KYAMBOGO UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF FOUNDATIONS IN
EDUCATION

GROUP 2

COURSE WORK ESSAY

SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION

POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN EDUCATION

NAME REG. NUMBER SIGNATUR

E
KASULE MICHAEL 21/U/GPGE/14221/PE
AGABA RACHEAL 21/U/GPGE/13974/PE
MUTESI DORAH 21/U/GPGE/14395/PE
KAJURA GEORGE NGABIRANO 21/U/GPGE/14200/PE
BULOLO PETER

TASK: Sociology and the teacher

SOCIOLOGY AND THE TEACHER

We shall discuss two ideas and that is sociology and a teacher. This drives us to questions on the
two concepts here.
 What is sociology?
 Who is a teacher?
 Is sociology important to a teacher? Then if yes, why should a teacher study or
understand sociology?
Sociology
This term has been defined by many scholars in different ways.
Auguste Comte elaborates that “sociology is a study of social order and change of
society and its social systems or institutions”.
Emile Durkheim looked at sociology as the “study of social facts which be regarded as
things that have influence on individuals”.
In this document, we define sociology as the study of the society that surrounds our day to day
life. Society may be broken down into the following segments;
 Human social behavior (how a human relates with other people)
 Social interactions / relationships (how different societies relate)
 Society culture (different society have different culture). Culture is a very broad term that
involves, dress code, language, norms, totem, ,beliefs , religion among others)
Teacher
A teacher is a person who helps students learn and acquire different skills and knowledge.
Anyone can be a teacher depending on what knowledge to be delivered but in this case, we shall
focus on teacher in school education.
A teacher’s role in education;
Teacher’s role in the classroom, society, and world at large, have taken a different turn from
what it was back in the day. Over time, teachers were given a specific curriculum to follow, as
well as instructions on how to go about teaching the curriculum. In the world today, the teachers’
role has gone beyond teaching. Their role now involves counseling of students, mentoring
students, teaching students how to use and apply knowledge in their lives. Teachers are now
looking for ways they can impact students on a whole different level, and even inspire them to be
more and do more.
 Equips students with subject knowledge
 Instill discipline
 Be a role model to a learner
  Support and shape a child academically and non academically
 Be a second parent or guardian to a child and many others.
It is important to note that these two concepts above support each other to make education a
success.
Relevance of sociology to a teacher.
Teachers and students do not function in a vacuum, but in the social relationships of their
environment. Sociology deals mainly with different demographics. By this I mean age, gender,
geographic locality, level of education, and many other factors that could affect learn-ability and
ultimately learner-centricity. Therefore, sociology is of profound importance to a teacher.
Therefore, sociology comes in here because;

Sociology examines human backgrounds within society.

 It helps the teachers to understand the nature of the society the learners are being prepared to
live in and play active roles in improving it.
This enables a teacher to understand background of a student. Each student sent to school is from
a different society with different social upbringing reflected in their behaviors at school. The
role of a teacher is to shape and nurture students from different societies to fit in a school
environment. Therefore, will handle a student from a wide view of understanding the roots of
certain behaviors to easily nurture them at school.
Sociology enhances effective teaching.
Knowing about the background, experiences and life-styles of different learners is a pre-requisite
for effective teaching. Sociology helps a teacher to understand the effects of society on the lives
of their students.
 It helps the teacher to develop effective evaluation instruments.
 It helps the teacher to measure success or failure.
This helps a teacher to incorporate new knowledge and methods in his or her teaching. It is true
that a teacher doesn’t know it all yet students would expect the opposite. A good teacher is one
who is a learner himself. Some of these students from different societies may have information
and knowledge that can be used to improve education.
Sociology enhances social interactions / relationships within society
 It helps the teachers to understand group behaviours and therefore the behaviour of learners
for efficient planning, teaching and learning.
 It helps the teacher to understand the relationship and interactions within the school and the
community and how they affect the learning process.
This helps a teacher to effectively solve problems affecting the students’ performance in class.
As teachers we believe all students are good elements of good grades but students have many
different factors affecting their performance in class and if a teacher understands these factors, he
or she can deal with it from a counseling point.
Sociology helps a teacher create wide cultural diversity in schools.
Schools are meant to produce academically upright students but also students with different co-
curricular skills. Different students from different cultural societies will exhibit different and
diverse cultural elements on school events like music dance and drama, sports and other
activities.
 This helps the teacher to determine values, knowledge, skills and attitudes in the society that
the school should provide.
 It shows how the school affects the society and vice versa.

Sociology is important to a teacher Brint (2013) because it contributes to the knowledge and
understanding of various differences in human interactions which could be used in decision
making. It is sociology which enables the teacher to develop an understanding of individual
differences to detect what has gone wrong to a student or students or other groups of adult
persons which may affect their performance in a classroom or school set up.

Another importance of sociology to a teacher according to Brookfield, (2007) is that it offers the
framework to help him or her understand how social forces come to be and how they affect sense
of self, and relationships. This will help the teacher to learn and understand his learners and
therefore use various kinds of teaching strategies suitable for the learners depending on their self
esteem and relationships.

Eisen (2012) notes that through sociology the teacher will know what students want to learn and
the rates at which students are capable of grasping the concepts. Sociology also helps the teacher
to communicate acceptable behavior in a class or school setting. This same sociology will help
students to accept and practice acceptable behavior in class and school.

REFERENCES:
Brint, Steven. 2013. “The ‘Collective Mind’ at Work: A Decade in the Life of U.S. Sociology of
Education.” Sociology of Education 86(4):273–79.

Brookfield, Stephen. 2007. “Diversifying Curriculum as the Practice of Repressive Tolerance.”

Teaching in Higher Education 12(5–6):557–68.

Eisen, Daniel B. 2012. “Developing a Critical Lens: Using Photography to Teach Sociology and
Create Critical Thinkers.” Teaching Sociology 40(4):349–59.