Sociology is really in trouble as a field. I can tell you, because I've known young people who have wanted to go into it, and they have been uniformly advised, if you are a free thinker, stay away from sociology.
Education (Part B)
by
Charles Lamson
Who Goes to School?
The idea that all children should be educated is the product of the American and French Revolutions of the late eighteenth century. In the European monarchies the suggestion that the children of peasants and workers should be educated would have been considered laughable. In those societies children went to work with adults at an early age, and adolescence was not recognized as a distinct stage of development. Formal schooling, which was generally reserved for the children of the elite, typically lasted three or four years, after which the young person entered a profession.
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Even after the creation of republics in France and the United States and the beginning of a movement for universal education, the development of a comprehensive system of schools took many generations. In the early history of the United States, the children of slaves, Native Americans, the poor, and many immigrant groups, as well as almost all female children, were excluded from educational institutions. The norm of segregated education for racial minorities persisted into the 20th century and was not overturned until 1954 in the Supreme Court's famous ruling in Brown's Board of Education of Topeka. Even after that decision it took years of civil rights activism to ensure that African Americans could attend public schools with whites. Thus, although the idea of universal education in a democracy arose early, it took many generations of conflict and struggle to transform it into a strong social norm (Cremin, 1980, American Education; Krueger, 1998). The idea of mass education based on the model created in the United States and other Western nations has spread throughout the world. Mass education differs from elite education, which is designed to prepare a small number of privileged individuals (generally sons of upper-class families) to run the institutions of society (e.g., the military, the clergy, the law). Mass education focuses instead on the socialization of all young people for membership in the society. It is seen as a way for young people to become citizens of a modern nation-state. Mass education establishes an increasingly standardized curriculum and tries to link mastery of that curriculum with personal and national development (Benavot, 1991, Knowledge for the Masses. American Sociological Review, 56, 85-91; Meyer, Ramirez, Soysal, 1992, World Expansion of Mass Education, 1870-1980. Sociology of Education, 65, 128-149).
In the more affluent industrial nations, extremely high proportions of students who complete secondary school go on to universities and colleges or some kind of professional or occupational training. The demand for greater access to higher education was pioneered in the United States and Canada. An extension of mass education in the United States was the expansion of public institutions of post-secondary education and the parallel expansion of private colleges and universities, often with federal aid and research funding. This expansion was fueled by the post World War II baby boom and the massive increase in the college-age population in the 1960s. During those years there was a parallel boom in employment for elementary school teachers and then for high school teachers and college professors. But after the boom came the bust: The birth rate fell sharply beginning in the late 1950s, and by the mid-1970s college enrollments also began to decline. These changes had dramatic effect on primary schools but at the college level they were partially offset by an unprecedented countertrend: the immense increase in the number of older students seeking higher education. Today large numbers of adults are returning to college. Unlike the typical student of earlier years, adult students are in the labor force, are married and living with their spouses, are going to school part-time, and are seeking skills and knowledge to enhance their careers (Mulkey, 1993, Sociology of Education; Torres & Mitchell, 1998, Sociology of Education). The return of so many adults to educational institutions has led many social scientists to describe a future in which education will be a lifelong process in which people of all ages will move in and out of educational institutions. Nevertheless, the most rapidly growing area of education is preschool programs, an important trend that is discussed in a later post. Schools and Adolescent Society A key feature of education is the fact that schools structure the lives of children and adolescents. This is particularly true at the high school level. A famous study of the effect of schools on adolescents and youth, The Adolescent Society, was published by James Coleman in 1961. Its main point was that schools help create a social world for adolescents that is separate from adult society. According to Coleman, this is an almost inevitable result of the growing complexity of industrial societies, in which, as we saw in the last post, functions that were formerly performed by the family are increasingly shifted to other institutions, especially educational institutions. Yet schools cannot provide the same kind of support and individual attention that the family can. As a result, according to Coleman, the student is pushed into associations primarily with others of the same age. These small groups of age mates come to constitute a small society, one that has most of its important interaction within itself, and maintains only a few threads of connection with the outside adult society (1961, p. 3).
Coleman's research was not unique. Other social scientists have analyzed what has come to be known as the "youth culture" in terms of changes in the structure of American society. Briefly, what has happened is that the rising level of expectations regarding educational attainment has placed more and more demands on the student. This pressure often is not matched with a clear means of meeting the new demands. This mismatch between ends and means can lead to the emergence of deviant individuals and groups. The resulting frustration often leads teenage peer groups to become extremely ambivalent and even cynical about adult expectations. They develop fierce loyalty and conformity to the peer group, strictly observing group norms and not tolerating any deviance from those norms, which themselves may deviate from those of their teachers and parents. The risk for society in the development of isolated adolescent cultures is that teenagers will fail to learn how they can become involved in shaping their own society. Great cultural gaps between youth and their parents are often a signal that the older generation has not offered young people enough opportunities to work with adults for constructive social change (Gilligan, cited in Norman, 1997, From Carol Gilligan's Chair. New York Times Magazine, p. 50; Moscos, 1988, Call to Civic Service). Education and Citizenship Another important aspect of education in the United States is the relationship between education and citizenship. Throughout its history this nation has emphasized public education as a means of transmitting democratic values, creating a quality of opportunity, and preparing new generations of citizens to function in society. In addition, the schools have been expected to help shape society itself. During the 1950's, for example, efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools. Later, when the Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offered many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nation would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities (Kornblum, 2003, p. 562). Education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems, especially social inequality. The schools, it is thought, can transform young people from vastly different backgrounds into competent, upwardly mobile adults. Yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain (Cahill, 1992, The Sociology of Childhood at and in an Uncertain Age. Contemporary Sociology, 21, 699-672). In recent years, in fact, public education has been at the center of numerous controversies arising from the gap between the ideal and the reality. Part of the problem is that different groups in society have different expectations. Some believe their students need better preparation for careers and a technologically advanced society, others that children should be taught basic job-related skills, still others that education should not only prepare children to compete in this society but also help them maintain their cultural identity and, in the case of Hispanic children, their language. On the other hand, policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to involve parents in their children's education (Wilson, 1993, Mandating Academic Excellence).
Some reformers and critics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems. Sociologist Charles Moscos, for example, is a leader in the movement to create a system of voluntary national service. National service, as Moscos defines it, would entail "the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people---whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers who are paid subsistence wages" and serve for at least a year (1988, p. 1). In return for this period of service, the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses. Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling. In devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society, they emphasize the educational value of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom. Americorps and Teach for America are examples of such programs. *MAIN SOURCE: KORNBLUM, W., 2003, SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., PP. 556-562* end |
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