Sociology: Chapter 10 - Education

CHAPTER 10: EDUCATION

• Formative questions to consider include:
  • What kind of humans we wish to shape through education
  • The purpose and value of university, whether it should exist for corporate, humanistic, or intellectual ends
• The schooled society is the way the education system has fundamentally changed in modern society.
• On average, Canadian youth spend 30% of each weekday in school.
• Davies and Guppy theorize three reasons schooling has become integral to modern life:
  • The growth of modern schooling in Canada, especially mass enrollment in secondary education
  • The belief that schooling has become increasingly important
  • The increasing and diversifying forms/functions of education in modern schooled society
• Schools are now expected to teach media literacy and environmental responsibility, in addition to basic skills.
• Modern schools are viewed as a way to solve myriad social problems.
• Functions of education include manifest functions (obvious/intended functions) and latent functions (unintended consequences).
• Education falls into three categories:
  • Socialization (Durkheim)
  • Selection (Weber)
  • Legitimation (Marx)
• Durkheim believed schools convey basic knowledge that will benefit society in general and argued universal education serves the needs of society.
• Individuals need skills to fill occupational roles, and education socializes children into the mainstream so society can reproduce itself, also offering moral learning.
• Weber argued schools are based on bureaucracies and work to confer status/prestige.
• Bureaucracies in education are not necessarily a bad thing when producing degrees efficiently, and the rise in bureaucracies meant a growing need for certification for specific occupations.
• Weber highlighted specialization leads to an increasingly complicated set of certifications and degrees that prevent people from entering a trade/profession.
• Credentialing, observed by Collins from Weber's work, occurs when qualification/competence is issued by a party with the authority to do so
• High-status groups maintain privileged positions by getting more education/credentials.
• Marx believed education maintained inequality and the power of capitalists.
• Two views on education are that it means to reproduce dominant ideas OR it is a world-changing praxis.
• Marx argues that schools work to reproduce class relations and the capital order, with the capitalist ruling class diffusing its ideas through the school curriculum.
• Curriculum is a planned interaction of pupils with content for the attainment of educational objectives.
• Marx refers to the "Hidden Curriculum" as ideas supporting the ruling class,Lessons that schools unintentionally teach students, like obedience.
• Education system encourages/fosters conformity to authority.
• Education equalizes opportunities, but what happens when tuition fees become prohibitive?
• Unequal educational outcomes is based on social class
• Critique of meritocracy states, there is nothing natural about social inequality
• Solidarity, versus Conquest, is an exclusive or segregationist motion of citizenship
• Education as a common good provides conditions for human development.

EDUCATION, CULTURAL CAPITAL, AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

• Cultural Capital: non-economic social assets that promote social mobility.
  • It is comprised of behaviors, knowledge, and values that indicate social class.
• Social Capital: The collective value of all one's social networks, including 'norms of reciprocity' that develop between people.
  • Wide social networks help foster trust and provide resources.
  • Privatizing education can transform it into another form of capital.
• Creates two tier society for second class citizens.
• Education & Social Class factors in the success of low income families
  • Differential Expectations: Parents in low SES families have different expectations/values.
  • Differential Association: Children from low SES families are less likely to have high-achieving role models.
  • Differential Preparation: Students from high SES families have more opportunities (tutoring).
• Streaming places students with comparable skills/needs together, and has several advantages:
  • Allows students to advance according to ability and preserves interest/incentive to perform
  • Teachers can adapt teaching styles/materials to the types of students in their classes
  • Bright students won't be bored/slowed down and will be motivated/engaged
• Disadvantages of streaming:
  • Stigma of being organized into lower-performing classes may discourage learning.
  • Self-fulfilling prophecy can occur where students told they perform poorly will perform poorly.

EDUCATION AND GENDER

• Women statistically do better than men in education in Canada, possibly due to:
  • Increased opportunities because of the women's movement
  • Declining influence of religion changing nature of families, more girls in school
  • Women gaining more control over reproductive rights
• Women's educational outcomes do not translate into equality after their degree.

CONSEQUENCES OF DEGREES

• Those with a degree earn more money and are less likely to fall into unemployment.
• The benefit from earning a degree is not equally distributed across groups in Canada.

CHAPTER 11: WORK AND RATIONALIZATION

• Rise of Rationality includes scientific understanding and processes oriented toward personal goals.
• The new world of rationality conflicts with the faith based world of the past.
• The Enlightenment led more people to new ideas about logic/science and marked the beginning of the decline of religion's influence in society.
• "Disenchantment of the world” (Max Weber) states that the downside of rationalization is the disenchantment of the world entailed people becoming more disillusioned with it due to its meaninglessness
• In an age of rationalization we tend to live longer and more comfortable lives.
• Rationalization as a way of solving problems is thinking based on 4 key factors:
  • Predictability, calculability, efficiency, and control.
• Weber stated that bureaucracies have 6 core features:
  • Based on hierarchically organized “offices"
  • Vertical chain of command, clear division of labor, and dominated by technical qualifications
  • Impersonal decision-making and staffed by full-time, salaried employees
• Ritzer: two types of organizations not rationalized include those from an earlier "pre modern stage", such as independent corner stores, and those directly opposed to the Mcdonalized way of doing business
• Even despite standalone organizations, the trend is towards more rationalization.

"Irrationality of Rationality"

• Weber states this trend can create negative outcomes/be unreasonable and produce what
• Rationalizations compel us to place monetary value on things in a rationalized world.
• Commodities refers to standardized, mass-produced products with monetary value
• Commodification refers to the transformation of what is normally a non-commodity item.
• Division of labor refers to the degree by which labor is specialized according to specific tasks.
  • Societies built on mechanical solidarity have less complex divisions of labor the societies built on organic solidarity
• Complex division of labor is an efficient/cheap way of making products.

What Holds Society Together

• Durkheim states it consists of mechanical solidarity in earlier human societies and organic solidarity in modern societies
• Societies division of labor determined whether is was built on mechanical or organic solidarity
• Scientific Management (Taylorism): Applies scientific principles/methods to managing workers
• Scientific management is dedicated to rationalizing work/making it more efficient by dividing it into increasingly smaller tasks, and has been applied in wide variety of manufacturing contexts

Key Principles of Taylorism

• Henry Ford practiced two main principles:
  • Standardization of products using molds so unskilled labor can make the same product over and over.
  • The use of specialized equipment that any worker can use to make the products.
• Benefits: increased efficiency and productivity
• Drawbacks: worker dissatisfaction with the work and management
• Automation is when operating equipment is run with minimal/reduced human activity, which:
  • Saves labor/helps improve the quality and precision of the labor process.
  • Leads to job loss/changes in the nature of the work for those on the assembly line.
• Outsourcing separates production processes and often involves moving operations to different more low-cost countries.

ALIENATION OF LABOUR

• Marx focused on the political/economic changes affecting workers.
• Production was taking a toll on workers, and recognized more goods were being produced under capitalism
• The distortion of the process of work happened in 4 main ways:
  • Capitalism turned work from collective activity into one based on pursuing own interest
  • Workers only keep a fraction of the profit they make for their employer
  • Working faster/more efficiently reduces enjoyment of work for workers
  • Workers are alienated from products they make, the production process, and other workers
• Alienation is produced when society bars individuals from realizing themselves.
• Emotional labor involves workers commodifying emotional displays as a process in work that is a result of emotional management done by workers as a process of commodifying emotional displays at work
• With emotional labor comes the Result of work involving direct contact with the public
• Employees are expected to provide the public with a product/service and feel a certain way.
• Employees are trained to do this by their employer, giving the employer control over their emotions
• Emotional labor leads to alienation of the worker's own emotions.

EMPLOYMENT IN CANADA

• Service sector jobs in retail lacks advantages in terms of pay/benefits, and usually entails an employer wielding full control over the workers labor process
• Since workers are replaceable, they can be fired with ease and treated miserably.
• Canada has 3 sectors:
  • Primary Sector: work of harvesting/extracting resources (mining, farming, fishing).
  • Secondary Sector: manufacturing finished goods (production, construction).
  • Tertiary Sector: service industries (retail, transportation, healthcare, law).

CHAPTER 13: CHANGE THROUGH POLICIES AND THE LAW

• Social Change: transformation of culture and social institutions over time
  • Can happen through institutional channels, particularly through the state
  • Provides arena for creating social change through elections, laws, social policy
• The Rise of the State is a set of institutions that includes:
  • Elected/appointed political decision makers
  • Administrative units for bureaucracies
  • A judiciary or legal system and security systems
• States are attached to geographic territory, maintaining a monopoly on:
  • Rule-making, coercion, and violence
• States began their emergence between the 12th and 18th centuries, with the state needed to better manage larger areas of groups of people
• A managerial perspective focuses on evolving practices relating to the recruitment of administrators.
• State offers essential public services, therefore important source of employment
• State institute to create monopoly on the acceptable use of violence
• Particularly in reaction to war, states with better bureaucracies more equipped to wage war
• To possess military might states must engage in 4 THINGS: war-making, state-making. protection, extractions
• From an economic perspective states are the result of class struggle in capitalism and work to regulate the economy.
• State is necessary to regulate contradictory economic interests in capitalist society
• What is politics?
  • Invention of democracy in the 5th century in Greece
  • Nomos is not scarce or natural
  • Polis is the plural of politeia (constitution)
  • Aims to question or institute explicit power
  • Question the institution of society

THE WELFARE STATE

• The welfare state offers common goods, such as health care, education, and clean water
• The benefits are part of the welfare state
• Welfare state performs 3 functions:
  • Attempts to provide a minimum income for individuals
  • Attempts to reduce potential economic insecurity
  • Attempts to provide public with a range of social services
• Programs enacted through welfare state instrumental for dealing with inequality.
• The Welfare State in Canada arose around the time of WW2, with unemployment/poverty after the Great Depression as a public issue.
• The welfare state developed in the US following approval of the New Deal between 1933-36, where state plays a primary role in restoring economy and social goals after devastation of Great Depression

Differences Between American & European Welfare State

• US: full employment had not traditionally considered the objective of the welfare state
  • Level of unemployment remained relatively high throughout 50s/60s
  • Health insurance reserved for working population
• European: considered full employment as objective of the Welfare State
  • Principle of social security universal, applies to every citizen and income inequality reduced between 1950/75 in all European countries
  • European model produced a more united society
• As the reform of the measures by President Johnson in the '60s lead the American model farther away from the universal model of welfare common to the Scandinavian countries:
  • Redistribution of social benefits based and system of social interventions for the most disadvantaged categories
• This policy enables the Welfare State to fund (through social dues and taxation of revenue) its social spendings covering the entire population
• Redistribution of collective wealth.
• Solidarity is a foundational principal of a "good" society

SOCIAL POLICIES

• Social policy includes the reform of the welfare system, and relies on:
  • Social dues and taxation of revenue
  • Most cutting edge forms are in Scandinavian countries
• In feudal society wealth was redistributed to lords through the exploitation of peasants, and under industrial capitalism in the 18th/19th century redistribution favored capital holders
• Key aspect of a welfare state is income redistribution for the growth of collective wealth
• Social programs in the welfare state can be categorized in two ways
  • Universal Programs: available to all citizens regardless of income and provide equal benefit
  • Means Tested Programs: rely on determination of whether an individual needs government assistance and targets brackets that are most in need
• Means Tested Programs disadvantages:
  • Create stigmas for those who receive them, making accessing social programs difficult to navigate
  • Some individuals have hard time determining if they qualify for assistance
• Administrative costs increase
• program such as GIS can decrease inequality

HOW STATES INVOLVE THE PUBLIC

• Elections are one of the primary ways the state engages the public.
• Formal decision making process in which eligible citizens select individuals for office
• Critical part of representative democracies such as Canadas
• There has been a decline in in recent voting percentages
• Patterns differ by age with young people less likely to vote than older people
• Voter turnout rates indicate two main theories to explain changing voting patterns:
  • Life-cycle effect
  • Generational Replacement theory

FACTORS AFFECTING VOTING PATTERNS

• Fewer young people vote because of a variety of structural, social, and economic circumstances, and are more likely to vote as they age
• Explains voter turnout in terms of "generations- Older generations vote more than they are being replaced by younger generations that don't vote
• Argue low voter turnout results of lower social capital and civic engagement in society
• Solidarity and Civic Engagement are peoples social relation/ sense of underlying trust/confidence in another
• scholars suggest voting rates declining because of decline in social capital, with individuals less likely to trust each other, social groups, organizations
• Rotating Credit Associations are cooperative economic ventures practised among people in Southeast Asia where.
• described by Geertz as a way to illustrate social capital.
• Allos individuals to start business with money from the fund and then pay back from their profits
• Societies with high social capital tend to have lower levels of crime and healthier economies

CHAPTER 14: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

• Charles Tilly theorized social movements require 5 main elements:
  • Members offer sustained challenge to power holders while demonstrating commitment
  • Engaging those with power by people with less power
  • Representing a wronged population and disrupting the daily routines of power holders
• (worthiness/unity/numbers/commitment of members (WUNC)
• People avoid going to protests because they don't believe they can make a difference
• People tend to avoid participating in collective action because they still benefit from whatever is gained whether they contribute or not, suggests collective action is unlikely to occur even when large groups of people have common interests (EX: The silent majority.)
• Social movements fight for social rights and for public goods; these are, by nature, non-excludable and non-rivalrous
• Water and education are examples of public goods.

EXPLAINING SOCIAL MOVEMENT PARTICIPATION

• Participation requires 4 elements:
  • Ideology, resources, biographical availability, and social ties and identity
• Ide ideological commitment important it makes people at least cognitively available to participate in a movement
• The function of ideology is to provide an analysis and insight into the causes, as well as common language, generate awareness of the problem among the public
• Its impossible to accurately analyze problem coherently or garner public support without shared interpretation and understanding of events
• Individuals must have resources to allow them to participate in special movements to give activists Skills, knowledge, contacts, ideas, time, willpower
• Individuals are biographically available to participate in social movements if the are impacted by Life events
• Activists have Recognition of individuals civic obligation to participate in social change in crisis

KEY FACTORS

• Identity: a sense of collective shared experiences among groups is a prerequisite for collective action and is an expression of unity that transcends individual differences
• Power is the first issue for organization is how they'll accumulate power defined in terms of the number of members
• Organizations use framing issues, by building on issues that are specific, immediate, realizable, with participating in social movements/protests have long term effects for individuals
• Activists have similar life patterns (working in teaching/helping professions)
• media and social movements frame about selecting parts of world to emphasize and other to de-emphasize Activists use frames to inspire/legitimate social movement activity
• frames have 3 key parts: diagnostic, prognostic, motivational
• Media editors must pick limited number of events of all social movements
• The selection of those events and the description is often limited

Selection and description bias

• Editors choose a small number of protest events from a larger pool, and media changes how activists actions and motives are interpreted
• The media changes how it is to cover and how to frame that coverage based on either organizational or ideological models
• media act as gatekeepers because simply choose the most important events to cover that are seen to be changing to get their issue covered
• Media are incentivized to connect the coverage to some event or matter that is increasing, spreading or intensifying so as to sensitize the public regarding the issues

GENERALIST VS. SPECIALIST

• Economics also shapes what's covered in the media because editors tend to favor generalist reporters over specialists, that
• eliminates the need for more than one reporter
• Generalists cheaper/easier to hire
• rely on government and power sources for information
• Ideological Model of Media Coverage: Concerted effort on part of the media/political/corporate elite to control information

Structure & Power

• Broader structure of power relations in society affect portrayal of social movements
• Such structures lead to increase Privatization/commercialization/concentration which limits ideas conveyed in media
• Media want to reproduce broader power relationships(EX: focus on individual responsibility for social problems/neglect of social causes)
• Media Framing/Delegitimization entails Media sending signals about who is legitimate/who we should listen to.
• Media coverage on protests is limited and negative, and empasizes the official view is individual level explanations instead of social ones that are trying to be conveyed, and emphasizes violence/drama/wackiness of protest events
• Challenges with measuring success is determined by the broad goals of a movement, civil-society organisations must always be organised around clearly defined and achievable goals to not see their movement stall
• Groups with a variety of goals usually only achieve some of them or adapt to the situation to survive longer
• Groups measure the impact of a conflict by weather or not the situation is better than it was at the start of the crisis
• William Gammon: 2 measures of social movement success include Groups looking for acceptance/validity as spokespeople
• Groups looking for new advantages/laws/policies/other gains
• Public Sociology is also the use of sociological imagination to engage with wider audiences outside of academic circles, so as to to encourage sociologists to engage with social issues explicitly.