Education
Beaver - "A Matter of Degrees"
Article explores what college credentials (degrees) actually mean to people
Lonetree - "Lawsuit claims Minnesota fails to Educate the Poor and Minorities"
Discusses lawsuit currently brought against the state of MN for institutional discrimination in education
Boys of Baraka (Film)
Discusses school failure in American inner cities Boys are selected and followed during a year at the Baraka Boarding School in rural Kenya
Powell - "My Son has Been Suspended Five Times. He's 3"
Focuses on how zero tolerance policies and the school to prison pipeline works to discriminate against students as young as preschool
Kozol - "Savage Inequalities"
Focuses on the racial composition and funding of schools Vastly unequal proportioning of funds to school distritcs by state legislators, along lines of race and social class
Granfield - "Making It By Faking It"
Working class identities of law students are challenged during their years in an elite law school. Students felt they had to construct identities in order to escape the taint asociated with their class background
Education - Functionalist Theory
Manifest function - to convey basic knowledge and skills Schools are essential to dissemination of shared beliefs, values, and norms Contribute to social reproduction
Education - Conflict Theory
Schools teach values of the elite to all Prepare the elite to rule, sort students back into class, gendered, and racial hierarchies
The Achievement Gap
Students of color and low income students have much lower rates of educational achievement and attainment
According to Granfields "Making it By Faking It" , all of the following were challenged for working-class students in the elite law school, except: a. Lacking cultural capital with regards to dress and attire b. Being academically challenged c. Having their initial motives related to social justice challenged and skewed d. Being self-coscious of their style of speech
b
According to Randall Collins, our educational system is much like a "tribal initiation rite" a "secret society" or a 'closed occupational caste", not a rational system that produces more efficient production but a mechanism for: a. Creating gender inequality in the workforce b. reproducing the existing class structure c. punishing those who deviate from mainstream American values d. teaching the values and ideals we need to function in society today e. making inner-city schools extrraordinarily unhappy places
b
The Boys of Baraka film and "Savage Inequalities" by Kozol are important because they show: a. The educational achievement gap s not as drastic as the graphs/data presented b. Policy makers are successful when distributing resources to benefit at-risk populations c. The disparities between social classes and demonstrate the reproduction of class and race inequality
c
According to Beaver's article, credentialism functions in all of the following ways except: a. To exclude certain individuals or populations from the work force b. To maintain conformity of values in the workforce based on the hidden curriculum of higher education c. To uphold the status quo in companies, and in society d. To allow for less bias in hiring selections
d
What does a sociological perspective tell us about education in the United States? a. Boys tend to be smarter than girls b. Education is the pathway to material success and, as such, rewards the best and brightest individuals c. Anyone who works hard can get good grades d. Educational success often has as much to do with social stratification as it does with individual ability e. Tracking helps students from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve material success
d
What is true about Native American education in the U.S. before WWII: a. The broad goals were "civilization" Christianization, and assimilation of Native American people b. Sought to gain access to Indian lands, end tribal sovereignty c. Tens of thousands of children were removed from their families and taken to boarding schools such as the Carlisle Indian School d. All of the Above e. Only b and c
d
