[Sociology] Chapter 16: Education

Today, about ____________ of U.S. undergraduates are educated in community colleges.

50 percent

In Maryland, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas, approximately 30 percent of African American public school students attend schools that have at least a _____ percent black/African American population.

95

In the early 1990s, the AAUW highlighted inequalities in women's education and started a national debate on gender equity. Which of the following has NOT taken place since that time?

Boys' scores have suffered as a consequence of the improvements in girls' performance.

In the United States, the free public school movement was started in 1848 by _____, who stated that education should be the "great equalizer."

Horace Mann

According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, students from diverse backgrounds come to school with different amounts of __________, which refers to a person's social assets, including knowledge of how to dress, language competency, and knowledge of art and music.

cultural capital

_____ is a social system in which status is assumed to be acquired through individual ability and efforts.

Meritocracy

The Obama administration's attempt to reshape the educational system is _____.

Race to the Top

Which of the following is NOT a reason given by parents for preferring to home-school their children?

The cost of public education

Which statement about the cost of a college education in the United States is true?

The problem of increasing costs of higher education for students is compounded by slashed funding for public higher education.

credentialism

a process of social selection in which class advantage and social status are linked to the possession of academic qualifications (pg. 464)

affirmative action

a term that describes policies or procedures that are intended to promote equal opportunity for categories of people deemed to have been previously excluded from equality in education, employment, and other fields on the basis of characteristics such as race or ethnicity (pg. 478)

In elementary schools, tracking is often referred to as ___________ and is based on the assumption that it is easier to teach a group of students who have similar abilities.

ability grouping

During the Middle Ages, the first colleges and universities were developed under the auspices of the:

catholic church?

A large number of minority students receive a higher-quality education in _____ schools than they would in the public schools.

charter

What is the term for a primary or secondary school that receives public money but is free from some of the day-to-day bureaucracy of a larger school district that may limit classroom performance?

charter school

Which of the following is NOT a major issue facing contemporary K-12 education?

class segregation

detracking movement

emphasizes that students should be deliberately placed in classes of mixed ability to improve their academic performance and test scores (pg. 463)

preliterate societies

existed before the invention of reading and writing (pg. 459)

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gratz v. Bollinger that "separate but equal" segregated schools are unconstitutional because they are inherently unequal.

false

preindustrial societies

few people knew how to read and write (pg. 459)

latent functions

hidden, unstated, and sometimes unintended consequences of activities within an organization or institution (pg. 461)

Which of the following is NOT a key component of the federal government initiative known as "Race to the Top," which offers incentives to states that implement systemic reform to improve teaching and learning in school?

laws requiring states to test every student's progress towards established standards

informal education

learning that occurs in a spontaneous, unplanned way---from parents and other group members who provided information on surivival skills such as how to gather food, find shelter, make wepons and tools, and get along with others (pg. 459)

formal education

learning that takes place within an academic setting such as a school, which has a planned instructional process and teachers who convey specific knowledge, skills, and thinking processes to students (pg. 459)

Education serves an important purpose in all societies. At the __________, the social institution of education is an essential component in maintaining and perpetuating the culture of a society across generations.

macrolevel

All states have _____ education laws that require children to attend school until they reach a specified age (usually age sixteen) or complete a minimum level of formal education (generally the eighth grade).

mandatory?

manifest functions

open, stated, and intended goals or consequences of activities within an organization or institution (pg. 460)

mass education

refers to providing free, public schooling for wide segments of a nation's population (pg. 460)

cultural capital

social assets that include values, beliefs, attitudes, and competencies in language and culture (pg. 462)

Schools are responsible for identifying the most qualified people to fill available positions in society. As a result, students are channeled into programs based on individual ability and academic achievement. This illustrates which manifest function of education?

social placement

According to __________, the process of labeling is directly related to the power and status of those persons who do the labeling and those who are being labeled.

symbolic interactionists

One goal of Obama's blueprint for education is to increase the role of _____ in raising standards for all students and providing them with a well-rounded education so that they can contribute as citizens to the process of democracy and learn to thrive in a global economy.

teachers

Special programs for students who are disadvantaged (such as the Head Start program) or have disabilities are funded by:

the federal government

status dropout rate

the percentage of people in a specific age range who are not currently enrolled in high school and who do not have a high school degree or its equivalent (pg. 468)

tracking

the practice of assigning students to specific curriculum groups and courses on the basis of their test scores, previous grades, or other criteria (pg. 462)

cultural transmission

the process by which children and recent immigrants become acquainted with the dominant cultural beliefs, values, norms, and accumulated knowledge of a society---occurs through informal and formal education (pg. 458-459)

labeling

the process wheteby others indentify a person as possessing a specific characteristic or exhibiting a certain pattern of behavior (pg. 465)

education

the social institution responsible for the systematic transmission of knowledge, skills, and cultural values within a formally organized structure (pg. 458)

hidden curriculum

the transmission of cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority, through implied demands found in rules, routines, and regulations of schools (pg. 464)

Looking at the future of education, experts say that __________ is here to stay. This will include both the export of students from countries such as India and China to other countries to study, and the development of top-tier research universities in countries, including China, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, where students may study without living abroad.

university globalization