Chapter 16 - Education

Hidden Curriculum

The type of nonacademic knowledge that students learn through informal learning and cultural transmission. Reinforces the positions of those with higher cultural capital and serves to bestow status unequally.

Social Placement

The use of education to improve one's social standing.

Cultural Transmission

The way people come to learn the values, beliefs, and social norms to their culture.

Sorting

Classifying students based on academic merit or potential.

Cultural Capital

Cultural knowledge that serves metaphorically as currency that helps us navigate a culture.

Credentialism

Emphasis on certificates or degrees to show that a person has a certain skill, has attained a certain level of education, or has met certain job qualifications.

Tacking

Formalized sorting system that places students on "tracks" that perpetuate inequalities. Leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations.

Head Start Program

Give low-income students an opportunity to make up the preschool deficit.

Informal Education

Learning about cultural values, norms, and expected behaviors by participating in a society. Occurs both in a formal education system and at home.

Formal Education

Learning of academic facts and concepts through a formal curriculum.

Universal Access

People's equal ability to participate in an education system.

No Child Left Behind Act

Requires states to test students in designated grades. Determines eligibility to receive federal funding.

Education

Social institution through which a society's children are taught basic academic knowledge, learning skills, and cultural norms.

Grade Inflation

The observation that the correspondence between letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing over time. What used to be considered C-level is now a B or A.