End-of-Chapter Material ### Key Terms - **conflict theory** — The view that society is composed of groups with different interests arising from their placement in the social structure. - **educational attainment** — How far one gets in school, which has been shown to depend heavily on family income and race/ethnicity. - **Informal education** — Learning that occurs outside the schools, traditionally in the home. - **race** — A category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, and stature. - **Socialization** — The process whereby individuals learn the culture of their society. - **Symbolic interactionism** — A perspective in sociology that focuses on the meanings people gain from social interaction. ### Chapter Summary 1. Education is both formal and informal. Formal education occurs in schools under specially trained teachers, while informal education takes place primarily in the home, with parents as instructors. 2. In the early nineteenth century in the United States, a movement for free, compulsory education began. Reasons for interest in such education included the perceived needs to unify the country, to “Americanize” immigrants, and to give members of the working class the skills, knowledge, and discipline they needed to be productive workers. 3. In the United States, social class, race and ethnicity, and gender all affect educational attainment. Poor people end up with less schooling than middle- and upper-class people, and African Americans and Latinos have lower educational attainment than whites and Asian Americans. Although women had less schooling than men in the past, today they are more likely to graduate from high school and to attend college. 4. Education in the United States has a significant impact on two areas. One is income: the higher the education, the higher the income. The second is attitudes: the higher the education, the greater the tolerance for nontraditional behaviors and viewpoints. 5. Sociological perspectives on education fall into the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist approaches discussed in earlier chapters. Functional theory stresses the functions education serves for society, including socialization, social placement, social integration, and social and cultural innovation. Conflict theory stresses that education perpetuates and reinforces existing social inequality for several reasons, including the use of tracking and inequality in schooling between rich and poor communities. Symbolic interactionism emphasizes the social interaction that’s part of schooling and calls attention to the ways in which the treatment of students as smart or dull can affect how much they end up learning. 6. Several issues and problems affect education in the United States today. Many schools are decrepit and lack sufficient books and equipment, and many are also segregated by race and ethnicity. Increasing interest in school choice has led to controversy over whether the government should provide aid to parents to send their children to private and parochial schools. Additional controversy surrounds the issue of single-sex schools for girls. Finally, school violence is an issue of continuing concern; however, the vast majority of schools are very safe for their students, teachers, and other personnel. Bullying is more common, with about one-third of students bullied every year. 7. At the level of higher education, students of color and those from low-income backgrounds are less likely to attend college at all, and if they do attend, they are less likely to graduate. ### Application You are the principal of a middle school in a poor urban neighborhood. Your classrooms lack basic supplies, your roof often leaks, and an ominous odor often arises from your school’s water system. You have appealed many times to the school district for additional funds to deal with all these problems, but these funds have not been provided. What, if anything, do you do next? ### Action Ideas To help deal with the education problems discussed in this chapter, you may wish to do any of the following: 1. Volunteer to tutor students at a local school or after-school program. 2. If your college or university has low numbers of low-income students, establish a student group to encourage your school to admit more such students. 3. Start or join a group on your campus to call attention to the need for responsible alcohol use, as drinking is associated with much campus violence.