CHAPTER 11: EXPERIENCES IN SCHOOLS AND FORMAL EDUCATION

EDUCATION a process designed to develop one’s capacity for critical thinking, self- understanding, and
self-reliance.
FORMAL EDUCATION education received in accredited schools during formal teaching sessions.

CONFLICT THEORY
Conflict theorists often focus on the latent functions of education. More, they have studied the hidden
curriculum in schools that teaches students their “proper” place in society according to their gender and their
social class. According to conflict theory, the most important (and least discussed) job of schools is to teach
students obedience—the essential qualification for most work in our society. This so-called meritocratic
ethic—the notion that merit rules in our society—suits a free-market capitalist society very well. Conflict
theorists also note that students’ experiences of formal education differ according to their socioeconomic
class. Thus, students from poorer families are likely to have a less well-resourced education than students
from wealthier families.
FEMINIST APPROACHES
Feminists note that schools socialize boys and girls differently, teaching them to play, dress, behave, and
even think in certain ways that have been deemed “appropriate” for their gender. As a result, schools help to
establish the different responsibilities and privileges that these children will eventually grow up to enjoy as
women and men.
‘The feminist approach suggests that school-aged children are encouraged to take interest in certain
academic subjects depending on their gender. Research supports this suggestion, finding that young girls are
often just as interested in science and math as boys are, but that they become much less inclined towards
these subjects in high school. Largely, these acquired differences reflect social influences: parents giving
their sons more science-related toys, for example, or peers questioning girls’ enthusiasm for math, or science
teachers providing more encouragement for male students who show an interest in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics. These gendered differences are important because they
influence the lines of work that children eventually choose to go into as adults.

FUNCTIONALISM
Most functionalists focus on the manifest functions (or intended goals) of education, which are to provide
children with basic skills in literacy and numeracy. At the post-secondary level, the liberal arts curriculum
supposedly prepares people to be informed citizens, by teaching critical thinking skills (also, literacy and
numeracy). ‘The other types of post-secondary education, which are more job-related, supposedly prepare
people to be valuable members of the work- force. To a large degree, functionalists are interested in the role
of formal education in producing “human capital.”
Human capital theory proposes that wage differences in a society reflect differences in the value different
workers bring to a job, in terms of skill, education, and work experience. Thus, other things being equal,
personal incomes will vary according to the amount of time and effort a person has invested in education
and training. According to this theory, widespread investment in human capital is a critical basis for the
economic growth of a society. Human capital theory, therefore, would suggest that a relative lack of
education, qualifications, and/or job experience is the reason that Indigenous people, for example, are
underemployed and earn less. Functionalists think that, in a modern society, human capital drives
productivity and democratic thinking.
HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY the theory that, other things being equal, ‘economic productivity ‘and
prosperity grow with the amount of investment in human capital—that the education and training undertaken
by workers.
TRAINING a process designed to identify and practice specific routines that achieve desired results.

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
The symbolic interactionist approach proposes that schools and universities build cultural capital by means
of which they preserve the status and privilege of people who are born into higher-income families. For
example, schools teach students how to dress and behave in ways that are appropriate to their social roles as
girls or boys, middle-class or working-class people. At the higher educational levels, especially in
professional schools, schools teach people how to dress and behave for success as lawyers, doctors,
accountants, business managers, and so on.
 THE ACADEMIC REVOLUTION
Historically, institutions of higher education were restricted to young men of wealthy or well-off families.
Gradually, they opened to women, and to children from families of more modest means. But for a long time,
especially in the liberal arts colleges, they retained some feeling of being a “finishing school” for young
people who were being trained to take up positions of influence in their community and society.
However, in the last 50 years, institutions of higher education—especially universities—have become more
concerned with research than with undergraduate education. According to Christopher Jencks and David
Riesman in their book The Academic Revolution, post-secondary institutions have taken on a special role in
modern, post-industrial society.
Most universities today struggle to increase their research and research funding, decrease their
undergraduate teaching, and raise their international profile. Small universities struggle to become larger
ones, and polytechnics and community colleges struggle to become universities. The result is a hierarchy of
research universities struggling against one another for top faculty, top students, and increased funding from
government and key research agencies.
In this context, attracting international students is important for two main reasons. First, it helps research
universities compete with one another reputationally, especially when they manage to attract top graduating
students from other countries. Second, attracting international students, who typically pay higher tuition fees
than local students, helps to pay the high salaries and infrastructure costs required to support high research
productivity.
CREDENTIALISM belief in or reliance on academic or other formal qualifications as the best measure of a
person's intelligence or ability to do a particular job. ➔ has strengthened the link between educational and
class position.
By “CORPORATIZATION,” we mean the often-gradual transformation of publicly funded but independent
organizations into economically dependent organizations that use corporate management techniques of
administration and seek to demonstrate their profitability. (şirketleştirme)
COMMODIFICATION= metalaştırma
According to Schwartzman, a capitalist approach to education treats knowledge as a commodity whose
value is measured by com- paring the cost of acquiring a degree with the earnings the degree supposedly
provides over a lifetime. Some of this commodification comes from administrators and non-academic
governing bodies who treat professors as though they need managing. This approach frays the traditional
fabric of education and feeds into students’ desire for grade inflation and easy credentials. This is intensified
by the global competition among universities around the world. Our point is that, if students are taught to
think critically, to do research, and to ask questions, they are more likely to keep up with (and even predict
or be the instigators of) technological changes in their industry of choice. If they're only taught how to use
whatever is currently available, their skills could quickly become obsolete.
As Raewyn Connell (2013) similarly points out, ideally education is a “social process of nurturing
capacities for practice”. Under neo-liberalism, access to education has been continually and increasingly
challenged, largely by increasing tuition and, thereby, making higher education harder to attain. Connell
notes that capitalist societies require the creation of hierarchies, including education hierarchies. In this
context, teachers are pressed to make the curriculum narrower: to create insecurity, not intellectual
enrichment.
Marta Baltodano adds that, in this context, neo-liberalism has increased the pressure to speed up teacher
preparation programs, to turn out more teachers more quickly and cheaply. The goal, in every instance, is to
increase educational profit-making through more student enrolments and lower teaching costs.

Baby boom= 1947 to 1967 when birth rates exploded Segregation= ayrımcılık

Sociologists can also use multiple regression analysis to put a direct measure on the advantage or
disadvantage of belonging to one group versus another. Ferrer and Riddell, again using regression analysis,
report that immigrants can make up the disadvantage they face on arrival in the country by getting higher
education here, and the income returns to higher education are larger for immigrants than for native-born
Canadians.
Streaming allows pupils to advance according to their abilities, adapts instructional techniques to the
needs of the group, reduces failures, and helps to preserve interest and incentive. Bright students are not
bored by the slower participation of others, and slower pupils engage more when brighter students do not
overshadow them.