Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson01
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION-I
TOPIC-001-004

Topic001-002 Concept of Education

The meaning of the word ‘education’ has been contested. Word ‘education’ has its
origin in Latin words:

Educare - to bring up, to rise up, to train.

Educere – lead out, draw out.
E & Duco – E = out of, Duco = to draw out.

A combination of ‘Educatum’ and ‘Educere’ is what is known as “Education”

It is the process of the educator helping the child explore and develop his or her latent
faculties. According to Oxford dictionary. “The process of receiving or giving
systematic instruction, especially at a school or university”. Education is a lifelong
process, beginning with birth and ending with death. Yet the meaning of the word
‘education’ has been contested. ‘Educate’ is defined as, to develop the knowledge, skill,
or character of students.

Durkheim conceived education as the socialization of the younger generation. A

continuous effort to impose on the child ways of seeing, feeling, and acting which he
could not have arrived at spontaneously. Durkheim concerned about the role of
education in the preparation of children for their roles in adult society. Formal education
is primarily designed to inculcate crucial skills and values central to the survival of the
society or to those who hold effective power. Being a lifelong process, education is a
holistic grooming of individual. Heredity, environment, family, teacher, personal
experiences, and many other factors contribute to this process. Education can be formal
as well as informal.

Formal Education is a particular institution is entrusted with this responsibility. Goal

could be holistic grooming, but certainly some curricula are laid down. Education
becomes more of an “instruction.” Predetermined doses of knowledge are forced.
Teacher has an important role in this formal process. Informal education: No specific
time/ place, no educator, no syllabi, no rules, no formalities.

2Understanding of the concept has changed. Look at different aspects of education:

1. Meaning
Old concepts of Education as a process to thrust readymade knowledge into the mind
of a child as if it was an empty vessel.
Modern concept of education to develop the inherent capacities of a child in the social
environment. Needing proper guidance for wholesome growth.
2. Aims
Old aims of education emphasized scholarship and mental development.
Modern aims of education focus on physical, mental, emotional and social
development.
Develop individuality to the full and attain social efficiency and dynamism.
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3. Curriculum
Old curriculum emphasized on only subjects promoting mental development
included/emphasized. Rigid, confined to classroom.
Modern curriculum is flexible, varied and progressive. Tries to meet the needs of the
developing child as well as the demands of ever-changing modern society.
4. Method of Teaching
Old method of teaching is emphasized cramming and stimulated rote memorization.
Education was a lifeless, dull and drab process.
Modern method of teaching emphasizes no rote memorization. Adopt methods like Play
way, learning by doing, Learning by experience.
5. Discipline
Old concept of discipline emphasized the use of rod and punishments to enforce
obedience and discipline in children. Enforced discipline through repression.
Modern concept of discipline focuses on self-discipline leading to natural obedience.
6. Examination
Old concepts of education were based on essay type examination, encouraged
cramming and rote memorization.
Modern examination evaluates as well as examine. Includes objective tests, progress
reports, cumulative records, interviews and practical performances.
7. Agencies of Education
Old agency of education: school.
Modern agency of education includes all formal and informal agencies.
8. Teacher
Old concept of teacher was considered at the top of the educational process.
Modern concept of teacher is considered as a friend, philosopher and guide.
9. Child
Old concept of child mere passive recipient of whatever the teacher instructed.
Modern concept is child centered. Educational process is to cater to his needs and
develop him according to his nature. Interaction with the teacher and classmates.
promoting his own and that of society’s development.
10. School
Old concept of school served as a shop for selling knowledge. Everything was pre-
planned in advance. It was concerned with the input and bothered little about output.
Modern concept of school is a miniature of society laying emphasis more on output in
comparison with input.
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S. No Aspects of Education Old Concept Modern Concept

1 Meaning Instruction Development
2 Aims Knowledge Total Personality. Social Efficiency
3 Curriculum Subject Centered Activity Centered, Social Efficiency
4 Methods Rote Memorization Learning by Doing, Projects
5 Discipline Rigid, Repressionistic Self Descipline
6 Examination Essay Type Objective Type, Evaluation
7 Agencies Formal (School) Formal and Informal
8 Teacher Instructor Friend, Philosopher, Guide
9 Child Passive Receipiant Active, Dynamic
10 School Teaching Shops Miniature of Society
Topic003-004 Forms of Education
The most common classification is formal and informal. Non-formal is further added.
Other classifications are based on some specific approaches to education. Most of them
resemble each other. Different educationists, having their individual standpoint, have
made classification. Theses classifications reflects vast field of education.

1. General Education
Minimal education required by one to satisfy its various needs. Aim of the general
education is developing the general qualities of the child (personality). It makes child
capable of adjusting to its environment. Usually it is related to the Elementary
Education. We should made General education compulsory and free.
2. Specific education
Specfic education trains the child to pursue some specific profession. Vocational
guidance provided. Streaming. Education that is suitable to one’s abilities. The scope
of specfic education is narrow. Specialists come out of specialized institutions. It spread
over a long period. It is expensive but plays important role in the development of
country.
3. Formal education
Formal education is provided in educational institutions with specified pattern. It is
institutionalized succession of institutions. Specified education provided to large
number of children. It starts at specified age. The degree programs determine the
duration.

4. Non-formal Education
Non-formal education can be defined as the educational activity organized outside the
formal system of education. It may take place both within and outside educational
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institutions, and cater to persons of all ages. UNESCO. It may be part of life-long
learning, yet questionable when “education for all” is part of MDGs/SDGs. Gaining its
significance. It caters to unmet learning needs of large population.

May cover programs for:

i. Adult literacy Its Impacts on basic education for out-of-school. The basic
education includes; life-skills, work skills, and general culture. NFE programs do
not necessarily follow the ‘ladder’ system, and may have different durations, and
may not confer certificate.

ii. Para-formal it is in between the FE and NFE. Substitute for regular schooling. It
provides second chance to those who could not benefit from the regular system. In
para-formal. In this, individual/NGO trying to school the nomad group.

Hoppers has listed many other forms of NFE like:

1. Popular Education
2. Personal Development
3. Professional and Vocational Training
4. Literacy and Skills Development
5. Supplementary NFE Program
6. Early Childhood Care and Education

To what extent NFE could facilitate meaningful individual and institutional

development to remedy the competency deficit of subgroups? NFE a ‘reformist ploy’
designed to maintain an unjust socio-economic order within countries. NFE can diffuse
social discontent and prevent demands for restructuring of society.

5. Informal education
It is also called incidental education. For this form of education: no specific time/ place,
no educator, no syllabi/rules/formalities are specified. One receives it anywhere,
anytime, and in any form. It is never ending process. There is no standard to measure
it. No certificate provided in informal education system.
6. Direct Education
The teacher and the student are in direct contact.
Material learnt by the student more by example of teacher’s personality than by the
material teacher wants to impart. Student lives with the teacher and earns various skills
and sciences. It is possible with small number of students.
6. Indirect education.
It is united to complex society. Modern means of communication help in transmission
without direct contact. Its correspondence with online courses. In this lectures and other
material are shared.

7. Individual education.
Due to individual differences psychologists suggest paying individual attention to
students. In this type of education, psychologists recommend to remove their individual
difficulties, modify the approach suited to specific abilities of students. It is possible in
a small class.
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8. Collective education.
Formal education is often collective education. Advantages of having small class. It can
be cost effective.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson02
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION-II
TOPIC 005-007

Topic005 Introduction Education and Instruction

Education is the process of the development of an individual according to its needs and
demands of society, of which he/she is an integral part. Whereby human being adapts
itself gradually (infancy to maturity) in various ways to its physical, social and spiritual
environment. Education is a holistic grooming of an individual Who does it? Presently
it is being done by specialized institution. It is formal education.

Formal education is primarily “designed” to groom the child with certain specified
goals. The “design” is prepared by those in power. Call it instructional package.
Formally education is schooling by a specific social institution called “education.” In
the formal education “teacher” gets central role. Whatever the teacher does is supposed
to result in specific changes in the learners’ repertoire is teaching. Teaching is an act of
systematically presenting stimuli. Teaching will be aimless if it is done:
➢ Without specifying what to teach, and
➢ How what is taught is related to skills and knowledge that are scheduled for
students to learn.
➢ Needs curriculum to meet the objectives.
➢ Curriculum is often packaged as an “instructional plan.”

Teaching activities
That portion of instructional activities which is effective in moving pupils toward the
attainment of educational objectives which result in learning. Teaching is what occurs
when teachers by virtue of instructional activities succeed in enabling pupils to learning.
Instruction
Instruction can be defined as group of activities planned and executed which are
intended to result in learning. Teaching introduces a set of conditions intended to
influence the behavior of pupils. There may be imposed conditions. It is planned well
in advance. It follows a sequence and is goal directed. Whatever teachers do in
classroom that is intended to result in learning is “instruction.”
Instruction is necessary condition for teaching, but not for learning. Learning is the
desired response of learners meeting the educational objectives. It also important of
unintended learning by pupils. Learners can learn through interaction. Most learning
occurs without teacher or instruction.

Topic006 Sociology and Education: Relationship

Sociology is the scientific study of human beings as participating members of society.
Through interaction education is the holistic upbringing process of humans. It is social
process of teaching and learning of knowledge, skills, and values i.e. the expected
patterns of conduct. Reproduction. Formally it is systematic instruction and training of
learners by professional teachers in different disciplines.

Durkheim conceived education as the socialization of the younger generation. Society

tailors this process in line with its needs and demands. Major part of the process has
been entrusted to formal schools. School is a small living society set in a locality of a
bigger community environment. Ecology. School society portrays social interactions
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i.e. learners and teachers, peer groups, boys and girls, different social classes, different
ethnicities.

It helps us to understand the patterns and concerns of this school society. Understanding
this society can help in effective educational outcomes. Many claims of education:
➢ Helps in overcoming inequalities
➢ Means to change
➢ Promotes social mobility
➢ Inculcates modernism
➢ Generates liberalism and many more.

Claims and counterclaims

Sociological research helps in theorizing a claim as well as counter theorizing. The
resultant education policies and plan. They lead to further researches about the
outcomes of the processes. Sure: education is social effort; it reflects society; it involves
social interaction.

Education will direct society if there is a social force favoring this approach.
Education controlled by the powerful. There is an effect of education on group life and
effect of group life on education Sociology studies all those things that influence human
beings in their growth and development. Sociological research makes its contribution.
Research in education helps in: building theories, counter theories, making policies,
and finding solutions to problems.

Instruction is necessary condition for teaching, but not for learning. Learning is the
desired response of learners meeting the educational objectives and lot of unintended
learning by pupils. Learners can learn through interaction. Most learning occurs without
teacher or instruction.

Topic 007 Introduction to Sociology of Education

Emile Durkheim is generally considered to be the founder of the sociology of education.
Provided a sociological conceptualization of education as a system that transmits
society’s culture and social order to new generations. It also drives conceptual and
theoretical roots from the contributions of Marx and Weber.

Assumptions
1. Education is a combination of social acts
2. Sociology is an analysis of social interaction.
3. Sociological analysis of the social interaction in education
Results
1. Development of scientific generalization of human relations in the education
system.
2. The sociology of education is the study of how education institutions and
individual experiences affect education and its outcomes.
3. Mostly concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial
societies.
4. Analysis by different sociological perspectives.
Education is a philosophical as well as a sociological concept denotes ideologies,
curricula and pedagogical techniques for:
• The incaution and management of knowledge.
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• The social reproduction of personalities and cultures.

Sociology of education is concerned with the relationships, activities and reactions of
the teachers and students in the classroom. It emphasizes sociological problems in the
realm of education. It is a scientific analysis of the social processes and social patterns
involved int eh education system. Educational sociology is a branch of discipline o
sociology. It studies the problems of relationship between society and education. It
involved as a discipline designed to prepare educators for their future tasks.

Educational sociology uses sociological researchers in planning educational activities

and in developing effective methods of realizing these plans. Application of
sociological principles and methods to the solution of problems in an education system.
It threw light on those interactions that were important in education process. Despite
the said contributions, there appeared to be confusion as to what the proper dimensions
of educational sociology should be. There should be a separate branch of knowledge
which can be designated as sociology of education.

Robert Angell introduced the name of Sociology of education in USA in the late 1920s.
Idea was that research in education institutions should not be confined to applied
proposes but also to produces but also to produce theoretical knowledge. So,
educational sociology became a historical phenomenon. In 1963, the Journal of
Education sociology became the journal of sociology of education. Sociology od
education may be defined as the scientific analysis of the social processes and social
patterns involved in the education system.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson03

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATION-I

TOPIC 008-011

Topic 008-009 Sociological Perspectives in Education: Functionalism

Scientists use theoretical perspectives to provide logical explanations for why things
happen the way they do. A theoretical perspective provides a guide to, or a particular
conception of, how the social world works. It influences what the researcher sees and
how it is interpreted. Sociologists have several theoretical perspectives to help explain
why things happen the way they do.

Just as each individual interprets situations differently depending on his or her

background, theorists focus on different aspects of a research problem. By using each
perspective, sociologists have made major contributions in the field of sociology of
education. Just as a functioning heart and a brain are necessary for the survival of a
human being, an education system is necessary for the survival of society.

One major theoretical approach in sociology is functionalism each part of the society’s
system— family, education, religion, politics and economics, health care—plays a role
in the total working society. All parts are interdependent for survival, just as all organs
of the body work together to keep us functioning. Interdependence maintains order and
consensus among individuals in the group.

It sees change in system as helping the system to continually adapt to new

circumstances. Change is evolutionary; does not disrupt the ongoing system. Education
system is crucial for integrating society into a cohesive, functioning whole. Emile
Durkheim set the stage for the functional approach to education. Durkheim was the first
person to recommend that a sociological approach be used to study education. He
outlined the importance of education in creating moral values as the foundation of
society.

Education and society are embedded with each other; they reflect each other. Moral
values are the foundation of the social order and social solidarity. Society is perpetuated
through the teaching of moral values in its educational institutions, which help instill
values in children. Education is closely related to other institutions and to current
values and beliefs of the society. Discipline is the morality of the classroom, and
without it the class, and by extension society, behaves like a mob.

Sociological research makes its contribution. Research in education helps in:

➢ Building theories
➢ Counter theories
➢ Making policies and
➢ Finding solutions to problems

Schools are one part of an interdependent system. Parts include groups, organizations,
and social institutions. Consensus and bonding taught and reinforced in schools.
Socialization into shared norms unites groups working toward common goals and keeps
groups from disintegrating. The higher the degree of interdependence among parts in
the system the higher the degree of integration among these parts.
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Consensus among members is important components of the system. It helps to keep

the system in balance. Functionalists conceive of institutions as parts of total societies
or social systems. The parts of the system are discussed in terms of their functions in
the whole system. A primary function of schools is the passing on of the knowledge
and behaviors necessary to maintain order in society (Parsons).

Sociologists see the transmission of moral and occupational education, discipline, and
values as necessary for the survival of society. Education plays a major role in this
transmission. Functionalists look at how schools and classrooms function to achieve
certain goals. Functionalists have studied questions like:
➢ How social class background influences educational attainment?
➢ How schools sort students into groups based on merit?
➢ How the educational achievements of students serve as a key factor in occupational
mobility?
➢ Functionalists assumed a connection between education, occupational mobility,
and the economic state of the nation.

Criticism
1. Functionalists fail to recognize divergent interests, ideologies, conflicting group
values, and differentials of power.
2. Functionalists view schools as supporting the interests of the dominant groups.
3. In heterogeneous society, each subgroup may have its own agenda for the school.
4. Inability in analyzing interactions, such as the classroom dynamics of teacher–
student or student–student relationships.
5. This approach does not deal with the “content” of the educational process i.e. what
is taught and how it is taught.
6. Criticized the theory of change. Still sticking to evolutionary approach.
7. Focus on maintaining the equilibrium/status-quo.
8. Does not necessarily reflect the reality of rapidly changing societies.
9. Functionalists have made no progress here.
10. Partly as a reaction, conflict theory came to play a prominent role in the field.

Topic 010-011 Sociological Perspectives in Education: Conflict

Conflict perspective assumes a tension in society and its parts emerging from the
competing interests of individuals and groups. There is variations in this approach.
Theory has been expanded and modified to meet the new situations. Marx laid the
foundations based on his outrage over the social conditions of exploited workers under
capitalism. According to Marx, there are competing groups of “haves” and “have-nots,”
powerful and powerless and there is constant state of tension, conflict and struggle.

Struggle for power between groups and individuals helps determine the structure and
functioning of organizations. A hierarchy evolves from the power relations. The
“haves” often use coercive power and manipulation to hold society together to their
benefit. Social change is inevitable and sometimes rapid. Conflicts of interest lead to
the overthrow of existing power structures.

Max Weber (1864–1920) presented his own brand of conflict theory. Power
relationships between groups form the basic structure of societies. A person’s status
identifies his or her position in the group. Primary activity of schools is to teach students
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

particular “status cultures.” Power relationships and the conflicting interests of

individuals and groups in society influence educational systems. The interests and
purposes of the dominant groups in society shape the schools.

Weber studied the macro-level school organization with an interpretive micro-level

view of the learning situation. Focus on how individuals interpret or define that
situation, Qualitative approach. Within the school there are:

➢ “Insiders,” whose status culture is reinforced through the school experience, and
➢ “Outsiders,” who face barriers to success in school. Example of poor and minority
students in school.

Theory deals with conflict, domination, and groups struggling for wealth, power, and
status in society. Education is used as one of the means to attain desired ends. For
Weber, education produces a disciplined labor force for military, political, or other
areas of control and exploitation by the elite. Education, in every society, prepares
people for class, status, and power.

Education institutions have become increasingly important in training people for new
roles in society. Rationalization of education and training, develops the “specialist type
of man” (trained to do certain jobs) versus the older type of “cultivated man” (learned
in a wide range of areas).
Debate: Value of vocationally oriented education versus comprehensive education for
well-rounded person.

Weber and Marx had set the stage for variations of contemporary applications of
conflict theory. Research from the conflict perspective tends to focus on those tensions
created by power and conflict that ultimately causes change. Some conflict theorists see
mass education as a tool of capitalist society. System controls the entrance into higher
levels of education through:

➢ The selection and allocation function

➢ Manipulating the public consciousness and beliefs.

Research findings show a link between education and society. Until society is radically
changed, school will:
➢ Continue to reinforce societal stratification patterns;
➢ Reinforce inequality between students rather than encouraging to achieve on
merits.
Weber described “the growing ‘tyranny’ of educational credentials’ as a prerequisite
for high-status positions” (Hurn, 2002). Collins expands on “credentialism,” a
technique of increased requirements for higher-level positions used by more
advantaged individuals to further their status. Many conflict theorists believe that until
society’s economic and political systems are fundamentally changed, school reforms
that attempt to provide equal access will be impossible. A branch of conflict theory
called cultural reproduction and resistance theories argues very generally:
➢ Those who dominate capitalist systems mold individuals within the system to suit
their own purposes
➢ Forms of culture are passed on by families and schools (Bourdieu and Passer on,
1977).
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

The amount of “cultural capital” one has is an indicator of one’s status, and families
and schools differ in the amount of cultural capital they provide to children.

The conflict theory approach implies a volatile system and the ever-present possibility
of major disruption because of the unequal distribution of status, power, cultural capital,
opportunity, and other resources.

Critics argue Causal connections between curricula to perpetuate status of the “haves”
and capitalist system have not been laid out clearly. No useful explanations concerning
the balance or equilibrium that does exist between segments of a system or the
interactions between members of the system.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson04
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATION-II
TOPIC 012-014

Topic 012-013 Sociological Perspectives in Education: Interactionalism

Interaction theories grew from reactions to the macro-level of structural functional and
conflict theories. Interaction theorists look at what teachers and students “do” in school.
They study even the most commonplace, taken-for-granted actions and interactions,
things most people ignore. Micro level focus on individuals in interaction with each
other.

This perspective stems from the work of G. H. Mead and C. H. Cooley. They theorized
the development of self through social interaction, whether in school or in other
situations. Focuses on individuals in interaction with each other. Individuals sharing a
culture are likely to interpret and define many social situations in similar ways because
of their similar:
➢ Socialization
➢ Experiences
➢ Expectations
➢ Culture

These commonly understood “interaction rituals” in turn hold societies together.

Interpretations of events can differ. Due to individual experiences and social identities
the commonly understood “interaction rituals” in turn hold societies together.
Sociologists of education using this approach focus on interactions between:
➢ Groups of peers
➢ Teachers and students
➢ Teachers and principals

They consider students’:

➢ Attitudes, values, and achievements
➢ Self-concepts and their effect on aspirations
➢ Socioeconomic status and their achievement
➢ Performance as an outcome of teacher expectations.

They studied the results of ability grouping of students, and schools as total institutions.
Young people spend much of their time in school-related activities. Interaction in
school affects the student’s sense of self. The image that is reflected back to someone
can begin to mold one’s sense of competence, intelligence, and likeability. Students
absorb given interpretations of the physical and symbolic universe from others (teachers
and other students) and act accordingly. Process through which students construct their
“I” and “me.” See themselves (I) as others see them (me). Absorb ready-made notions
of “me.” Micro level interactions in school contribute to individual’s formulation of
their sense of “self

Look at the labeling theory. Becker, Lemert

Look: Bashir is repeatedly told that he is dumb and is worthless person. He may
incorporate this label as part of his self-concept and behave as the label suggests. This
is “a self-fulfilling prophesy.
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Whether students behave well or badly depends in part on teacher expectations. Teacher
expectations of students are based on categories such as class, ethnicity, and gender.
Teacher expectations influence student perceptions of ‘self’ and resultant
achievements. Negative stereotyping. Classification with a stigma. Deviant self-
concept.

Rational choice (exchange) theory is another interaction theory used in education. In

rational theory interactions is based on an assessment of costs and rewards. Individuals
decide to act in order to continue receiving benefits and reciprocity of interactions.
Theory relevant to education in school choices made by students, teachers, and
administrators.

Teachers are rewarded when students learn and rewarded behavior is likely to continue.
Teacher burnout occurs when the rewards are outstripped by the perceived costs of the
teaching situation. Student’s subject choices between alternative options depend on
utility considerations. Expectations regarding the odds of success or failure in
alternative educational options.

Cost- benefit analysis

Rational choice theory stipulates that the students choose the subject they most prefer.
The subject is evaluated in terms of costs and benefits. A rational student chooses the
subject that provides the maximum net benefit, i.e., the maximum benefit minus cost.

Topic 014 Sociological Perspectives in Education: Recent Theories

Paulo Freire published Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) helped to establish the
Critical Pedagogy movement.

Claim
⚫ Schools are not politically neutral spaces.
⚫ Teaching is political. Teaching can empower or disempower students.
⚫ Educational practices favor some students over others. Harmful.
⚫ Teacher holds power.

Critical pedagogical practices include

⚫ Listening to and including students’ knowledge and perspectives in class.
⚫ Making connections between school and broader community.
⚫ Posing problems to students that encourage them to question the assumed
knowledge and understandings.

Freire pleaded for education of the oppressed. The oppressed should be educated to
give them a voice. Struggle for justice and equity in the education system. Criticized
what he called the “banking model” of education. Students are viewed as empty vessels
to be filled by teachers.

Language Code Theory by Basil Bernstein (1971) distinguished between elaborated

code (EC) and restricted code (RC). In RC lot of unsaid information given. RC works
better than the EC where there is great deal of shared and taken for granted knowledge
of speakers. Economical. Applicable to well-knit groups. RC is less formal with shorter
phrases interjected with ‘you know,’ ‘you know what I mean,’ ‘right.’
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Working class uses RC while middle class uses both. Socialized that way. Poor
performance in language-based subjects by the working-class students explained.
Schools prefer the elaborated code. Middle class mobile, geographically, socially,
culturally. Has access to both. Working class communicates in restricted code. Both
classes use restricted code in some situations.

Bernstein explains for the poor performance in language-based subjects by the working-
class students. Cultural Capital and Symbolic Violence by Pierre Bourdieu (1973):

➢ Discussed the “symbolic violence” power which imposes its meanings by

appearing neutral or masking where it is coming from.
➢ Schools appear to serve everyone.

Cultural capital (CC) refers to a culturally-specific “competence”: a ‘resource,’ a

‘power.’ Symbolic representation of cultural domination: language, arts, ideas that have
high exchange value. CC may occur in an “objectified” form—material objects whose
production or consumption presupposes a quantum of embodied cultural capital.

Cultural capital (CC) may occur in an “institutionalized” form, meaning as an embodied

competence which has been certified in the form of educational credentials CC is
inheritable. Makes a big contribution to the inter-generational reproduction. The family
and school responsible for inculcating CC. Students with higher SES possess more CC.
CC can be traded in for higher status in school and later in workforce. Schools unevenly
distribute CC across SES. Education leads to the domination of those in the upper
classes. Schools act as an official agency having authority to legally ‘warrant’ its
existence in the form of educational credentials.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson05
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATION-III
TOPIC 015-017
Topic015 Sociological Perspectives in Education: Modernism and Post
Modernism
Modernism
Progressive movement of society. Started towards the end of 18th century. Three major
features:
➢ Power of reason over ignorance.
➢ Power of order over disorder.
➢ Power of science over superstition.
Considered as universal values. Dominated by capitalism as mode of production.
Era of industrial capitalism and scientific thinking.

Brought In
The world nuclear war, the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism, of neo-colonialism,
Eurocentrism, racism and Third World hunger. Modernism failed to achieve
emancipation of humanity. Disenchantment considered modernism as dangerous.
Post-modernists call for respect and understanding of human differences. Sometimes
postmodernism is called “critical education theory.” A theory is critical to the extent
that it seeks: Human emancipation; To liberate human beings from the circumstances
that enslave them.

Objective
➢ Social justice through empowerment.
Goal
• Identify factors that limit human freedom, and
• Carry out a plan of action to overcome such factors.

Critical Theory in Education (CTE) evaluates the ways in which education, curriculum,
and classroom interactions are socially constructed. Determined by the societal
structure. Critical Theory is the belief that change is possible, no matter how great the
obstacles to that change.

CTE recognizes that

a. Educational systems are complicit in oppression (most powerful mechanism for the
reproduction of social inequality), and
b. There must be a corresponding plan for emancipatory action through education.
Idea expressed by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).
The mechanisms of oppression and the opportunities to create change exist in:
• The nature of curriculum and
• The pedagogies teachers enact.
Freire’s banking pedagogy is the predominant mode of educational instruction.
Inevitably functions to maintain oppression.

Information is ‘deposited’ into the students. Teacher tells students that their knowledge
is unimportant. Accept his authority to hand them “truth.” Not only knows everything,
but to dictate what is right and wrong in terms of personal conduct and
ideology. School and/or classroom look like a dictatorship.
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All classroom practices reflect a theory of education. Teacher. Intellectual inferiority

of certain groups? Change ‘one size fits all’ curriculum approach. Empower students.
Follow reflective practices. Develop critical thinking. Change uniform curriculum
approach as well as dictatorial pedagogy. Two other critical theories discussed earlier
are:
• ‘Habitus’ and ‘cultural capital’ of Pierre Bourdieu.
• ‘Elaborated’ and ‘restricted’ code by Basil Bernstein.

Topic016-017 Sociological Perspectives in Education: Open Systems Approach

There is number of theoretical perspectives. Each provides valuable insights into a
complex system of education. Rather than preferring one perspective over the other,
Ballantine opted for open systems approach to understand the educational system as a
whole. Each approach can contribute to it. Break this complex system into its
component parts for study. One approach is more applicable than another for the study
of certain parts of the system. Interconnections between parts and theories.

Determine which theory and research methods are most appropriate for its study.
Consider education system as a whole, integrated, and dynamic entity. Most studies
focus on parts of the whole system. Most theoretical approaches have specific foci. An
open systems model conceptualizes a whole system. See how the small pieces fit
together.

Model provides a picture of complex interacting elements. Provides a framework to

consider the common characteristics of many educational settings. Any school system
or theory can be placed in the framework. Selected parts of the system become the focus
of a research study—within the context of the larger system. An analytical model that
can be applied to any instance of the process of social organization, from families to
nation. Five components of Systems Model:
1. Organization
2. Environment
3. Inputs
4. Outputs and
5. Feedback.

1. The Organization
The center of activity. Can represent a society (e.g. Pakistan), an institution (e.g. family
or education), organization (e.g. school). Here action takes place. Has hierarchical
structure of personnel who carry out activities. The action processes in the system bring
the organization alive.
2. Environment
Includes everything that surrounds the organization and influences it in some way.
Could be:
• Surrounding organizations
• Technological environment
• Political environment
• Economic environment
• Surrounding community
• Population changes.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

3. Inputs
Information, raw materials, students, personnel, finances, government mandates, and
new ideas. Members of an organization belong to other organizations in the
environment and bring into the organization influences from the outside. Some of the
environmental inputs are mandatory for the organization’s survival (finances, human
resources, and technology). Some inputs are undesirable, but unavoidable (new legal
restrictions, competition, or financial pressures). Organization can exert some control
over the inputs. Schools have selection processes for new teachers, textbooks, other
curricular materials, and sometimes students. Certain positions in the organization are
held by personnel who act as buffers or liaisons between the organization and its
environment. May not be applicable all over Pakistan.
4. Outputs
Material items and the nonmaterial ideas that leave the organization. e.g. completed
products such as research findings, graduates, waste products, evolving culture, and
new technology. Personnel for marketing the organization’s product (placement office).
5. Feedback
An organization constantly adapts to changes and demands in the environment as a
result of new information it receives. College may be providing new curricula, sports
facilities, menus in the dining hall to meet the needs of the changing college student
population, as learned through feedback. Model is more inclusive and flexible and it
can help promote interdisciplinary study. Sociology of education is a hybrid discipline.
Draws upon other disciplines. Different parts contribute to the functioning of total
system.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson06
FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION
TOPIC 018-022

Topic018 Socialization
Learning process
Socialize learns to be a participating member of society. To be productive member.
Learns the cultural patterns. Role playing. Education institutions play an important role.
Students have different experiences in school system due to their demography.
Variation in educational attainment. Sociologists are interested in how socialization in
schools affects children. Socialization is a lifelong process. Early childhood education
is the formal schooling outside of the family. Reasons for early childhood education:
i. Provides valuable learning experiences not always available at home.
ii. Young children need to interact with children and with adults other than their
parents.
iii. Parents and siblings are not always the best or the most capable handlers of
children.
iv. For many families, day care is necessary because both parents must work.

Poor children enter school at a significant disadvantage. More likely to be at risk of

academic failure.
i. Variety of risk factors for poor children (low income, minority group status, large
households, a disabling condition)
ii. Disadvantaged children are academically behind at the “starting gate.” Several
programs tried to enrich early childhood education. Resulted in cognitive benefits,
economic benefits, health benefits, and social benefits.

Schools teach far more than 3 Rs. ‘School’ being used as any education institution.
Socialize to cultural norms and expectations. Education system also socializes students
to one’s society. They learn norms, which are reinforced by teachers, textbooks, and
classmates. Schools can be agents of change or conformity.

Teach students to think outside of the family and the local norms. Tell them their tacit
place in society. Provide students with skills for communication, social interaction, and
work discipline. Can create pathways to both independence and obedience for
socialization, the modern system of mass education is second only to the family in
importance. It promotes two main socializing tasks: homogenization and social sorting.

Diversity of Students. Standardized curriculum transforms diversity into homogeneity.

Sorted into different paths. Accept their place. Schools work as “socialization agencies
that teach children how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic
roles” (Durkheim). Bourdieu considered schools only means to social reproduction.
Cultural capital persists.

Topic019 Cultural Transmission

Culture is anything created by the humans. Schooling itself has become a cultural
value. Education owned and controlled by Government. Culture is shared and
transmitted. What culture to be transmitted? Who designs the curricula? How the
textbooks are prepared? Transmission of culture to new generation purpose is to:
➢ Mold a diverse population to unity with shared identity.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

➢ Prepare the young for citizenship roles.

➢ Teach patriotism, salute the flag, sing national anthem.
➢ Learn stories of heroes.
➢ Learn values of cooperation and competition through curricular as well as
extracurricular activities.
Education seems to be a cause of the transmission—even the transformation—of
culture. Complex causal interaction between education and culture. What is the
philosophy of education? What is to be transmitted? How is it to be transmitted? Basics
– 3 Rs. Emphasis on memorization. An authoritarian atmosphere.

Child-Centered Curricula
Focus is on:
➢ Learner needs and interests.
➢ Highly flexible.
➢ Reflective and reasonable thinking.
➢ Contents of this value.

What culture is transmitted? What should be transmitted? Curriculum covers this. Who
should make decisions concerning curriculum content? Different sociological
perspectives on what should be taught? Functional theorists argue that schools serve
the crucial function of preparing young people for society. Conflict theorists view the
cultural transmission of values and norms as serving the needs of a capitalist society.
Bernstein and Bourdieu concerned with how social class shapes educational
phenomena (curriculum, pedagogy, teacher-student interaction), and testing.

Bourdieu focused on the process through which cultural knowledge and style operates
as carriers of social inequality. Cultural capital (cultural background, knowledge
disposition, skills) of students determined their educational attainment. In fact the
cultural transmission through schools reproduces social inequality.

Topic020 Social Control and Personal Development

Social control refers to the mechanisms a society uses to get individuals to conform
‘all of the formal and informal mechanisms and internal and external controls that
operate to produce conformity’. For Parsons conformity was not just produced by:
➢ External agencies coercing individuals to obey rules through the threat of
punishment, but also through individuals internalizing norms and values through
socialization.
Parsons argued that socialization was central to this ‘willing conformity’. Socialization
within institutions helped individuals to internalize the norms and values of a society.
People are convinced that a ‘good-person’ is the one who willingly conformed to
society’s rules. Personal development is the process of improving oneself through
learning and becoming participating member of society.

Social control and personal development appear to be an extension of socialization.

Socialize children into their roles as citizens. Community expects students to learn the
skills and values—obedience, punctuality, perseverance, respect, and others—
necessary to become productive, law-abiding citizens. Schools are expected to instill
values related to social control and personal development. Train the youngsters to fit
into society in accepted ways. Reduce the society’s problems.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Are some schools so dysfunctional that they may actually produce crime rather than
socialize them? Threats, intimidation, and actual incidents of violence on school
grounds create an atmosphere of disorder that disrupts the educational process. Issues
like student unions, school fees, grades, discipline, and conflicts appear. Cases are
appealed to courts.

Courts decide about individual rights versus school needs to maintain order. Reducing
the role of educators to make decisions regarding discipline and control. Have educators
lost the ability to pass on cultural values, civil and moral order? Have they lost social
control?

Conflict theorists have a different view of social control. For them schools are the tools
of capitalist societies—controlling training, sorting human beings for places in the
societal system, and perpetuating inequality. Varying ways of passing on the skills of
social control, ranging from authoritarian to humanistic methods. Discipline is the
major method of enforcing control in schools. Achieving social control within the
school and for preparing disciplined workers creates dilemmas for schools and society.

Schools are a safe place for students—right? Wrong—at least for some schools.
Victimization, teacher injury, bullying and cyber-bullying, fights, weapons, availability
of drugs, students’ perceptions of safety at school—all plague some schools. What type
of discipline should be used? Students can be expelled or suspended. Zero-tolerance or
“get-tough.” May solve the immediate problem, but can lead to more serious issues
down the line. Students may fail, setting them up for future failure in life. Educator to
do what?

Topic021 Selection and Allocation- Mobility

Selection and allocation are the sorting process. Individuals to be ranked. Societies
emphasize on achievement and merit. Test oriented societies. IQ tests, aptitude tests,
achievement tests, career-interest inventories, civil service tests, Scholastic Aptitude
Tests (SATs), Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Schools use exams to track or
stream students. Students to pass examinations in order to graduate. Entrance tests for
admission. Tests are a part of our lives. Helping educators and others to select and
allocate applicants according to their ability.

Do some groups have an advantage in the testing process? Concerns have been raised
about the validity of intelligence tests. Challenges to the “one-size-fits-all” approach
to education. Intelligence is not a single idea, but composed of multiple factors.
Entrance results hold the key to the future of many young people—scores on
achievement tests. Rely on entrance test for placement in various programs. The scores
are important—and controversial—because they tap the core of how we evaluate and
place people in society. Debate. Those in favor of tests point to several factors:
1. It improves the accountability of students and schools.
2. It motivates students to really learn the material rather than just memorize for tests.
3. A student doing poor early can end up behind indefinitely. Track poor performers
and help in excelling.

On the flip side:

1. Standardized tests can be biased or unfair;
2. Schools with high failures will be punished;
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

3. It lessens the flexibility of teachers; and

4. Learning material for tests means other material receives less emphasis.

Test-makers will continue to improve the validity of their tests; Educators will continue
to question the relationship between curricular materials and test items; Parents and
students will share concerns about the meaning of tests for life chances; Minority
advocates will watch tests for bias. Meritocracies in some forms of testing are likely to
continue. This is the controversial function of selection and allocation. The ultimate
means to mobility.

Topic022 Change and Innovation

Schools provide a link with the future. Societies move forward through research and
teaching new knowledge to the next generation. Schools provide a link with the future.
How does change take place and who controls change? Who is prepared for this change
and rise in the hierarchy? They are those: Who possess technological skills and
knowledge for the twenty-first century. Who know how to get information important to
functioning in the future? Can schools teach and implement teaching tools to pass on
new technology? Are these tools equally available to all?

The proliferation of computer technology is dramatically changing the process of

education. Students in “traditional classrooms” listen to lectures. Instructors in
‘postmodern classrooms’ enhance their lectures with computers. Graphics and video
clips, virtual sounds, popular multimedia platforms, and PowerPoint. Students in
traditional classrooms learn about remote cultures by reading a text. Some students in
postmodern classrooms interact and communicate directly with people of different
cultural backgrounds via the Internet. Major trends in technology in public schools
show the following:
1. Increasing use of mobile devices in classrooms: Majority of high school students
are connected.
2. Internet connectivity: students use 3G or 4G devices. Looking forward 5G.
3. Use of video for classwork and homework: teachers use videos in the classroom,
students access videos online to help with homework.
4. Mobile devices for schoolwork.
5. Students use devices for research, for educational games, and for peer
collaboration.
6. Different tools for different tasks.
7. Paying attention to the Digital Footprint: students are increasingly aware of what
they post online and the potential consequences.
8. Increased interest in online learning
9. Social media in schools.
10. What devices belong in “The Ultimate School”? Laptops, digital readers, selected
tablets.
Computers are very much in education in society. In school of the future students will
use laptops in a wireless building. Teachers will customize lessons according to each
one's ability. In Pakistan internet and computer facilities available in all universities.
The postmodern classroom is quickly replacing the traditional classroom. Reliance on
computer technology is equally prevalent in institutions of higher education. Especially
prominent is distance learning, a low-cost method of educating large numbers of
students.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson07
SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM-I
TOPIC 023-026

Topic023 Introduction
Social system is a model of organization. It possesses creativity beyond its component
parts has a clearly defined boundary It is composed of subunits, elements, and
subsystems that are interrelated and there are relatively stable patterns of social order.

A social system is a group of elements and activities that interact and constitute a single
social entity. Purpose is to create. A school as a system of social interaction. It is an
organized whole comprising interacting personalities bound together in an organic
relationship. It creates educated individuals. School is an organized whole comprising
interacting personalities bound together in an organic relationship. All social systems
have some activities and functions that are accomplished in a fairly stable fashion. A
social system involves two dimensions:
1. Institutions - with certain roles and expectation
2. Individuals -with certain personalities and need

The classroom is a unique social system, where it is mediated by cultural factors such
as ethics, norms, and values, as well as psychological aspects. Try to understand the
meanings of social system of the school like:
➢ What are the goals of the school system?
➢ What are the functions of schooling?

Topic024 Social System of School

Social system: the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole
that exists between individuals, groups, and institutions. For Talcott Parsons: Social
system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that
exists between individuals, groups, and institutions. As a social system, the school is
characterized by:
➢ An interdependence of parts
➢ A clearly defined population
➢ Differentiation from its environment
➢ A complex network of social relationships
➢ Its own unique culture.

Some explicit assumptions about the school as a social system:

1. Social systems are open systems. Affected by state mandates, politics, history, and
other environmental forces.
2. Social systems consist of interdependent parts, which interact with each other and
environment. The principal, teachers, and students in a school.
3. Social systems are goal-oriented. Prepare its students for adult roles. Student
learning and control necessary.
4. Social systems are peopled. Teachers act on the basis of their needs, beliefs, and
goals as well as their roles.
5. Social systems have structure. School systems have division of labor,
specialization, and hierarchy.
6. Social systems are political. Schools have power relations that inevitably affect
administrators and teacher activities.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

7. Social systems have cultures. Schools have a dominant set of shared values and
norms that prescribe appropriate behavior.
8. Social systems are conceptual and relative. A classroom -- a social system, but also
part of school, which itself is a social system.
9. All formal organizations are social systems but not all social systems are formal
organizations.

School then consists of a number of important elements that affect organizational

behavior:
Structure – hierarchy of positions.
Individual –a key unit in any social system. People bring with them individual needs,
beliefs, and a cognitive understanding of the job.
Culture - Norms, values.
Politics - informal power relations that develop spontaneously.
Core - the teaching-learning process is the technical core of schools.
Environment - everything outside the organization; source of inputs.
Outputs - the products: educated students.
Feedback - communication that monitors behavior.
Effectiveness - the congruence between expected and actual outcomes.

Social Systems Model for Schools

Topic025 Goals of School System
A goal is a future state that an individual is striving to attain. The aims or outcomes that
the school would like to achieve. School will provide outlines for activities of the
system. Goals are constantly being ‘negotiated’ and reconsidered. Depends on the
interests of the powerful and the needs of the system.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Some goal expectations of various societal sectors:

1. Societal and community goals: Each society has certain goals for its education
system. Consensus on the key goals with uniform curricula and materials. For the
functionalist, the goals of the school are for it to function smoothly and to support
the societal system. Conflict theorists assert that school goals are responsible for
the stratification system.
The diversity of goals and expectations of schools depends on vested interests in
education, especially of politicians. Goals differ by social class.

2. School goals: each school should have written goals that are made known to all
involved in the school. Stated goals of the school can be different from the
operational procedures (OPs). OPs outline what is to happen and what programs
are to be carried out in school; translate the goals into action.
Variety of schools: Public/private, general/vocational/professional schools.
The degree of control of goals depends much on in the degree of ‘control’ put forth by
the Boards of Education, Academic Councils, Heads, Principals, and Teachers.

3. Individual goals: goals vary depending on the role of the individuals in the school.
e. g. a teacher might set goals:
• To have a more professional appearance
• To have fun and enjoy teaching
• To stay positive even when things change
• To form a better working relationship with other teachers
• To improve teacher-parent communication
• To build better relationships with team and other staff
• To establish and maintain a classroom management plan.
A student might set goals:
• To be successful
• How to achieve.

Topic026 Functions of Schooling

Functions of education that of schooling might overlap. Schools include many diverse
functions reflecting competing interest groups in communities. Look at functions of
schooling from differing perspectives within the system (society, community and
family, and individual student).

1. Society
• To socialize the young to perform needed adult roles.
• Keep the young occupied.
• Delay entry into the job market.
• Help perpetuate society, socialize the young into particular societal values,
traditions, and beliefs.
• Develop skills needed to live in society such as reading, writing, and
responsibility.
• Select and allocate the young to needed roles from professionals to laborers.

2. Community and Family

➢ To formalize socialization experiences, especially in formal learning.
➢ Facilitate peer interaction.
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➢ Structure socialization experience.

➢ Help meet family goals for successful children.
➢ Give children more options in the competitive marketplace.
➢ Produce young people who will fit into the community.

3. Individual Students
➢ Schooling provides an opportunity to get together with peers and engage in sports
and other activities.
➢ Students’ attitudes toward and cooperation with adult’s help socialize them into
having acceptable attitude and behaviors
➢ Schooling provides skills and knowledge for them to fit into society’s competitive
bureaucracies.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson08

SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM-II

TOPIC 027-029

Topic027-029 The Teacher in the Classroom

Impression that the study of the teaching process has been neglected by sociologists.
Preferred to study teacher in the community, teacher in school. Educationists have
studied pupil-teacher relationships focusing on ‘effective’ teacher. Subjects have been
students, principals’ superintendents, and supervisors. Each category of subjects has
been used with different criteria. Little relationship to one another’s assessments.
Administrators stressed on discipline, students preferred teachers with ‘receptive and
permissive’ attitudes. Students looked for teachers:
➢ Who were friendly?
➢ Frequently joined recreational activities
➢ In whom they confided
➢ Whom they admired
➢ Who were helpful in their work?
➢ Teacher popular with students is not necessarily being the most effective.
Evidence may be contrary as measured by the pupils’ gains. Davidson and Lang studied
primary-school children's perceptions of their teachers' feelings towards them. Found a
complex process of interaction in which:
➢ The child's achievement
➢ The teacher's approval
➢ The child's self-image act to reinforce one another.

Finding The more positive the children's perception of their teachers' feelings, the
higher the child's own self-image, the better the child's academic achievement, and the
more desirable his or her classroom behavior as rated by the teacher. Teachers'
expectations do affect pupils' achievement. May be just the greater attentiveness and
encouragement on the part of the teachers. There could be multiple factors with respect
to the teacher in the classroom.

Leadership styles of teachers in the classroom have been observed. Anderson used two
main styles: Dominative and integrative. Observers recorded the contacts of the teacher
with pupils either individually or as a group. Dominative contacts are those
It involving orders, threats, reminders, and punishments. Integrative contacts include:
➢ Approving, commending, accepting, and helpful contacts.
Results
Dominative techniques tended to produce:
➢ Pupils’ aggressive and antagonistic behaviors toward both their teachers and their
fellows.
Socially integrative behaviors appeared to:
➢ Facilitate friendly, co-operative and self-directive behavior in the children.

Similar studies of authoritarian and democratic leadership styles and their effect on
pupil morale and pupil performance have been conducted.
Assumption
Different leadership styles produce different group and individual behaviors. Group
members in a democratic social climate were friendlier to each other and showed
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

greater initiative than they did under authoritarian leadership. Output was the highest
under authoritarian leadership so long as the leader remained in the room. Research on
teaching styles i.e. teacher-centered (autocratic leadership) and learner centered
(democratic leadership). Is there a relationship between teaching styles and cognitive
achievement?
Inconclusive Results
Reasons for inconclusive results could be many:
➢ Flaws in research design. ‘Hawthorne effect’ both on teachers as well as on
students.
➢ Establishing suitable control group.
➢ Criteria used to measure cognitive achievement.
➢ Also, the distinction between the two teaching methods not only lacks precision
but is an oversimplified view of leadership style.
➢ Is this really a leadership style?
➢ Does it adequately describe the behavior which the leader actually exhibited?
➢ Teacher is different than public leader.

Pupil differences and its consequences for effective teaching. Studies show:
Student attitudes to particular teaching styles and teaching methods vary according to
the students' own personality. Student-centered instruction tends to be preferred by
those students who:
➢ Reject traditional sources of authority
➢ Have strong needs for demonstrating their personal independence
➢ Are characterized by a high drive for academic achievement.

A student with high authoritarian needs is likely to be unhappy in the student-centered

class. Teaching is more effective if it is geared to the needs of the pupil. Teachers
biased against working-class children. Bias due to their adherence to middle-class
values by virtue of the school teachers’ own social-class position. School teachers
reported that lower-class children were considered to be unrewarding to teach. They
have low level of motivation, are aggressive, lack cleanliness, indifferent to hygiene,
and difficult to maintain control over their class. Easier to teach children who are highly
motivated to learn.

Teachers prefer the child who is easy to teach. Discriminate in favor of the middle-class
child, who is more likely to be hardworking and well behaved. Better off teachers prefer
postings in better neighborhoods. Poor areas get inexperienced teachers. Working-class
children tended to perceive their teachers as less approving than middle-class children.
Teachers of middle-class children were more warm, trustful and sympathetic. The
middle-class teacher may therefore appear as a more acceptable model to the middle-
class child. Bernstein has found a problem of communication between middle-class
teachers and working-class pupils. Use of restricted codes and elaborated codes in
communication.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson09
SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM-III
TOPIC 030-032

Topic030-032 The Peer Group and the Student Sub Culture

Peer group is both a social group and a primary group of people who have similar
interests, age, background, or social status. The group shares values and norms that are
distinct from majority, may be in the school. Call it a sub-culture. The pupils form
significant social groupings in school. These social groupings are characterized by a
distinctive youth culture or adolescent culture. James Coleman’s The Adolescent
Society (1961).

This youth culture or adolescent culture is distinct from, and can even be in opposition
to, the adult world of the teacher and the school. Pupil subcultures are shared values,
norms and behaviour by groups of students. Gives them a sense of identity, and
provides them with status through peer-group affirmation. Can take a variety of forms,
ranging from pro-school to anti-school, with a variety of other responses in-between.

Two related processes at work in schools – differentiation and polarization. Schools

place a high value on things such as hard work, good behavior and exam success.
Teachers judge students and rank and categorize them into different groups – streams
or sets.

Resultant Polarization
➢ Top stream – hi status, conformists.
➢ Bottom sets – failures and deprived.
➢ Can lead to the formation of pro- and anti-school subcultures.
➢ Develop alternative set of delinquent values, attitudes and behaviors in opposition
to the academic aims, ethos and rules of a school.
Dividing pupil subcultures into simply two poles: pro- and anti-school was too
simplistic. Even students don’t easily split into subcultures. Pupils can switch between
different adaptations as they progress through their school careers.

Student culture is a complex of “strange customs.” Constitutes a “participation

mystique, complex rituals of personal relationships, a set of folkways, mores, and
irrational sanctions, a moral code based upon them” (Waller (1932) as quoted by
Ballentine (2017, p. 243). Nine decades later, youth culture seems centered around
social media, often undecipherable to adults. Social media is an addition with
additional cultural complexes. Independence from the adult world.

Within schools, students are at the bottom of the role hierarchy with a power structure.
They are a numerical majority in the system. They are a distinct minority in decision-
making. An almost alien group—the group to be “subdued,” disciplined, or conquered
by the school staff. The student culture determines for many young people the
acceptable behaviors for peer survival. Such behaviors are often at odds with adult
expectations. Peers determine the school interests of students. Peer groups come in
different types:
➢ Some support the importance of school learning and achievement
➢ Some are more interested in social and athletic activities
➢ A proportion of peer groups engage in delinquent activities.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Scholar–athletes and pure scholars have higher self-esteem, extracurricular

involvement, and leadership ability than do pure athletes or students who are neither
scholars nor athletes.
➢ Develop their own language.
➢ Try to get attention by queer behaviour.
➢ Show very casual.
➢ Have grouping and bullying.
➢ In-group feeling at different levels.
➢ Each year a new crop of students must be socialized into their roles.
➢ Hostellers have their own culture.

There is special culture of the school. Also, there are the cultures of the children.
Necessary for the adolescents to validate their status in behavior. Status not based on
direct family ascription but as in performance (grade achievement, athletics,
extracurricular activities, dressing.)
Dominant Motivation
Achieve generalized social status in adolescent community. Accept the expectations of
his informally organized peer world. General status to be derived from:
1. The formal organization of the school that prescribes learning achievement.
2. The system of student organizations usually referred to extracurricular activities
3. The network of interpersonal relationships defined by friendship choices on a
socioeconomic test.
Coleman’s findings: athletics and leadership in popular activities (nonacademic issues)
were closely more important than scholarship as the basis of social status. Engage in
behavior that adults would approve and reward, or Seek the approval of the peers. The
student culture determines for many young people the acceptable behaviors for peer
survival. Such behaviors are often at odds with adult expectations. Peers determine the
school interests of students. Other studies have come to rather different conclusions.
They suggest:
➢ The relative impact of the adult and the peer group and the amount of conflict
between these influence agents has not yet been satisfactorily answered.
➢ Participation in extra-curricular activities does not necessarily conflict with
academic outcomes.
The criterion of academic success is the grade, rather than learning for its own sake, or
the acquisition of particular skills. Learn how to give the instructor what he wants, and
frequently present the appearance rather than the reality of knowledge. This is the grade
point average perspective. Within a college four enduring subcultures.
Collegiate
➢ Looking for campus amusements.
➢ Indifference to serious demands from the faculty for an involvement with issues
and ideas.
➢ Pursuit of fun. In Pakistan they are likely to come from relatively well to do
families.
Academic
➢ Identification with the intellectual concerns of the serious faculty members.
➢ Work hard
➢ get the best grades
➢ let the world of ideas reach them.
➢ Pursuit of knowledge.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Vocational
➢ An organization of courses and credits leading to graduation and a good job.
➢ Resistant to intellectual demands on them beyond what is required to pass the
courses.
➢ Pursuit of a degree/diploma.
➢ More applicable to professional colleges.

Rebel
➢ Deeply involved with ideas from the classroom and wider society of art, literature,
and politics.
➢ Aggressive non-conformism.
➢ Often a critical detachment from the college they attend and from its faculty.
➢ Pursuit of an identity.

School as a Social System

There is special culture of the school also there are the cultures of the children. It is
necessary for the adolescents to validate their status in behavior. Status not based on
direct family ascription but as in performance (grade achievement, athletics,
extracurricular activities, dressing.)

Dominant Motivation
Achieve generalized social status in adolescent community. Accept the expectations
of his informally organized peer world. General status to be derived from:
1. The formal organization of the school that prescribes learning achievement.
2. The system of student organizations usually referred to extracurricular activities,
and
3. The network of interpersonal relationships defined by friendship choices on a
socioeconomic test.

Coleman’s findings: athletics and leadership in popular activities (nonacademic issues)

were closely more important than scholarship as the basis of social status. Engage in
behavior that adults would approve and reward, or seek the approval of the peers. The
student culture determines for many young people the acceptable behaviors for peer
survival. Such behaviors are often at odds with adult expectations. Peers determine the
school interests of students.

Other studies have come to rather different conclusions. They suggest:

⚫ The relative impact of the adult and the peer group and the amount of conflict
between these influence agents has not yet been satisfactorily answered.
⚫ Participation in extra-curricular activities does not necessarily conflict with
academic outcomes.

The criterion of academic success is the grade, rather than learning for its own sake, or
the acquisition of particular skills. Learn how to give the instructor what he wants, and
frequently present the appearance rather than the reality of knowledge. This is the grade
point average perspective. Within a college four enduring subcultures.

Collegiate
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Looking for campus amusements. Indifference to serious demands from the faculty for
an involvement with issues and ideas. In Pakistan they are likely to come from relatively
well to do families.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson10
SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM-IV
TOPIC 033-034

Topic033-034 The Peer Groups, Reference Groups, and Social Mobility

Reference group serves as a point of reference in making evaluations and decisions.
Can be models, ideals. The individual will employ the perceived behavior of his group
of reference as a criterion for his own behavior. Employ it as a criterion for assessment
of rewards and behavior. Within the school the person headed for higher occupational
status will choose peer groups that tend to facilitate his progress in this direction.
Parsons.
Peer group or friendship cliques are associated with both attitudes and behavior. The
role of the peer group in the anticipatory socialization of the mobile working-class boy.
No evidence that the peer group itself can be the only factor in changing values. Possible
that a potentially mobile child from a working-class family comes to high school with
middle-class values already acquired from the pressures of the family itself. He finds
the high-status clique very congenial because of familiar frame of reference. Still there
is strong evidence to show that:
➢ Social origin is of less importance in student clique formation than ambition or
stratification by destination.

The role of the peer group in the anticipatory socialization of the mobile working-class
boy. Friendship and status systems of the boys revealed two value climates: the
academic, and the delinquent academic subculture characterized by:
➢ Hard work
➢ A high standard of physical hygiene
➢ The avoidance of 'messing' in class, and of copying work from another pupil.
The delinquent subculture is its exact counterpart. Studies in UK have shown that the
higher the stream, the greater the pupil commitment to school, satisfaction with school
life, and conformity to teachers’ expectations. The higher the stream, the greater is the
tendency for high status within the peer group to be associated with academic values.
In the lower streams by contrast, the academically orientated boys are deviants from
group norms, and the boys of high status are those who conform to the delinquent
culture.

Studies show that that parents of working-class boys in grammar schools were more
middle class in their values than even the middle-class parents. Parents of successful
working-class boys had a much more middle class set of values than even the middle
class. Peer groups can and do influence both aspirations and performance of the youth.
Within peer groups the students are selective. For selection they employ the perceived
behavior of their group of reference as a criterion for their own behavior.

Lesson11
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM-V

TOPIC 035-037

Topic035 The Teacher in the Staff Room

Teacher in the social system of school enmeshed in a whole system of social
relationships with students, colleagues and school staff. Informal colleague
relationships. Clique formation amongst teachers. There are number of underlying
factors:
➢ Age
➢ Length of service
➢ Sex
➢ Values and
➢ Interests

The structure and cohesiveness influenced by the school’s physical structure segregated
lounges (male/female, smokers/nonsmokers), places for coffee/tea. Cliques often
compete with each other for:
➢ Power within the school system
➢ Influence with administrators, parents or pupils

Conflict may arise between older and younger teachers, or senior and junior teachers,
over the introduction of innovations in school, allocation of duties. Teacher colleagues
help in the socialization of the teacher into the organization.

Transfer
➢ The official values and objectives.
➢ Informal goals, ideologies and procedures.
➢ Officially outlawed corporal punishment but customarily used in some schools.

Use different methods to bring new colleagues in line with the dominant ideology in
the school. How to maintain the discipline in class? Ridicule the undesirable attitude
and behavior of the new teacher. Process of socialization may begin while the teacher
is still a trainee. During later period of training the student teachers are in closer contact
with the schools. It narrows the gap in the conception of what is thought to be desirable
teacher behavior by the college and what they see will be expected of them in schools.

Topic036-037 The Educational Climate and School Effectiveness

Climate brings to mind temperature and weather conditions. Educational climate seen
in a different context. Within the school setting, “temperature” can be a: Warm and
nurturing atmosphere, Cold and laden with formal rules, or downright scary and
dangerous. Educational climate refers to the school environment within which learning
takes place. Requires the understanding of the environments that maximize learning. If
required, bring reforms to provide congenial atmosphere in educational setting.

School and Classroom Culture

Each school and class-room has a culture of its own, like a miniature society. The
climate consists of the values, attitudes, beliefs, norms, and customs of those making
up the system. A key function of this culture is to bring about a group feeling of loyalty.
The school culture reflects the community in which the school is located and its
students’ characteristics. The ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics of the area.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

School and Classroom Learning Climates

Learning climate: The normative, attitudinal, and behavioral patterns in a school, which
impact the level of academic achievement of the student body as a whole.
May include:
➢ Teacher expectations
➢ Academic norms
➢ Students’ sense of hope or futility, role definitions, grouping pattern
➢ Instructional practices.

Positive school climate: emphasizes and rewards academic achievement and maintains
order and discipline. Positive home-school relations. The school classroom: One
teacher-many students. Self-contained system, sealed, but classrooms do not exist in a
vacuum.
Classroom as a crowd Many student + one teachers maintains control and discipline
to understand the dynamics of classroom behavior– recognize the students’
environment. The learning climate is made up of routines imposed on students in order
to maintain control and discipline. Treat students as:
➢ Passive listeners
➢ Active participants
➢ Group learners
Children get prepared for classroom learning in preschool situations. The school and
classroom learning climate is a major factor in students’ mental and physical health and
behavior. Absenteeism, suspension rates, aggression, violence, and harassment, and
poor academic outcomes result from negative learning climates.

Why are some schools more effective at producing positive school climates than others?
No single explanation.
Look at different:
Dimensions of School Climate Safety
Social, emotional, intellectual, and physical safety are fundamental human needs.
Peer physical and verbal violence, bullying. School is an intimidating and
uncomfortable climate. Enforcement of school discipline combined with presence of
caring, vigilant adults increases school safety. Positive school climates are associated
with student safety-related behaviors.
Relationships
The student–teacher relationship is a key factor for success in the educational process.
Teachers, too, are influenced by their work environments. A climate of positive
relationships results in better academic achievement and fewer discipline problems.
Teaching and Learning
Each member of a school class has a distinctive perception of classroom. Plan action
accordingly. Teachers’ perceptions: cultural differences and class origins among pupils.
Responses vary accordingly. Students’ perceptions: Teachers are ‘different’; mystique
surrounds them. Social distance. The teacher’s role as the primary decision maker in
the classroom is complex. Influence of students, parents, colleagues, administration.
Coping strategies by teachers and students. School Connectedness and Institutional
Environment. School connectedness is the belief by students that adults and peers care
about their learning and about them as individuals. Positive school connectedness is
closely related to positive academic outcomes, violence prevention, and reduction in
risky behaviors.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Value Climate
Schools teach more than 3rs. Both the formal and informal organization and curriculum
include lessons in values and morals. Some text material may inculcate moral values.
Moral education comes through the rituals and ceremonies in schools. Visual displays
of signs, pictures, and posters containing moral messages such as:
➢ “Take pride in what you do.”
➢ “Peace on Earth.”
➢ “Speak the truth.”
Teachers interject moral lessons, commenting on a theft, an act of cruelty, or poor
sportsmanship. Posting of lists of dos and don’ts. Academic achievement is directly
related to school climate at all levels of schooling. Respect for others and shared
academic expectations relate directly to students’ achievement. Participation rates
increase with positive school climate.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson12
SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM-VI
TOPIC 038-040
Topic038-040 Listening to Pupils’ Voice
‘Pupil voice’, synonymous with ‘student voice’ and ‘learner voice.’ Working with
pupils to elicit their perspectives on matters relating to any aspect of school life.
Teachers and other adults in schools:
• Wanting to learn from pupils about their experiences
• Providing opportunities to express their views

“The right to speak is the right to be listened to; in practice there is a gap between
speaking and being listened to.” Remove this gap listening to pupils’ voices will result
in running schools in a democratic way. Shared responsibility for the development of
all practices and policies within their school. Understanding and taking seriously the
views of young people the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) recognizes
that children are:
• Subjects of rights, rather than merely recipients of adult protection, and that
• Those rights demand that children themselves are entitled to be heard.

Participation The process of children expressing their views and having them taken
seriously. Why listening to children is important?
• Contributes to personal development
• Leads to better decision-making and outcomes
• Serves to protect children
• Contributes to preparation for civil society development, tolerance and respect
for others
• Strengthens accountability.

Since the turn of 21st century, numerous organizations busy in raising awareness:
• Children’s rights
• Measures needed to the realization of these rights. Within educational context,
particular focus on the implementation of Article 12 of the UNCRC.

Article 12 gives children and young people the right:

• To express their views on all matters affecting them
• For these views to be given due weight in accordance with the child’s age and
maturity.
A radical and profound challenge to traditional attitudes, which assume that children
should be seen and not heard. Pupils, being one of the key stakeholders in school, have
a principal claim to attention. Involve them in matters related to their experiences and
impacting on their lives. Process is described as a growing culture of participation.
Recognition of the insights and ideas from the younger generation. Valuable in
potentially shaping services and policies which affect their lives and others in the
community. People have moved on from ‘Education for All’ to ‘Every Child Matters.’
Implies that pupils’ opinions matter. Their voices must be heard and taken seriously if
education is to be personalized to their needs. Rationale is that it will:
1. Empower young people to contribute to the development of skills and attitudes
required for active citizenship
2. Improve the quality and effectiveness of services for children and young people;
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

3. Make a significant contribution to strengthening a democratic society.

Since the turn of 21st century, numerous organizations busy in raising awareness:
• Children’s right
• Measures that needed to the realization of these rights.
Children; Their Voices, Their Experiences of School: What does the Evidence Tell
Us? Carol Robinson (2014)

Within schools, teachers have a responsibility:

• Towards making decisions that are in children’s best interests,
• To respect children’s rights and to listen to, and acknowledge, their opinions
and perspectives.

Schools adopting this approach show that:

• Pupils report positively about the school’s ethos (spirit of culture),
• School community empowers them to demonstrate respect for the rights of
others locally, nationally and globally, and for the environment.

Schools where this approach was followed have reported: improved relationships,
between and amongst staff and pupils.
Pupils Reported
• Greater enjoyment of school
• Classroom conditions more conducive to learning
• A positive attitude towards diversity
• A reduction in bullying
• Pupils themselves were more likely to resolve conflicts if any.

The need to re-conceptualize the roles of teachers and pupils Adults in schools:
• To listen to and act on pupils’ views.
• To believe in children’s capacity to engage in dialogue about school-related
issues and
• Need to change the view: children as incapable and dependent on adults to
make personal decisions.
Teaching and learning need a re-conceptualization of the roles of pupils and teachers.
New understanding about the possibilities and potential of each of these roles. Adult
belief in student voice is essential to realize its potential. Recognize the demands it
places on teachers:
• It changes their identities as professionals and
• Their relations both with children and with other staff.
To ensure the teachers feel confident that their authority won’t be undermined.

The concept of student voice is not new to education. In the 1960s and 1970s, student
power movements asserted the right of students to participate in decision making in
classrooms and school-wide. This culture largely vanished after the mid-70s. During
this time many adolescents experienced increasing alienation. Students were viewed as
clients. It increased teacher-student distance.

Students reported that adults in their schools rarely:

• Listened to their views
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• Involved them in important decisions affecting their own activities or work.

“The right to speak is the right to be listened to; in practice there is a gap between
speaking and being listened to.”

Systemic problems that:

• Contribute to youth disengaging from school and
• Increase in numbers of students who cut classes, have lower self-concepts,
lower achievement, and drop out of school.
By the turn of the century ‘Student voice’ has reemerged on the educational landscape
in the Western society. Notion that if students actively participate then:
• Student outcomes will improve and
• School reform will be relatively more successful.

Student Voice Activities Range

From Schools gathering information from students through focus groups and surveys,
to students working alongside teachers to develop and implement strategies for school
improvement. Student voice has served as a catalyst for change in schools, including:
• Helping to improve teaching, curriculum, and teacher-student relationships.
• Changes in student assessment and teacher training.

Realization students possess unique knowledge and perspectives about their schools
and adults. Also: correlation between an increase in student voice in the school culture
and an increase in students’ school attachment.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson13
SCHOOL AS AN ORGANIZATION

TOPIC 041-045
Topic041 School as an Organization: Introduction
Organization is the social unit that pursues specific goals which it is structured to
serve. Formally established for the explicit purpose of achieving certain goals.
Examples: Hospitals, prisons, schools and universities. Every organization has:
➢ A formally instituted pattern of authority.
➢ An official body of rules and procedures.

There is social interaction of individuals and groups working together within the formal
structure. Hence it has network of informal relations and unofficial norms. Informal
and formal aspects of the organization are inextricably intertwined. Just for purposes of
analysis the two can be distinguished. One of the most important aspects of the formal
structure of an organization is its system of administration. In modern society the
typical administrative system is the bureaucracy. Complex organizations are
bureaucratized. Schools are no exception.

Within the parameters of physical space and the broad goals outlined by the school,
teachers organize their teaching material and classes. Larger organizational system
presents to teachers with both opportunities and constraints. Traditionally, sociologists
have viewed schools as bureaucracies. Yet they point out the limitations of this
bureaucratic model for educational organizations. What works in formal bureaucracies
such as business organizations may be dysfunctional in schools. Let us look at schools
as bureaucracies and the problems related to this model, and alternative models.

Topic042-043 The School as a Bureaucracy

For Weber a bureaucracy is characterized by:
➢ A high degree of specialization
➢ A hierarchical system of authority
➢ Explicit rules which define the responsibility of each member of the organization
and the co-ordination of different tasks
For Weber a bureaucracy is characterized by:
➢ The exclusion of personal considerations from official business, and Impartiality
in the
➢ Treatment of subordinates and clients; recruitment of experts; and the existence
of a career.
Bureaucracy is a rational, efficient way of completing tasks; and Rewarding
individuals based on their contributions to the work that needs to be done. It can also
be an impersonal, inefficient, cumbersome organization unresponsive to human needs.

Schools are a unique type of organization -- involuntary for students.

Significant because it is To Transmit values, ideals; and shared knowledge; Foster
cognitive and emotional growth; and Sort and select students into different categories
with consequences for future adult status.
Organizationally
Schools are divided into classrooms, the day into periods, and students into groups by
grades or performance. Other bureaucracies have different purposes and structures and
have voluntary participants. Let us look at schools as bureaucracies and the problems
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

related to this model, and alternative models. Weber’s main characteristic of

bureaucracy applicable to school organization
1. Division of labor
At both the administrative and teaching levels. Allocating the best suitable personnel
to positions. Formalization of recruitment, promotion, and firing policies. School
personnel must be clearly qualified for the positions to be filled. Training institutions
become important for preparing individuals with the skills and attitudes necessary for
the job. Colleges of education are usually accredited by state. Promotion and salary
based on merit.
2. Administrative hierarchy
Incorporating a specified chain of authority and designated channels of
communications. Depending on the position in the hierarchy, a person will receive and
give out varying numbers and types of messages. Downward flow of communication
from instructor to student.
3. Regulations and rules of procedure
Cover everything from counseling and guidance to school-wide or system-wide testing
programs. Routine set up by rules. Timing, most forms of behavior in the school. Each
individual is socialized into the system’s rules and regulations.
4. Formalized and affectively neutral role relationships
A de-emphasis of personal relationship between students and teachers and between
teachers and administrators.
5. Rationality
The movement in the direction of the rational bureaucratic organization.
6. The positions individuals hold in the organization belong to the organization
When an administrator, a teacher, or a student leaves the system, new individuals will
move in to hold those positions. Development of Schools as Bureaucracies. Schools
have become larger and increasingly more bureaucratic. Exhibit many characteristics
similar to those presented in Weber’s “ideal type” bureaucracy. School bureaucracy
may present a bewildering and alienating situation for many students. As the system
gets larger people are caught up in the rules and regulations. They are treated as
numbers that are being processed. Dehumanization.

Topic044 The Teacher in the Authority Structure of School

Authority is the legitimate power which one person or group possesses and practices
over another. Basis of authority: bureaucratic and/or professional.
Schools have evolved into structures with legal forms of authority and bureaucratic
administrative apparatus. In a bureaucratic system:
➢ The legitimation is in terms of rank and deference and
➢ Obedience is due from those of lower to those of higher status in the organization.

In professional terms deference is due only to competence or expert knowledge.

The bureaucrat obeys orders and carries out the tasks allotted to him. The professional
fulfills his professional duties according to his own or his profession's decisions.
Diverging role expectations and the possibilities of role conflict. To what extent the
teacher is in this position? The authority structure in schools suggests that teachers have
very little control over important decisions. The participation of teachers in the
decision-making process is usually limited to:
➢ Either to interpretation of established policy/advice,
➢ or to the execution of established policy.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

The authority structure of the school and the teacher’s predetermined role in that
structure significantly:
➢ Affect the recruitment of teachers;
➢ Who, once recruited, serve to reinforce dialectically the existing authority
structure?
The teacher's world is dominated by a basic lack of autonomy, alienation, division of
labor, and hierarchical arrangements. Schools are work places. Teachers have become
technocrats, who implement, but do not decide on curriculum, material, and evaluative
techniques. Teachers have been willing to accept their subordinate role in the
bureaucratic structure of the school. Could be variation in level of bureaucratization at
different school levels i.e. The amount of control over teachers in such matters as the
selection of textbooks, the grading and testing of students.

Topic045 The Administrative Style and Teacher Performance

Administrative style: the pattern of behavior that characterizes a given
administrator/leader. A particular style adopted in order to succeed. Style influences
staff at work. Staff performance. Leader and staff work towards the achievement of
organizational goals. Leadership style adopted depending on the circumstances on
ground. Various typologies of administrative styles:
i. Autocratic-democratic
Goal achievement and group maintenance. Autocratic: attainment of goals of the
organization to the neglect of the individual needs of staff. Democratic: Participative
leadership. Involvement of staff in decision making.
ii. Open-closed climate
Open climate: Principal having high consideration for staff, a high level of motivations
through example, and no close supervision. Closed climate: high aloofness, close
supervision, and low consideration on the part of the principal.
iii. Nomothetic-ideographic
The nomothetic leader: orientated towards the organization and its task at the expense
of the satisfaction of personal needs of his staff. The ideographic leader: tends to
minimize the organizational requirements and is orientated towards personal
relationships.
iv. Transactional-transformational
Transactional:
Based on an exchange relationship -- leader and follower.
Rewards leads to motivation to work.
Transformational
➢ Individualized consideration
➢ Inspirational motivation
➢ Idealized influence
➢ Intellectual stimulation
➢ Empowerment and
➢ Growth.

Administrative leadership in education has its consequences for the educational

process. Studies have attempted to relate administrative styles to teacher morale. Staff
participation is related to teacher satisfaction. Do teachers consider their participation
in decision making as significant? “Principal Leadership Styles and Teacher Job
Performance” -- Study of 106 private secondary schools at Lahore (2020).
Middle management personnel – 253 cases.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Four leadership styles and five key performance indicators (KPI). Four leadership
styles—directive, participative, supportive, and achievement-oriented. Goal-Path
Theory (GPT) requires principals to:
➢ Let the teachers know the goals.
➢ Provide assistance, directions, and guidance (path) to achieve goals.
KPIs
➢ Teaching planning
➢ Classroom organization
➢ Monitoring and evaluation
➢ Classroom atmosphere/discipline and
➢ Teacher leadership.
Findings
➢ The directive leadership style had a significant effect on teacher job performance
(TJP).
➢ Followed by the supportive and achievement-oriented leadership styles.
➢ Participative leadership was not considered a promising predictor of TJP.

Odd finding in a non-Western society. Reasons

a. Teachers’ job tasks are complex and ambiguous, and their performance goals are
quite challenging;
b. Principals have a personal obligation to complete tasks; and
c. Teachers are required to complete their tasks according to their expected level of
performance.
Accordingly, teachers are bound to follow dogmatic SOPs circulated by the head office,
and Principals provide the directions to perform the tasks.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson14
EDUCATION AND FAMILY-I
TOPIC 046-048

Topic46-047 Social Class and Family Life

Working-class families hold different values from middle-class families. Behave in
different ways towards their children. Three aspects of their life relevant to their
problem of achievement:
i. Material life chances
ii. Working conditions and
iii. Opportunities for status.

Earn less than those in non-manual jobs. Insecure employment. Daily paid or weekly
paid. Less chance of upward mobility in job. Unpleasant working conditions
(dangerous, dirty, or physically strenuous). These life and work experiences are
reflected in their attitudes to work and other aspects of life. Lack of security, combined
with lack of opportunity. It will have low aspirations for himself and his child. Less
ambitious for his children. His world is dominated by luck or by chance. Not under his
control.

Will not spend time in future planning. Lacks individualistic approach to move up.
Must rest in the progressive increase of the rewards. Likely to emphasize collective or
group mobility through trade-union representation and trade-union power. It has low
self-esteem. Accepts his lack of ability. Transfers these feelings to his children. Fails to
encourage his children to achieve. Material, power, and status deprivation of the
working-class parent will affect his actual handling of the child. Stress on honesty,
obedience and neatness.

Parents aggression is displaced from the frustrating system to the relatively powerless
child. Frustrated lower-class father may even withdraw from the family. May try to gain
status in some alternative behavior system. Skilled and semi-skilled workers have
higher aspirations for their children than unskilled. Lower-class family has fewer
expectations for the future and so lower aspirations for themselves and their children.
Have less self-esteem and less self-confident. Have larger families, and are less well-
educated. Variations within the social classes.

Basic attitudes formed early in childhood. Influence of the parents on the probability of
mobility. Basic attitudes towards school work. Parents to send the child to school with
a receptive attitude toward the values and norms advocated by the school personnel.
Experiences of fathers with their own job. Frustrated mobility. Mobility pessimism.
Result of strong achievement values. Mobility blocked.

Fathers’ ambition for their children. Pressure on the child to succeed in place of the
parent. Will it happen? Questionable. Treating child as an extension of the parent.
Educational success is too much the price of parental approval to be enjoyed for its own
sake. Too much pressure on the child to be unlikely to succeed. Family is an important
variable in socialization. Yet not the only factor in explaining either inter-class or intra-
class differences in educational achievement. School itself is a socializing agency.
Teachers and the peer group each play their part.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Family is an important variable in socialization. Yet not the only factor in explaining
either inter-class or intra-class differences in educational achievement. School itself is
a socializing agency. Teachers and the peer group each play their part. The school
environment may reinforce or may conflict with the influence of the family. Needs to
pay increasing attention to the school. It is part of sociology of education. Home and
school in interaction to determine educability. School is equally, if not more, important
in mobility. Also, the situation in Pakistan is peculiar. So far, here education is neither
compulsory nor free.

Topic048 The Family, Social Class and Education Achievement-I

Industrialization, division of labor, specialization. The progressive removal from the
family of its educational function. Formal education institutions have taken over from
the family not only the teaching of specific skills, but much normative training as well.
The school has become the focal socializing agency. Yet the school cannot and does
not take over completely from the family.

The first five or six years of life are crucial foundation years. Even after starting at
school the child continues to live with his parents. Child is deeply influenced by
parental behavior and attitudes. Family exerts a profound influence on the response of
the child to the school. Interest in positive response and good academic performance.
Democratization of educational provision. Still the persistence of social-class
inequalities in educational performance.

Manual workers’ children perform less well in school, and leave school sooner than
children from non-manual workers, controlling for ability. Explanation in the
experiences and attitudes of the working-class family background. What is the precise
way in which these different factors interrelate to depress intellectual performance?
Complexity of the concept of home background. What is its operational definition?

Child-rearing practices, speech and thought patterns, fundamental value orientations.

These factors may not operate independently but closely related to each other and may
have cumulative effect. Almost impossible to discover the precise way in which a
particular family background operates to produce under- or over-achievement.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson15
EDUCATION AND FAMILY-II
TOPIC 049-051
Topic049The Family, Social Class and Education Achievement-II
What is Social class? Just based on father’s occupation. Could be many other factors.
Can we divide classes in any absolute sense? What is a working class? Similar
difficulties surround the attempt to relate the concept of achievement to a particular
educational context. The tendency of the working classes to underachieve is a very
consistent. Is it always produced by the same combination of factors? Parental interest
may be more important in one kind of school system than in another.

Achievement motivation may count for more in one kind of teaching situation than in
another. What is under achievement? No way of measuring potential as distinct from
actual ability. Test scores. Do not measure genetic potential or capacity. The concept
of under-achievement itself is problematic.

Intelligence test scores obtained are used to measure ability. Questionable i.e. not
measuring the innate ability. Relative importance of the environmental factors.
Unresolved dispute. General finding: the working-class child is everywhere less likely
to enter higher education than the middle-class child. What about the exceptions? Some
working-class children do in fact reach this level. What are the factors responsible for
the successful working-class child as well as those making for working-class under-
achievement?

Topic050-051 Linguistic Development and Learning

In 1971, Basil Bernstein introduced a theory of language codes or ‘code theory’ in
sociology of education. Introduced as an explanation for the poor performance of
working-class pupils on language-based subjects, when they were achieving as well as
their middle-class counterparts on mathematical topics. Code refers to a set of
organizing principles behind the language employed by members of a social group.
Bernstein assumed that:
Certain forms of language are an asset or a deficit in the acquisition of skills for
educational and occupational success. These forms of language are culturally not
individually determined. Two extreme social classes (rich and poor) are characterized
by two different modes of speech outcome of different environment.

The lower working classes are more or less restricted to a public language. The selection
and permutation of words are severely limited. Sentences are short, grammatically
simple. Use a limited number of adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions. Tend to select
from a number of traditional phrases and stereotyped responses. The stress is on
emotive terms employing concrete descriptive, tangible and visual symbolism.

Middle-class places great value on verbalization and conceptualization. Bernstein

called it the use of formal language. This language is both complex and subtle. Makes
great use of adjectives and adverbs and conjunctions. Suitable for logical argument for
discussion. Making subtle (fine) distinctions.

Later on, Replaced

i. Public language with Restricted code
ii. Formal language with Elaborated code
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

An elaborated speech code is an explicit and detailed way of speaking, where context
is made clear and outsiders can easily understand the meaning. In middle-class family,
communication between mother and child will be primarily verbal.Child learns how
small changes in word position and sentence structure signal important changes in
feeling. The necessity to verbalize exposes the child to a whole range of potential
learning. Missed by lower-class child because of the linguistic mode in use. Hence,
difference in perception of the world. Middle class child is aware of formal ordering
of his environment and notions of its extension in time and space.

Role of childrearing techniques of the parents. The authority structure in the working-
class family. The exercise of authority is not related to a stable system of rewards and
punishments. Authority is centered upon persons rather than reasons. Do it: Because I
tell you, or Because I'm your father. In middle class the relationships with authority are
more often mediated by the use of reasoned principles. What the language is suited for?
The restricted code (RC) works better than the elaborated code (EC) for situations in
which there is a great deal of shared and taken-for-granted knowledge in the group of
speakers. Its essential feature is that RC works within, and is tuned to, a restricted
community. Everyone uses RC communication some of the time.

EC spells everything out: not because it is better, but because it is necessary for the
under-standing of everybody. The RC does not refer to restricted vocabulary, and the
EC does not entail flowery use of language. An issue of “linguistic impoverishment” in
the educational problems of some pupils. Once at school, the middle-class child is
clearly at an advantage. He is predisposed toward the ordering of symbolic relationships
and seeing new relationships. His level of curiosity will be high. He will be at home in
school 'where every item in the present is finely linked to a distant future'.

The working-class child is often bewildered and defenseless in the teaching situation.
Unable to make the methods and goals of the school personally meaningful. Working-
class students have access to their restricted code(s). Middle-class students have access
to both restricted and elaborated codes, because the middle classes are more
geographically, socially and culturally mobile. For Bernstein restricted and elaborated
codes are ideal-type constructs. Applies only at the extremes of classes. Reality:
working-class speech tends towards the one, and middle-class speech tends towards the
other extreme. More the use of EC by the family more the favorable school environment
for educational mobility.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson16

EDUCATION AND POLITY

TOPIC 052-055

Topic052-053 State and Education

Who controls our schools? Essential to consider:
➢ The means by which State control is exercised; and
➢ The implications this will have on the functioning of the school.
State control: the extent to which such control is or is not centralized.
Centralized: Schools are tightly controlled by the central authority, even down to the
details of the daily curriculum. Strict regulation of curricula, textbooks, educational
methods and activities. State supervision is all embracing.
Decentralized: the local school districts have considerable power and considerable
autonomy. Emphasis is placed upon the independent school. The residents of the local
school decide upon the kinds of schools they want and the extent of financial support
they desire to provide. Education considered so basic and so essential to the welfare of
the State.

In between the dichotomy numerous administrative patterns. Control of school system

and control of college and university education may follow different pattern. The school
Boards and University Grants Commission. How much autonomy? Accountable to
public. The relationship between financial support and administrative control is a very
complex. Do private institutions have high autonomy? Professional associations and
professional schools. Institutions initiated and funded by state have been traditionally
governed by a board. Members are appointed/ elected to represent community interests.

Boards are the principal line of defense against political interference. Boards are not
always able or willing to stand out against strong pressure, and in practice. State
universities and especially the smaller State colleges can be subjected to considerable
State interference at the level of both educational and administrative issues. State has
control on:
➢ Required courses.
➢ Kind of research to be conducted.
➢ Admissions.
➢ Finances.
➢ Hence an institution is least autonomous.
➢ University education controlled through UGC.
➢ The freedom the universities have enjoyed has not continued.

Grants
Grants may be used not to obtain complete control but to secure the furtherance of
particular policies. Use of grants to encourage particular innovations or experiments in
education. Even in the decentralized system, advantages of govt. support can be
availed.Govt. grants given to start experiments, new programs, and benefit
disadvantaged people/areas.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Assumption
Between the two systems of education, greater efficiency of centralized forms of
control. Decentralized system is likely on the whole to be less efficient in meeting the
educational goals of a modem industrial society. School districts likely to be parochial
in their attitude. They will fail to see or respond to the needs of the wider social unit.

May be too small or too poor to meet the needs of their own students for qualified
teachers or specialized equipment. Sparsely populated rural areas and the urban slums
can be examples. May just disappear. A growing tendency to increase the power of the
State. Danger that the highly centralized system will be out of touch with both the
wishes and the needs of the local community. If the small school district is in danger of
becoming narrowly parochial, the centralized system may equally well become rigid
and stereotyped.

Education is a public good. Universal. Responsibility of the state for its provision.
Increasing privatization of educational services. Rapid marketing of education.
Growing perception of education as a private consumer good. Parents and students
viewed as customers. See education as a ‘positional’ good.

Education as a means for furthering the mercantilist aims of the state. Essential for
providing the trained cadres for the government bureaucracy and the military. An
important role in generating the skills needed for the manufacturing projects. Also
recognized as a powerful instrument for promoting political loyalty amongst the people
and for creating a cohesive national culture after the image of the ruling class. Look for
national education system. Looking for free and compulsory education.
State increasingly controls education through the:
➢ Allocation of funds
➢ Licensing and inspection of schools
➢ Recruitment, training and certification of teachers and
➢ Oversight of national certification and standard curricula.

Does it amount taking away the freedom of the individual? The notion of education as
a public good is certainly substantially under threat. Education is a private good as well
as a public good. Its benefits as a private good are often positional – they rely on doing
well relative to others.

Topic054-055 Functions of State in Education

Education is a state function. As part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948), education recognized as a human right. The UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child (1989) strengthened and broadened the concept of the right to education. Look
at the functions in the light of convention on the rights of the child and education (1989).
It is human rights-based approach to education for all.

State has the obligation to provide education. Has three dimensions:

1. The right of access to education
➢ Education throughout all stages of child-hood and beyond.
➢ Availability and accessibility of education.
➢ Equality of opportunity.
State has the obligation to ensure the right of access to education.
2. The right to quality education
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

➢ A broad, relevant and inclusive curriculum

➢ Rights-based learning and assessment
➢ Child-friendly, safe and healthy environments
State obligation to ensure the right to quality education

3. The right to respect in the learning environment

➢ Respect for identity.
➢ Respect for participation rights.
➢ Respect for integrity.
State obligation to respect children’s rights in the learning environment.
Overall the state has the obligation to fulfill, respect, and protect the right to education.

This approach focuses on:

➢ the political and economic environment,
➢ the legislative framework, and
➢ the education policies, that are needed to fulfill these three obligations.
The best interest of every child is supreme.

For more details consult:

A Human Rights-Based Approach to Education United Nations Children’s
Fund/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2007. Primary
responsibility of state to provide:
1. A conducive political environment
➢ Political will and commitment for realizing the right to education.
➢ Policy formation + to be translated into action + follow up.
2. Establishing a legislative framework
Educational rights need to be embedded in the legislative framework.
Entitlements for which government is responsible
Individuals can claim and, if necessary, can get enforced through the courts.
Address the removal of direct/indirect barriers that impede access.

Legislative measures required may include the following:

➢ Education as a right for all children.
➢ Elimination of discrimination.
➢ Minimum standards.
➢ Best interests of the child.
➢ An inclusive framework.
➢ Elimination of child labor. Birth registration.
➢ Participation rights.
➢ Prohibition of all forms of violence against children.

3. Translation of the policy into action

The state alone cannot provide universal education to a large number of people.
Some specific functions for the translation of policy into action can be:
a. Provision of schools
➢ Primary, secondary, higher secondary, professional colleges—for the fulfillment
of local requirements.
b. Universal access to education
➢ Equal ability to participate in an education system.
➢ Making primary education compulsory, free and universal.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

c. Providing finances for education

➢ State must provide free and compulsory education to all children.
➢ Even private institutions seek the state assistance.
➢ State provides financial help to poor but brilliant students. Scholarships.
d. General control and guidance
➢ Prepares syllabus and courses. Makes it sure to be followed.
➢ Guidance for teaching, evaluation, and certification.
e. Capacity building and training
Providing skilled educators who can handle the required education.
f. Training in citizenship
➢ OCB + National.
➢ Inculcation of values.
g. Provision of standard books
➢ Textbook Boards.
➢ Free of cost up to certain level. At affordable prices later on.
h. Setting up educational research institutions.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson-17
EDUCATION AND ECONOMY-I
TOPIC 056-58

Topic056-057 The Education Explosion

In modern society there is strong linkage between the education system and the
economy. Must train the young people in the skills required by the economy. Skills at
all levels of the occupational hierarchy are increasingly acquired within formal
educational institutions. Research in pure science and in technology is harnessed to the
needs of higher productivity.

The new tools, new techniques, new materials, and other innovations are developed in
the education/research institutions. Corresponding changes in the scope and the content
of education are so often seen in terms of the needs of the economy. Science and
technology have influenced the amount and kind of skill required of the labor force.

The proportion of labor engaged in manual work has declined. This proportion in white-
collar and professional and managerial work has risen. New professional and semi-
professional occupations emerged. Within manual work, the nature of skill has
changed. Traditional craft skills gave way to new skills appropriate to new and
changing technologies. As a result the formal education system of school and college
has expanded.

Caters to
➢ A growing number of professional and semi-professional occupations.
➢ A skilled labor force which increasingly needs to be literate, adaptable and mobile.
The consequence
➢ An educational explosion.
➢ The establishment of universal literacy.
➢ Lengthening of school life.
➢ Widening and deepening of the curriculum.
➢ Gradual extension of higher education to a wider section of the community.

This expansion of education has not followed the same pattern everywhere. The general
lines of the education explosion can be traced in all advanced industrial societies. The
attitude toward education has changed. An abundant and increasing supply of highly
educated people has become the absolute prerequisite of social and economic
development. The educational expenditure is seen as a vital investment in human
beings.
A growing interest in the economics of education. What is the precise measurement of
the cost of education? What is the accurate estimate of the contribution that education
can make to economic growth? No general agreement on this issue.

Advanced economy needs literate workers and educated scientists/technicians for its
efficiency. The response of the education system is not automatic. Many other factors
influence on educational expansion, some of which may even operate to inhibit its
growth. Educational expansion may also be the consequence of ideological influence
rather than economic one. Advanced economy can afford to have a highly developed
educational system.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

In counting the cost of such a system it is not enough to estimate only the provision of
buildings and the salaries of teachers. Necessary to consider the hidden costs like:
➢ The cost of training and foregone earnings during the schooling.
➢ The cost of the drain on skilled personnel that the provision of teachers represents.
➢ Age structure of population has implications for quality and expansion of
education.
➢ Rise and fall in birth rate reflects the economy.

Influence of ideology elitist vs. populist

Elitist ideology education is the prerogative of a small elite exclusive. Free
elementary education provided by charitable bodies. Education for inculcating morals.
Reading the holy book. Writing may be dangerous. Populist pressures towards equality
+ the needs of the economy together produced an expansion of secondary education
to include all children, but within the framework of an elite system.

Education for all considered as essential in a democratic society, irrespective of social

origins or even learning ability. Presently strong popular support for the value of
education. Public enthusiasm for education Parents eager to take advantage of what
the schools have to offer. In US Graduation from high school at the age of 17 or 18
generally accepted level of educational achievement. Universities are 'intrinsically in-
equalitarian.'Industrial development link the university to the economy through the
market for professional and scientific manpower.

Benefits of higher education are inevitably extended to cover a higher proportion of the
community. Wide differences between countries in the actual amount of expansion.
Differences in the form of expansion, gender differences cannot be explained solely in
terms of economic development. Cultural factors for variation i.e. values, customs and
public educational policies.

The expansion of education looks to be linked to changes in the occupational structure

i.e. growth in white-collar, professional and managerial work. Evidence: a large part of
the rise in educational attainment has contributed simply to improving the educational
level of existing occupations. This process is likely to continue.

Educational expansion is seen, in part at least, as a response to consumer demand, rather

than a response to economic need. As particular levels of educational achievement
become 'devalued', consumer demand is likely to increase. More education is required
for what is more or less the same job. The extent to which the occupations involved
either need, or benefit from, the process of educational upgrading is still, however, an
open question.

Topic058 The Content of Education

With educational expansion contents got changed. Demands of economy have required
higher levels of skills. Perception of educated man has changed. Trend toward
vocationalism that prepares people:
➢ To work as a technician
➢ To take up employment in a skilled craft
➢ Trade like tradesperson or artisan.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Modern industrial economy makes demands upon the education system. New and more
complex skills require not only a literate work force but, in the higher echelons, a formal
training in science and technology. Harnessing the education system to the needs of the
economy. Government plans have included:
➢ The expansion of science and technology faculties at the universities,
➢ The setting up of new technological institutions, including technological
universities
➢ The provision of more advanced work in technical colleges below university level.

Under the influence of pragmatic and equalitarian ideologies the original elitist
conception of higher education has been transformed. Universities and colleges have
essentially become middle-class rather than aristocratic in their outlook. Education
institutions serving the needs of the new professional middle class created by the
economy. Strong correlation between the content of education and economy. The
developments in economy have influenced the changes in the content of education.

Researches in education have stimulated the economy. Each industrial revolution

provided a big push to economic development and the resultant changes in the learning
contents of education. We stand on the brink of fourth industrial revolution.
Will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale,
scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has
experienced before.

The 1st Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production.
The 2nd used electric power to create mass production. The 3rd used electronics and
information technology to automate production. The 4th is the digital revolution,
characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical,
digital, and biological spheres. The breadth and depth of the changes herald the
transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance. It is
global.

Eight critical characteristics in learning content in the 4th I.R.:

1. Global citizenship skills Content focuses on building awareness about the wider
world, sustainability and playing an active role in the global community.
2. Innovation and creativity skills: Content that fosters skills required for innovation,
including complex problem-solving, analytical thinking, creativity and systems
analysis.
3. Technology skills content based on developing digital skills, including
programming, digital responsibility and the use of technology.
4. Interpersonal skills Content focuses on interpersonal emotional intelligence,
including empathy, cooperation, negotiation, leadership and social awareness.
5. Personalized and self-paced learning learning is not standardized, but based on the
diverse individual needs of each learner.
6. Accessible and inclusive learning Learning not confined to those with access to
school buildings but the one in which everyone has access to learning and is therefore
inclusive.
7. Problem-based and collaborative learning Move from process-based to project- and
problem-based content delivery, requiring peer collaboration and more closely
mirroring the future of work.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

8. Lifelong and student-driven learning Everyone continuously improves on existing

skills and acquires new ones based on their individual needs.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson18
EDUCATION AND ECONOMY-II
TOPIC 059-061

Topic059,061 Education and Mobility

Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households, or other
categories of people within or between social strata in a society. Education is often seen
as a strong driver of social mobility. Education as means to training and allocation to
occupational roles. Unprecedented expansion in the professions and in technical and
commercial employment in industrial society. Entry to new occupations needs highly
trained manpower.

THE JUXTAPOSITION Of education and social mobility is generally based on five

propositions that:
1. society is stratified
2. the system of stratification permits mobility, or that it is essentially open
3. education plays an important role in mobility
4. education is an achieved status
5. role performance is closely linked to education.

Society is seen as a hierarchy of positions differentiated in terms of job requirements

(e.g., manual, administrative, executive). The structure is assumed to be conditioned by
the development of productive forces and is, therefore, relatively fixed. Modern society
increased opportunity for people with talent and ambition to get the education they need
for "better" positions and to achieve these positions. Status is increasingly achieved.
Use of the education system as a means of social and economic ascent. Those at or near
the top of the occupational structure have more education than those at the bottom.

Nevertheless, education is not the only or the most important factor in social mobility.
The strength of association between education and social mobility will depend upon:
➢ the extent to which formal educational qualifications are a necessary requirement
for positions of high status.
If status can be achieved in other ways then education is not an important factor. Status
of sportsmen, or celebrities.

With industrialization
➢ Low fertility rate in the middle and upper classes they fail to reproduce
themselves;
➢ Plenty of room at the top and conditions are favorable for considerable social
mobility.
With open society, lower class getting the relevant education, filling the vacant
positions, hence mobility.

In modern society there is:

➢ Growing tendency to recruit managers with professional and scientific
qualifications, rather than to promote from the lower ranks in the firm
➢ An expansion in the requirement of graduates
➢ A proliferation of student apprenticeships and other training schemes designed to
attract highly educated entrants.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Changes within the educational system an expansion in higher education generally and
in technical education at all levels providing a considerable increase in the number
available to industry with higher qualifications. Possible for higher education to become
so general in the population that it no longer differentiates sufficiently to act as a
criterion for occupational selection.

If education does not act as a criterion for occupational selection then more subtle
distinctions will operate like:
➢ The prestige level of the individual college or university.
➢ Individual personality and social status differences.
➢ Another factor of vital importance in determining the part education plays in social
mobility is the nature of the selective mechanism within the school system. Rank
ordering of the schools.
Students with high abilities are selected by the high-ranking schools. The more efficient
the selective mechanism. The more the educational achievement is related to 'ability.'
➢ The more the vocational success of its graduates.
➢ Is the selection process fair? Biased.
Finally, it may be said that ability leads to higher education which in turn becomes a
factor in mobility. Social mobility is related to the selective mechanism in school
system and its operation.
R. H. Turner (1960) presented ideal-type analysis of ‘Modes of Social Ascent through
Education: Sponsored and Contest Mobility.' The accepted mode of upward mobility is
a crucial factor that shapes the school system. It involves strategies of educational
selection. Two modes of ascent: sponsored mobility and contest mobility. Both the
modes of mobility are founded upon quite different ideological positions and also
different elite structures. Sponsored mobility (like sponsorship into a private club) is
characterized by:
➢ Early selection,
➢ A clear differentiation of those singled out from the rest, usually in quite separate
institutions.
The process of a special preparation for elite status, and covers:
➢ Special skills,
➢ Indoctrination in the standards of behavior and the value systems of the elite group.

Contest Mobility all individuals are seen as participants in a race where elite
status is the end goal and the contest is an open one. Everyone has equal opportunity.
The objective of contest mobility is to give elite status to those who earn it, while the
goal of sponsored mobility is to make the best use of the talents in society by sorting
persons into their proper niches.

There is correlation between social class and choice of educational institution. The issue
of choice of educational institution links to the wider advantages that middle-class
families are able to pass on to their children in terms of social and cultural capital. The
middle classes “monopolies‟ the best schools and poorer children are more likely to
attend less successful schools, with the major explanation for this being school location.

Another factor is social class and subject choice. Some evidence that social class of
origin influences individual’s choice of subject. Has an impact on their employment
prospects and thus, their social mobility? Children of the ‘economic elite’ are likely to
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

choose subjects related to commercial and financial skills. Children of working-class

origin are likely to select technical subjects because these fields lead to secure labor
market prospects. Another factor is parental involvement in schooling. There is link
between parental involvement and pupil attainment but also that parental involvement
is strongly correlated with socio-economic class.

Contest mobility is likened by Turner to a race or other sporting event, in which:

1. All compete on equal terms for a limited number of prizes.
2. No early selection.
3. The competitors may drop out of the game of their own accord, but they will not
be barred from the competition, as occurs under sponsored mobility.
To allow everyone an equal chance, segregation is avoided by not giving anyone or any
group an unfair advantage. Turner used the United States system of education as an
example of contest mobility and that of England as sponsored mobility. In general, the
European tradition is in line with sponsored rather than contest mobility. The USSR
approaches the pattern of contest mobility to a much greater extent than has been
customary in Europe. Not only do the Russians refuse the early selection of an elite, but
they reject the whole theory of innate abilities. Abilities are learned not inborn.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson19
EQUALITY OF EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY-I
TOPIC 062-064

Topic062-063 Social class Socialization and Inequalities

One view: the education system is “the great equalizer.”
➢ Talent and hard work are rewarded.
➢ Individuals succeed or fail on the basis of their own efforts, rather than family
background.
The other view: the education system perpetuates social class inequalities:
➢ It reproduces the existing system of social stratification.

Socialization refers to the lifelong process by which we learn our society’s culture and
develop our social identities. Children raised in different social classes experience
different styles of socialization. Socialization lays the foundation for students’ later
experiences in schools. Different styles are associated with different results within the
education system. Socialization highlights the class-based assumptions of how schools
operate.

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1970) developed the theory of social reproduction.
Why, on average, kids from working-class backgrounds struggle in school? Why kids
from middle-class backgrounds experience greater academic success? The link wasn’t
about intelligence, but about cultural capital. Cultural capital refers to the symbolic,
noneconomic assets that promote social mobility and success in school and the
workplace.

Includes
➢ Cultural knowledge and preferences
➢ Style of speech, dress and physical appearance
➢ Educational credentials
Cultural capital is the mechanism by which children end up in the same social class as
their parents. Young children receive their cultural capital through primary
socialization.

Transmitted through
➢ The art and objects that hang on the walls at home
➢ What is eaten for dinner and how it is eaten (a leisurely meal with conversation or
a silent and rushed meal accompanied by the television) and
➢ How parents interact with their children.

Cultural capital shapes how children interact with their teachers and others in school.
Another factor is parental involvement in schooling. Parental involvement is strongly
correlated with socio-economic class. There is link between parental involvement and
pupil attainment. The type of cultural capital children have reflects their class position.
People who inhabit different class positions experience different material conditions.
Middle-class people experience freedom, creativity, and autonomy. Working-class
people experience rules, constraints, and supervision.

These conditions filter down and shape one’s parenting style:

➢ Middle-class parents emphasize creativity and autonomy
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

➢ Working-class parents emphasize obedience.

These principles shape everyday interactions:
➢ A working-class family may eat comforting and familiar foods that everyone in the
family already likes, and engage in little mealtime conversation,
➢ A middle-class family experiments with new and exotic foods, while having in-
depth conversation.

Who cares whether one family quietly dines on daal-rooti while the other talks about
Pakistani politics while eating saag paneer ? May be minor difference in socialization.
Yet. Produces different stocks of cultural capital. Once in school, these stocks of
cultural capital are differently valued. Schools do not operate in a class-neutral manner.

The norms and expectations of the educational system, and the type of cultural capital
valued therein, are those of the privileged classes. “Good students” are those who:
Speak quickly and directly, Engage confidently with authority figures, and bring
certain cultural knowledge to class. Student’s contribution to the discussion may mark
him or her as especially intelligent. Discussion of the freedom movement of Pakistan
active/passive listeners.
Has the lower class child got ‘wrong’ cultural capital? Educational system never
directly explains to students these subtle cultural expectations. Telling explicitly what
the system implicitly demands of everyone. Demands of linguistic and cultural
competence. The familiarity with culture can only be produced by family upbringing
when it transmits the dominant culture.

Children from privileged families succeed in school not because:

➢ They are naturally more gifted than their less-privileged peers, but because their
cultural capital is better matched with the expectations of the school system.
Over time, students from less-privileged families may reject school or opt out. They
come to feel that their knowledge is not respected and that they don’t “belong” in
school.

Two Parenting styles of families Concerted cultivation: Style for middle-class

families.
Logic of natural growth Style for working class families.
These style differ in three ways:
1. The organization of daily life
Middle-class children participate in numerous formal, age-graded extracurricular
activities.
Working-class children have looser schedules. Participate in few, if any, organized
activities and tend to hang out with siblings, cousins, and friends in the neighborhood.

2. Interacting with institutional authorities

➢ Parents model different ways of interaction in middle class. e.g. Asking different
questions while consulting a doctor/authority.
➢ Working-class parents do not intervene in authority’s (teacher’s) decisions. Just
trusted.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

3. Differences in Language Cultivation

➢ Middle-class parents actively cultivate in their children a sophisticated use of
language, characterized by reasoning and negotiation. Encouraging questioning.
Engaging in conversation.
➢ Working-class homes have less talk, fewer questions and negotiations, and less
effort by parents to engage children as conversational partners.

Style of verbal interaction is related with levels of academic achievement.

Differences in language socialization matter for performance at school:
1. Language is the foundation for early academic performance. Vocabulary size is the
major predictor of early success.
2. Abstract “pay off” at school. Active reading and storytelling during childhood is
related to stronger literacy skills in early grades.

As a result of the logic of natural growth, working-class children develop an emerging

sense of constraint. Questioning inhibitions. Without extensive participation in
extracurricular activities, working-class children have less experience of interacting
with strangers, traveling, and being out of their comfort zone. The concerted cultivation
of middle-class kids produces an emerging sense of entitlement. Questioning. Middle-
class children, through their daily interactions:
➢ Sharpen their critical thinking skills
➢ Learn to feel comfortable in new situations
➢ Make sure when interacting with authorities that their needs are met.
Over time, middle-class children acquire forms of cultural capital that match the
expectations of teachers and the school system. Working-class children acquire forms
of cultural capital that sometimes clash with these expectations. Shows the link between
social class socialization and the reproduction of class inequality.

Topic064 Social Class (SC) and Equality of Educational Opportunity- Systemic

Sources of Differences-I
Social class differences exist in childhood socialization. These differences differentially
equip children for school success. Social class gap in achievement is well established.
Explanations for the gap are debated. Gap due to processes that occur outside school –
parenting and socialization:
➢ Intensive parenting styles and investments in children’s cognitive development by
affluent parents.
It largely excuses schools from producing the social class gap in education. Other side:
The school system itself responsible in perpetuating class inequality.
➢ Blame the system of the allocation of resources.
➢ Practices within school with respect to tracking and quality of instruction.
School system either causing or not doing enough to close the social class gaps in
education. Let us look at the processes that occur in the school system. Systemic
dynamics that shape social class differences and inequalities in education.

Schools vary considerably in terms of facilities and resources. Infrastructure + Staff. In

Europe it is organized at the national level. The principle of localism guides the
structure of education in the USA. School system in Pakistan is organized at the
Provincial level. Variation in infrastructure. Variety of factors like; rural-urban
location, more-less developed area, social class of the locality, local leadership, public
interest, Govt. policies.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Variation creates different and unequal opportunities to learn and generate different and
unequal desires to learn. Differences in school resources translate into class differences
in educational achievement. Dramatic differences exist across the country in
educational environments. Poor environment in schools located in poor areas. Affluent
areas see schools with beautiful facilities and lovely landscaping, state-of-the art
science equipment, and courses to inspire the aspiring historian, engineer, etc.

Social class disparities in educational environments are cause for concern. They both
create different and unequal opportunities to learn and generate different and unequal
desires to learn. Students see their school as a reflection of their worth as students, and
draw conclusions from it about whether education matters and will pay off. “You are
ugly, so we crowd you into ugly places. You are dirty so it will not hurt to pack you in
to dirty places.”

Coleman’s study of 645,000 5th graders in US concluded:

➢ A school’s curriculum, resources, and facilities have little impact on student
achievement.
Instead, this study showed:
➢ The students’ social class background, as well as the composition of the school
(social class and ethnic background) made the biggest difference in student
achievement.
Still some researches dismiss the impact of schools.

Researchers and educators have been frustrated by the findings. Teachers can’t do
much:
➢ To change income inequality in the country, and
➢ To change the socioeconomic standing of the students in their classrooms.
The debate continues:
➢ It is impossible to say that the affluent schools, in and of itself, will reduce the
social class gap in education.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson20
EQUALITY OF EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY-II
TOPIC 065-069

Topic065-066 Social Class (SC) and Equality of Educational Opportunity-

Systemic Sources of Differences
Teacher quality has the most significant impact on student learning. Teacher quality
includes traits like:
➢ Basic qualification, ongoing professional development and certification/licensing,
➢ Years of experience, and general academic ability.

The array of characteristics associated with “quality teaching” is generally shown to

have a significant impact on student learning. Research shows that spending money to
hire quality teachers, and to reduce class size may also positively impact student
learning. Do school resources matter for social class disparities in education? Did these
cash infusions reduce any of the documented social class gaps in education? Some
evidence in the West shows that these reforms reduced the social class gap. Has the
social class gap been reduced with respect to student learning is questionable?

Public schools in Pakistan don’t have facilities of having independent exclusive

resources. Nevertheless, the schools located in relatively affluent localities appear to
be better equipped in terms of quality teachers and other infrastructure.

Class inequalities are reproduced within the educational system. Still some students
“beat the odds” and experience social mobility shows the role of students themselves.
Students have agency —the ability to direct their own experiences and shape their own
educational experiences. Agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and
to make their own free choices. Systemic structure: determines or limits an agent and
its decisions. A person’s actions may be constrained by the system. One’s agency is
one’s independent capability or ability to act on one’s will.
➢ Shapes the circumstances in which one lives.
➢ Feeling that a person is in control self-identity.
There is the continuing importance of Peers and Culture. Education system does not
merely produce learning it also produces identities. School students navigate complex
environments, trying to figure out where they fit in, sometimes with problematic results.

Schools where children:

➢ Come in contact with people beyond their families of origin, interact with children
from different backgrounds and
➢ Learn about diversity and difference.

Social class boundaries and tensions emerge.

➢ Preference for playmates from their own social class background.
➢ Distrust and distance between social classes.
➢ Lower class children feel rejection (or inability to participate).
➢ Segregation and exclusion continue in all levels of school.
Middle-class students reflect a sense of entitlement and self-congratulation.
See school and society as operating meritocratically, rewarding them for their hard
work.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Working-class students internalize messages transmitted by school and society,

blaming themselves for their school failures and socioeconomic situation. A pattern
emerges by which students define themselves, their interests, and their goals in
opposition to their peers— typically along social class lines.

The class-based polarization of student cultures working-class youth feel that the only
way to gain a sense of dignity was to adopt an oppositional culture; one based on
drinking, smoking, cursing, and crude sexist attitudes. Students’ agency: the idea that
they creatively and independently forge their positions in society—rather than having
their disadvantage thrust upon them.

Working-class youth
➢ Reject an educational system that privileges middle-class culture
➢ Forge a rebellious position in society
➢ Land themselves in working-class jobs
➢ Resultantly reproducing the social class structure.

Students have identities based on class, gender, ethnicity. They navigate school culture
and peer relations based on the complex interplay of these identities. Navigation of peer
cultures by the working-class students sometimes leads to contest, but often reproduce,
social inequality.

Topic067,069 Gender Differences and Education Opportunity

Historically, women in virtually every society have received:

➢ Fewer educational opportunities than men
➢ Less education than men
A different type of education than their male counterparts—namely one that was
tailored to their domestic position in society. Pattern changed since mid-1950s. In
Western society women reached parity with men in college enrollments in 1982. They
have steadily increased their college-going rates.
Presently women represent majority of students on college campuses.

Situation in Pakistan is quite different practicing of schooling is yet to become

compulsory. Gender gap starts right at the primary school. Big difference in literacy by
gender. Literacy rate (10 Yrs.+ in %) 2017-18
Male Female Total
Pakistan 72.5 51.8 62.3
Rural 66.3 40.5 53.3
Urban 82.2 70.6 76. 6
Pakistan economic survey 2018-19 of the total enrollment at the higher education
institutions, 46% are girls. Individuals’ social status is influenced by their gender,
race/ethnicity, social class, and cultural background. These factors affect the
stratification within education systems and society. Students are considered both inputs
and outputs in the education system. Raw material to be processed into output i.e.
transforming them into human capital. Raw material enters with certain characteristics.
Gender is one of the primary traits around which society is structured. Gender refers to
the set of social distinctions that differentiate men and women, boys and girls. Gender
is a socially learned and enacted role. The family, schools, and the media are the settings
in which we learn roles and reproduce gender differences. Education system receives
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

students and enacts a form of secondary socialization. Reinforces the gender differences
and produces gender inequalities.

Gender socialization continues at school children learn about gender-appropriate

behavior through the formal curriculum. Numerous male characters, greater male
representation in titles, pictures, and central roles. Females invisible. Portrayals also
depict gender stereotypical roles and behaviors. Aggressive, argumentative, and
competitive behaviors vs. nurturing behaviors, stereotypical hobbies and occupations.
Some change in gender portrayals.

Gender socialization through children’s literature and the formal curriculum contains
messages about boys’ and girls’ place in society. The hidden curriculum and
interactions within the school play a role in gender socialization. The hidden
curriculum refers to the rules, routines, and regulations that govern the school day,
through which students subtly absorb their society’s norms, values, and beliefs.
Children socialize each other in co-education institutions. Self-segregation is a primary
feature of elementary school play.

Boys and girls tend to exclude each other from their activities. Gender boundaries are
activated through:
➢ Lining boys and girls up into separate lines or
➢ Pitting them against one another in competition.
Students’ gender identities have been molded and reinforced. Boys emerge as energetic,
competitive, and potentially problematic students. Girls emerge as compliant and
cooperative.
At secondary and higher secondary stage students move through their teen years.
Experiences at school both academic and social have a powerful influence on their
development. These students have more autonomy than their elementary school
counterparts. They are expected to begin focusing on their adult selves. Peer
socialization and gender identity development are part of this process.

The guy code: the collection of attitudes, values, and traits that define what it means to
be a man. The code expects men to be tough, unemotional, and never show weakness.
In USA, at high school female students clearly earn higher grades than their male
counterparts. US study reports an average high school GPA for females of 3.24, and
3.07 for males. This gap exists in all subjects. Similar pattern is observed in Pakistan in
matriculation results. Even beyond Pakistan Student Enrolment 2016-17 (%)
Level Male Female
Primary 55 45
Middle 56 44
High 58 42
Higher Sec. 61 39
Degree 56 44
Univ. 69 31.
The percentage of female enrolment at each stage is much lower than male enrolled
student. Of the total students enrolled in class I of public schools in 2007-08, only 30%
were found to be in class 10 in 2016-17. There was high dropout rate. In the case of
girls this percentage was only 29. There was such a high dropout rate. Source: Table
3.7 Pakistan Education Statistics 2016-17 Ministry of Education and training,
Government of Pakistan, Islamabad, 2018.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Gender Differences and Inequalities in Global Context

Statistics on enrollments and literacy rates for men and women exemplify the different
societal expectations for the sexes. Countries with significantly fewer girls than boys
enrolled in school, most are located in the poorest regions of South Asia, Africa, and
the Mid-East. Gender parity exists across Europe and many countries of Central and
South America pronounced differences exist in many African countries and some areas
of the Middle East.

Gender role expectations heighten the educational expectations for males supposed to
be economic leaders. Female education is considered a luxury. Girls are pulled out of
school early on, often to help out with domestic tasks at home. The gender gap in
education across the globe is on the decline.

Globally, girls’ enrollment in primary school improved in the 1990s, increasing from
93 percent in 1990 to 96 percent in 1999. Eighty-six countries have already achieved
gender parity in primary school enrollment and many more are close to doing so.
Women’s participation in secondary education however, remains a fraction of men’s in
the poorest countries of Africa and in Afghanistan. Without education, women cannot
participate fully in the economic and political aspects of society.

Social well-being is heavily dependent on women’s education. Societal levels of life

expectancy, economic growth, political participation, and more are all powerfully tied
to women’s education. Access to literacy and education remains a major problem for
much of the world’s population. In industrialized countries, women generally have
higher educational attainment than men. Mixed patterns of performance/achievement
have been found.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson21
REPRODUCTIVE LEARNING-I
TOPIC 070-072
Topic070 Reproductive Learning
Reproductive learning is a form of education based on rote memorization and
reproduction of existing knowledge. Reproduces content, process, social structures,
power relations, and individuals that conform to the perceived societal needs and
norms. This approach is mostly derived from the need to train workers at various levels
of expertise. Result of educational approaches centered on testing, assessment, and
where the acquisition of existing information and conceptual framework is central.

The learner and his/her values, experiences, affect, and ultimately identity are not
included in the learning process. Reproductive learning becomes a vehicle to reproduce
roles, values, hierarchies, and systems of control. Reproductive learning was
institutionalized in the Industrial Age. The teacher-student relationship established the
locus of power and the unidirectional nature of transmission.

The Industrial age organizational principles of division of labor, hierarchy, and

specialization are replicated seen in the organization of education in separate
departments, disciplinary fragmentation, and hyper specialization. Reproductive
learning focuses on retaining and reproducing a specific quantity of correct information
at the appointed time (examination). Paulo Freire’s concept of “banking” of education
student is an empty account waiting to be filled by the teacher. Student is passive.

RL stresses the acquisition of established ways of addressing the existing problems in

what is essentially a stable world. RL does not prepare:
1. To deal with complexity, contingency, and unforeseen, in a rapidly changing world
2. To foster critical and creative thinking, creativity, or the ability to adapt to, and
initiate change.
Presently innovation is essential in all areas and creativity has become central
dimension of human lives. Despite the criticism, RL continues to persist. Reforms have
paralleled the focus on content memorization, specialization, and measurement through
ongoing testing and assessment. Part of the reason for its longevity has been the
consistent assumption that:
➢ Reproductive learning, with its focus on memorization and retention of facts, is the
only certain and measurable way to ensure that what are considered “the
fundamentals” are being transmitted.

One of the criticisms of progressive and alternative educational approaches in general

is that they do not provide solid “foundation.” Students who learn and “reproduce” the
classics, are better off than if they explore a wide range of “creative” or “alternative”
studies. With the fundamentals they are left with no marketable skills or understanding
of dominant tradition. Question remains: What constitutes the “foundation”?

Topic071 Social Reproduction

Social reproduction: the reproduction of social structures and systems maintenance and
continuation of existing social relations. For Pierre Bourdieu, there are four types of
capital that contribute to social reproduction: economic capital, cultural capital, human
capital, and social capital.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Public education was understood and presented as a meritocratic institution in which

talent and effort alone predicted outcomes. By the post–World War II period
considerable evidence indicated otherwise social reproduction theory argues: schools
are not institutions of equal opportunity but mechanisms for perpetuating social
inequalities. Reproduction analyses emerged in the 1960s and were largely subsided by
the 1990s.

Schools reinforced the inequalities of social structure and cultural order found in a given
country. Early research on educational reproduction provided structuralist accounts.
Identified systematic features of language, culture, and political economy, which were
reflected in the conduct and organization of classrooms and curricula. Causal role in
perpetuating linguistic, cultural, and economic inequalities (Bernstein 1975, Bourdieu
& Passer on 1977, Bowles & Gintis 1976).

The reproductive thesis is simple to state in academic terms. Yet it has been and
continues to be quite unacceptable to many of those who work in schools or in the
systems. Unacceptable probably because it presents a direct challenge to meritocratic
assumptions and seems to dash egalitarian aspirations.

By the early 1990s, there was a turning away from arguments about social reproduction
and education. Nevertheless, the problem of inequality remains a central feature of the
contemporary world, within nations and on a global scale. The centrality of
straightforward economic factors in school performance appears little changed over
more than 40 years. Social reproduction has been arguably the central theme in
Sociology of Education. Recently ideas about social reproduction have become
sophisticated. Sociologists have attempted to grapple with and respond to some of the
weaknesses in earlier, radical left theories of social reproduction.

Topic072 Economic Reproduction

Economic reproduction implies reproducing occupationally (class-based) differentiated
stratified society. Schooling in Capitalist America (Bowles & Gintis 1976) was the
foundational work on economic reproduction in North America. Classroom experience,
and school knowledge emphasized:
➢ Discrete bits of knowledge and discipline for those bound for blue-collar
occupations, alongside
➢ More synthetic, analytic knowledge and self-directedness for those destined for
middle-class professions.

Hence the argument

School curricula and classroom procedure reflected the organization of class-
differentiated adult dispositions, skills, and work experiences, and transmitted similar
dispositions and skills to subsequent generations.

Basic thesis
Schooling as a system rations kind of knowledge to class and ethnically-stratified
student populations. Class-based differences in material resources were ultimate causes
in the reproduction of cultural and educational inequality.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

“Economic reproduction” thesis was empirically confirmed by research. Got criticism;

the thesis debatable for critics, a primary deficiency in all the early formulations was
their neglect of the problem of agency and change. Critics pointed out that the starting
point of economic reproduction was:
➢ Certain shared principles that govern the organization of schooling and work.
➢ Schooling is organized to provide individuated, technical knowledge to select strata
of consumer-workers (largely white, middle class, and compliant in the USA).
Yet it is not smooth sailing. It is filled with contradictions. Look at the factory workers
as they slow down, disrupt, and otherwise exert informal control over work processes.
Class-situated practices of resistance subvert the formal procedures and control
mechanisms of the workplace bureaucracy. Similarly, schooling is not that smooth
sailing process. Class conflicts in society can be seen in relation to school that disturb
it’s working.

Look at how working-class lads penetrate the school’s meritocratic ideology. Through
peer group solidarities (like their fathers in work place) some deprived students disrupt
classroom procedure with humor and aggression. This situation questions the classroom
social contract whereby compliance is exchanged for knowledge and grades. Disrupt
the system (they might fail), and the situation demanding change.

Provocative behavior of students and subsequent change questions the reproduction

theory. Sociologists have attempted to grapple with and respond to some of the
weaknesses in earlier, radical left theories of social reproduction. Reproduction is not
that simple from amongst the students, some work as agencies of change.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson22
REPRODUCTIVE LEARNING-II
TOPIC 073-075

Topic073 Cultural Reproduction

Broadly culture includes both material and non-material creations of humans. It is
culturally specific ‘competence,’ ‘resource,’ a ‘power.’ The concept of cultural capital
is used to analyze cultural knowledge as class advantage in educational areas. Bourdieu
used cultural capital as a social advantage in classroom processes. Schools are sites for
popular cultural practices that stage or reproduce social inequality in curricular and co-
curricular activities.

Class relations take priority over other (e.g. ethnic) affiliations. Class is expressive
rather than structural in the usual sense. Middle class students share greater
commonalities in their presentation of self. Capitalist culture is fundamentally
“communicative action.” Class culture is a “situational speech performance” enacted
and learned in many places, including the classroom. Class culture crosscuts the staging
and reproduction of other (e.g. ethnic) identities. Middle-class kids, irrespective their
other affiliations, play the classroom “game,” appearing interested while discreetly
mocking teacher authority and school knowledge. Working-class expressive culture is
less strategic for various reasons:
1. Working-class kids do not play the classroom game as well
2. They are either passive and exclude themselves from classroom interaction
3. Openly defiant and likely to provoke confrontations with teachers.

Class legacies of underachievement in schooling can be reshaped by some other factors

like social movements, individual aspirations. Schools are not the site of social
reproduction. Instead classrooms are “an oasis” where talk flows relatively freely
between students having different identities (e.g. girl and boy, traditional and liberal
background, native and migrant). Here educational achievement is sought and
aspirations flower.

Look at how working-class lads penetrate the school’s meritocratic ideology. Through
peer group solidarities (like their fathers in work place) some deprived students disrupt
classroom procedure with humor and aggression. This situation questions the classroom
social contract whereby compliance is exchanged for knowledge and grades. Disrupt
the system (they might fail), and the situation demanding change.

Provocative behavior of students and subsequent change questions the reproduction

theory. Sociologists have attempted to grapple with and respond to some of the
weaknesses in earlier, radical left theories of social reproduction. Reproduction is not
that simple. From amongst the students, some work as agencies of change.

Topic074 Linguistic Reproduction

Language
A primary means of communication pervades in formal education. The primary means
of teaching and learning. Bernstein provided the major early theoretical and empirical
work explained the role of class and language in social reproduction.
Identified “elaborated” and “restricted” codes in language. Codes are the signs and
symbols: means of expression. The language codes were seen as the “genes of social
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

class.” Codes are the semiotic-communicative sources of identities – class identities.

Codes that are:
1. Congruent with
2. Disjunctive from
The expressive styles required in school. Poor children performed inadequately in
school because they were linguistically or culturally deprived. Linguistic deprivation
as an explanation for educational failure. Language deficit.

School/home mismatch framework led to series of studies in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Critics of the deficit model argued that some groups (e.g. minorities) did poorly in
school not because of their language per se but because they were treated differently in
schools. Language deficit leads to differential treatment in class/school.
Studies have supported the basic idea. Recently, the ways in which linguistic
differences correlate with class differences have been getting renewed attention because
of debates about school reforms in the USA.

The interest makes strong claims about social class and language use. Influential uptake
in discussions of compensatory literacy programs. Results cast as a dialogue with
Bernstein’s claims about class and code. The recent analyses concentrate on the amount
of vocabulary, specific sentence types, and specific interactional features of talk
directed to children in “professional,” “working-class” and “welfare” homes during
their infant, preschool, and early primary years.

Childhoods are unequal as child-rearing practices among poor, working-class, and

affluent, professional families are unequal. The findings support and elaborates
Bernstein’s arguments about class and language socialization. Show a disjuncture
between poor and working-class language practices and those expected in public arenas
such as school or the (white-collar) workplace. The recurrent deprivation debates are
an indication of the difficulties of understanding the dynamic interactions among class
conditions, and language.

Topic075 The Turn from Reproduction

By the late 1980s efforts to understand social reproduction in classrooms and schools
had largely been abandoned. Concern with reproduction as a conceptual focus was set
aside in favor of other approaches. The analysts set aside the structural constraints of
political economy or linguistic code. A shift away from analyzing class reproduction,
cultural reproduction to analyzing identity formation.

Schools are not simply about reproducing class relations to education. Emphasis in
research shifted on individual or group initiative— “agency,” “identity,” “person,” and
“voice”—over the structural constraints of political economy or linguistic code.
Economic reproduction models were criticized. They neglected the role of ethno-racial
formations and gender relations in capitalist political economies and class relations.

Cultural reproduction models were considered as too deterministic. In place of giving

priority to “cultural production of person” in schools, look into a wider diversity of
kinds of person as allowed by the broad social categories of class, race, and gender.
Lower class, racially black, and a woman. It was a shift away from analyzing class
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

reproduction to analyzing identity formation. Schools were not simply about

reproducing class relations to education.

The discussion about reproduction through education started with the big question in
the 1960s in USA. Do schools influence educational attainment and occupational
outcomes. Commissioned study found that: Differences among schools mattered much
less than assumed. Family socioeconomic status was the strongest influence on a child’s
educational achievement and life chances. More than four decades later, that
generalization still holds. This pattern is found in most nations.

Efforts to understand such enduring social and educational inequality have occupied a
wide range of scholars. Social reproduction provided one angle on the question but
arguably proved both too narrow (excluding gender and race) and too rigid. Efforts to
go beyond this framework, have not provided comprehensive accounts that enable us
better to understand the gross distribution of class-linked statuses and resources. Much
to be done to understand how social inequality results from the interplay of classrooms,
schools, and the wider society.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson23
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE-I
TOPIC 076-078
Topic-076 The Issue
One of the functions of education is to bring change and innovation. Societies move
forward through research and teaching new knowledge to the next generation. It claims
that in the past, education has had primarily a conservative function:
• Transmission of a relatively unchanging culture and traditional skills to the new
generation.
In rapidly changing society, what part education institutions play in the introduction of
change? Complexity of the relationship between education and social change in modern
industrial societies.
The education system is expected to play dual role:
i. To the preservation of the cultural heritage by means of its transmission to the
next generation.
a. Schools are expected to teach the dominant value system of the society.
b. Values of economic system, political system, education system, family
system, religious system.
ii. To serve as agencies of social reform or social improvement, to build a new
social order.
iii. The education system is also charged with the task of encouraging innovation
in the material and technological sphere. Involves:
a. The process of innovation (Research).
b. The training of the labor force in the new skills required by an expanding
technology.
iv. Education may also be required:
a. To smooth the path of innovation by breaking down traditional attitudes,
and to lessening the resistance to change.
b. To promote social mobility and to allow new elites to threaten and overcome
the old.
Some of the requirements may be contradictory. The radical or innovatory functions
of education are hard to reconcile with its role in the transmission of culture. Schools
and universities are themselves a part of society, subject to pressures from other parts
of the social system. Elitist system. Developments within education are also
influenced considerably by economic and technological factors. The economic and
technological systems set often quite severe limits on the type of educational
provision.
It can be changed planned or unplanned. The spread of education, and changes in its
content, the organization of schools and the training of teachers may have important
social and economic consequences. Some may be hidden. Planned social or economic
change is another and far more complex issue. Social reform can be brought about by
changes in the educational system.

Topic077-078 Education and Economic Development

Widespread faith in both academic and government circles:
1. Education is the main determinant of economic growth.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

2. Technical cooperation programs devoted to educational assistance from the

developed countries (e.g. USA, UK) to developing countries are reflective of
this belief.
3. Some failures of policies giving priority to investment in educational expansion,
and the view of the primacy of educational institutions in economic
development has lost ground.
Is education really a prime mover of economic development or is education a dependent
variable in this relationship? Supporting analogy with highly developed and rapidly
growing economies. Empirical evidence from such countries as the United States or
Western European nations. There is a high degree of specialization in many
occupations. The need for elaborate training programs for many of the skilled
occupations.
These conditions apply only to a limited extent in many developing countries. Nor did
they apply during the initial stages of industrialization in Europe. Investment in
education may produce much lower returns at earlier stages of economic growth than
the application of equal amounts of investment in other forms of capital (infrastructure
like roads, power houses).
The decision to invest in education, in any particular case, will depend not only upon
economic considerations but upon various social and political pressures, and the spread
of populist ideologies. There is a very complex relationship between education and
economic growth.
Research Shows
1. Little economic development in countries with less than a 30 per cent literacy
rate
2. Highest per capita income in countries with literacy rate of over 90 percent
3. No correlation between literacy rate and per capita income for those countries
falling between the two extremes.
All this is not to suggest that the failure of an educational system to meet the needs of
its labor market will be anything other than harmful to the economy, generally, and to
the possibilities of economic development. An educated population is an asset to the
country anxious to 'catch up' with a more advanced economy. Germany and Japan are
the examples of the developed countries. The education system can also be used as a
tool of political control. The greater efficiency and adaptability of an educated labor
force.
This maxim applies not only at the managerial and higher technical levels, but at all
levels of economy. The literate factory operative is not only better able to follow
instructions and undertake new tasks, but has been trained in the school in habits of
order and discipline. Yet, educational expansion, which outstrips occupational need
results in educational 'devaluation'. gap. The process has occurred in a number of
developing countries where investment in education has outstripped the comparatively
limited growth in economy. Increase in the number of unemployed school leavers,
whose political orientation toward the policy of under-employed is marked by
disaffection and alienation.
The content of education is also seen as relevant to economic growth. The traditional
literary education inherited from colonial days is contrasted sharply with a more
practical and scientific approach. There has been an emphasis on the humanities, law
and arts subjects rather than on science and engineering. Reasons the lower cost of a
liberal education, the continuing influence of the European tradition, and the attraction
of the civil service.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Move away from traditional arts subjects is necessary. What are the perceptions of the
opportunities provided by different types of career? If technical and scientific
employment can compete with arts subjects in terms of social and economic rewards it
is likely to appeal to the college graduate. Perception of the opportunities provided by
different types of career. Very real sense in the statement:
• Educational expansion is a consequence rather than a cause of economic
development.
Imperative for the educational process to keep pace with the demands made by
economic and technical development on the labor force. Also let us not overlook the
possible significance of changes in attitudes and values. Education is seen as
introducing the developing society to new needs, and new expectations, and even to the
idea of change itself. In short, education:
1. Helps to wean the developing society away from the old and towards the new
2. Inspires a belief in progress, in efficiency, in achievement and in rationality.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson24
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE-II
TOPIC 079-081
Topic079 Education and Democracy
The higher the education level of a country, the more likely it is to be a democracy.
Strong relationship between education and democratic attitudes. The most important
single factor differentiating those giving democratic response from the others has been
education. Democratic responses may relate to:
• Beliefs on tolerance for the opposition
• Peoples’ attitudes/feelings for multi-party as against one-party systems
The higher one's education, the more likely one is to believe in democratic values and
support democratic practices. Studies indicate that education is more significant than
either income or occupation. The working classes, and the less-educated, tend to be:
• More authoritarian in their attitudes
• More likely to favor extremist political and religious groups.
Some evidence that students at college become:
• More liberal 'in the sense of being more sophisticated and independent in their
thinking
• Placing greater value upon individual freedom and well-being.
Still it seems that it takes still extremely high doses of education to establish the
relationship between education and democracy. Evidence suggests that there is no
necessary connection between education and democracy. Examples of nations
(Germany in the past), which have combined a high level of literacy with
totalitarianism. The content of education is itself a factor of considerable importance.
An affinity between a predominantly scientific and technological emphasis in education
and totalitarian government. Most of the states, totalitarian regimes in particular,
attempt to use their schools to inculcate conformity, submissiveness and uncritical
loyalty to the state. On the whole it is not the education per se, rather how it is used
as a means to support any kind of political system.
Emphasis in the schools has been on the indoctrination of the pupils in conformity and
obedience as well as in love for the political system. It may be concluded that the
influence of education upon political attitudes is very much more complex than has
sometimes been supposed, it may be correct to argue that a high level of education is
necessary for effective participation in democratic government, there is no guarantee
that education and democratic attitudes are necessarily related.
Topic080-81 Education, Value Transmission, and Value Change
One of the functions of education is the transmission of cultural values to the younger
generation. Culture is continuously changing. The process may be slow. There can be
variety of sources of change. Values may change during the process of transmission.
The teachers, the books, and peer groups, being part of the educational system, are
instrumental in value transmission and change. View: totalitarian governments use the
educational system to attempt to inculcate a docile and submissive belief in authority.
The educational system of the U.S.S.R. has:
1. Transformed a largely illiterate and traditionally orientated population into
both a literate and an industrialized work force,
2. Managed to produce a generation who is in the main ideologically committed
to the social order.
3. The process of indoctrination is by no means complete.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

The communist viewpoint of values is put over at every stage of schooling, and
reinforced by other media of communication outside the schools. The youth
organizations act as a link between the school and the world outside. This is in striking
contrast to most democratic systems where the various media of socialization are only
loosely controlled. There is evidence of a number of young people who are
disenchanted with the system, some others may simply be politically apathetic.
Nevertheless, education is used by every government for its political purposes.
Education process is highly functional for value transmission, means to indoctrination.
Requires certain conditions under which it is likely to operate most effectively.
Indoctrination through the educational system is by no means a simple process. A
school system alone to achieve major changes in attitudes, especially when the changes
expected cut across strongly entrenched interests, traditional values or everyday
experience. Similarly, it is skeptical of the claims to reform society by somewhat
limited changes in school reorganization. Does not mean that education can have no
effect on values.
Studies show that given the right conditions, the experiences of college could change
student values. The students, who come in the main from upper-middle-class
conservative families, become more radical in their attitudes as a result of their stay in
college. The teachers' interest in and attitude towards social and political issues appears
to have been the crucial factor. The student leaders are strongly influenced by:
➢ Their teachers
➢ Liberal opinions enjoyed popularity and prestige.
Incoming students are consequently exposed to such opinions not only from the
teachers but as part of the student culture. Significantly, it is the students who are the
most involved in peer-group activities who are the least conservative. Research shows
that alumni twenty-five years after leaving college showed that the attitudes developed
at college had tended to persist. The majority of Alumni described themselves as liberal
rather than conservative in politics. Certain colleges appear to have a 'peculiar potency'
that seems to be the result of a combination of factors, which produce a distinctive
institutional atmosphere or a 'climate of values' in which students are decisively
influenced.
There is some evidence that different types of institution attract different kinds of
students. The effectiveness of certain colleges in changing values may in part be due to
the greater readiness of the students to be influenced. The highly productive colleges in
terms of future scholars and scientists, attract highly motivated students who are more
inner directed, socially independent, receptive to learning, non-authoritarian,
theoretical, aesthetic, unconventional and creative. Very little direct evidence on the
part played by education in changing values. Effect of education on values is therefore
very much a part of the still undeveloped general sociology of learning.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson25
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE-III
TOPIC 082-083
Topic082-083 Education and the Underprivileged
In the West, one of the dominant themes in educational reform in both the 19th and the
20th century has been the extension of educational opportunities to wider sections of the
community. This has taken the form of free schooling, scholarships, and maintenance
grants for the needy. The objective was of providing equal educational opportunity
for all classes in the community. Yet the provision of formal equality does surprisingly
little to eliminate educational privilege.
Many children, because of their home background, are still unable to take advantage of
the opportunities opened up to them. Attention is not simply to the removal of formal
barriers to equality, but to the provision of special privileges for those who would
otherwise be handicapped in terms of educational achievement. The fact that a hungry
child cannot learn was officially recognized at the beginning of the present century.
The provision of school milk and meals and the school health services early became
established features of the British education scene. Yet it has taken a long time to see
beyond the purely physical needs. The concept of what has come to be called 'cultural
deprivation’ has been grasped. Children from slum homes are all too often educated in
slum schools quite untypical of schools elsewhere. For these children, even equality is
not enough. Need for 'positive discrimination' in favor of slum schools. Schools in
deprived areas should be given priority in many respects:
• Raise the schools with low standards to the national average
• Quite deliberately make them better.
Reason The homes and neighborhoods from which many of their children come
provide little support and stimulus for learning. The idea of equal educational provision
for all classes in the community is universally accepted. It has by no means been
translated into every day practice. Inequality is quite pervasive in Pakistan.
In USA, a project was started in 1956 to 'identify and stimulate able students from a
culturally deprived area, and from generally low-income families without any
educational tradition, to reach higher educational and vocational goals’. The scheme
involved:
• Remedial teaching
• An intensive counseling services
• Trips to museums, theatres, libraries and laboratories.
• The success of the original experiment led to its extension.
Some of these experiments were initially successful, later studies found that early gains
were not maintained. A project began for the provision of an enriched nursery
environment for Harlem children. Attempted to improve the self-image of the child and
involve parents and community in the school. In order to evaluate the experiment a
number of matched control groups were also studied. The experimental group made
substantial gains in I.Q. and in achievement in comparison with the control group and
maintained these gains over a period of five years.
In 1966 the USA government launched a nation-wide preschool program, under the
name Head Start. Involved children in a short period at a nursery before they started
school. Evaluation of this program has proved to be difficult because of lack of
matching control groups and other difficulties. On the whole the results have been
disappointing. Although Head Start children began school with an advantage this
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

seemed to disappear after a year in ordinary school. The late 1960s saw considerable
criticism of compensatory education.
Claim
Compensatory programs 'have resulted in no substantial or lasting improvement’.
While there is evidence to support this view, it can equally be argued that it has not in
fact been seriously attempted. Many schemes were ill-conceived from the start; others
depended on 'the short-lived zeal fostered by a unique experiment.' Compensatory
education cannot in itself solve problems of health, housing and discrimination. These
problems must be tackled by agencies outside the school. Also, most projects for the
culturally deprived are designed to alleviate results, effects, and consequences. Seldom
are plans suggested for the prevention of deprivation.
Bernstein Opined
We should stop thinking in terms of 'compensatory education'. Instead consider most
seriously and systematically the conditions and contexts of the educational
environment'. This involves looking for deficiencies not simply in the family and the
child but equally in the school itself.
In Pakistan, formally education starts at the age of five years from grade-1. Working
and/or economically well-off parents prefer to send their children to day care centres,
nurseries or kindergarten schools at age 3-5 yrs. Private sector extends this facility
apparently on commercial basis in urban areas throughout the country. In public
schools, kids sit in pre-primary (Kachi Class) in multi-grade classrooms, which are not
equipped with appropriate facilities.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson-26
THE TEACHING PROFESSION-I
TOPIC 084-088
Topic084-086 Development of the Profession
Look at the structure of teaching as an occupation. It is customary to think of teaching
as a unified profession. In reality teachers form a very diversified group. The range of
teachers is very great: countless specialties:
• Teachers by subject.
• Teachers by level of grade they teach.
• Teachers by subject.
• Teachers by school (public-private).
• Teachers by specialties (driver education, training prison inmates,
rehabilitation of veterans working with handicapped)
Different types of teacher not only perform different roles: there are also frequently
differences in:
• Remuneration
• Status, qualifications
• Demographic characteristics
• Social-class background and
• Many other characteristics.
New profession of elementary school teacher was developed in UK during the 19th
century. The need to give the rudiments of education to the children of the poor. The
demand was for a whole new army of teachers who could be provided at little cost. The
great question:
1. Can education mitigate the dangers inherent in an ignorant industrial
population? Or
2. Whether it would, by teaching the poor to read and write, make them a still
greater danger to society?
The answer to the question as who will be the teacher was found in the pupil-teacher
system. It was a method of teacher training already practiced on the continent. Under
the pupil-teacher system the most intelligent and moral pupils of the elementary schools
were apprenticed as pupil-teachers to the headmaster at the age of 13. During their five
years' apprenticeship they received one and a half hours a day teaching from the
headmaster. After five years, the successful were given scholarships for a further period
of education in a Training College.
A teacher's certificate, which carried the right to an augmented salary and a pension.
The certificated teachers were the elite of the profession. Got headship. Shortage of
Training College places, especially for women, meant that not only were many teachers
uncertified. Resultantly, it produced several generations of teachers who had been
educated within an almost completely closed system (i.e. elementary school). A high
proportion of "cultured" teachers from pupil-teacher Dom was not expected.
Only the period at Training College was, for those who achieved it, a break from the
elementary school. The educational background was inevitably limited. (Full time
education for them had ended at age 13.) Due to their social origin and limited
educational background, teachers were expected:
• To be humble
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• To show gratitude for the 'charity' to which they owed their education, and
training and
• To refrain from any excessive ambition to improve their lot.
• At the other extreme from the elementary school teachers were the masters at
the major public schools.
• 'The task of a master in a public school was to teach the classics to the sons of
the upper class and to those being educated with them.
• He had to be acceptable both to the parents and to the headmaster on academic
and personal grounds, and his background was important.
• The masters at the major public schools were of middle-class professional
origin, and the headmasters often came from eminent families.
The completely separate elementary tradition did not, however, outlast the nineteenth
century. Gradually, however, educational opinion was moving away from the view that
elementary education needed to be narrow or rudimentary. Change in attitude towards
the nature of the elementary education to be provided got severe criticism of the systems
of teacher training, and the teachers it had trained. Elementary education in its origin at
least was simply intended to 'gentle the masses'. In UK, the elementary system was
abolished in 1944. Same kind of approach towards elementary education and its
teachers was followed in Europe.
In the United States the progress towards a unified system of teacher training has gone
much further than anywhere in Europe. Improvements in teacher training in the United
States have occurred chiefly in the 20th century. Also, during this period, the system
moved away from the European pattern. In 1910 two-year normal schools were
common, following after two years or less at a high school. By 1930 the normal schools
were being replaced by teachers' colleges organized to provide a three or four-year
program and asking for four years of high-school preparation.
A bachelor's degree representing four years of preparation beyond high school is almost
universally required. The teachers' colleges were themselves undergoing
transformation into multi-purpose institutions. An even more important development
was that elementary and secondary teachers were frequently trained in the same
institutions. Nevertheless, secondary school teachers were usually expected to have
higher qualifications.
Today a bachelor's degree representing four years of preparation beyond high school is
almost universally required. An important development was that elementary and
secondary school teachers were frequently trained in the same institutions, although
secondary school teachers were usually expected to have higher qualifications. Pakistan
inherited training institutions for different levels of teachers. Master’s/Ph.D. level
degrees in education are available at the university level.
In Pakistan, after the 18th amendment, school education is a provincial subject. Earlier
the least qualified teachers were employed at the primary school, followed by middle
school, and then at the high school level. Presently, the employment authority of the
teaching personnel of the provinces. Generally, it is the policy to employ well qualified
teachers at the elementary level. Some provinces are constrained for the availability of
well qualified teachers. Therefore:
1. The provinces use varied qualifications for employing teachers at different
levels of schooling.
2. Since 2013, Punjab uses graduates with B. Ed./ M.A. Education at the
elementary school level.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

3. At the secondary school level, it is Master’s level of basic qualification with

B.Ed./ Master in Education as professional qualification.
4. At the primary/ elementary level other provinces use lower level qualification
due to the non-availability of candidates with required degrees.
5. At secondary level they also use higher level qualifications.
Topic087-088 Social Class Background of the Teacher
The social origin of the teaching profession is closely related to the method of
recruitment, and the availability of training. Though teachers are recruited from all
levels of the status hierarchy they come predominantly from the lower middle and the
skilled working classes. The pupil-teacher system in nineteenth-century England was
an important avenue of social mobility for the clever and ambitious working-class child.
Research in UK shows that the lowly social origins of the elementary school teachers
were a factor in the low status given to the teaching profession. Interdependence of the
two variables. Women teachers in all types of school, but particularly in grammar
schools, have a higher social origin than men teachers. Reflects the greater alternatives
open to men, and particularly to male graduates. Teaching offers more opportunities to
the educated girl than most other careers open to her.
The social origin of the teachers is quite considerably higher in the grammar schools
than in either the primary or secondary modern schools. The social background of
teachers in the United States does not differ very profoundly from that of Britain.
Although a sizeable minority are from working-class families, the largest group are
those from the lower middle classes. Evidence that women teachers have a higher social
origin than men teachers.
Although secondary school teachers are frequently expected to have higher
qualifications than elementary school teachers, there is no evidence that they are of a
higher social origin. Rather it was found that female elementary school teachers had the
highest social origins, and male secondary school teachers the lowest.
There are differences in social origin within schools between teachers trained in
different ways of teaching different subjects. Also there seems to be differentiation
between schools of the same type according to the social characteristics of the pupils.
Evidence: 'a tendency for Negro teachers to be placed in schools where there are strong
concentrations of Negro youth'.
Teachers of working-class origin are to be found predominantly in working-class
schools. One major career pattern consists in moving from the lower-class school, in
which teaching begins, to a school with a higher proportion of middle-class pupils.
Teachers in schools where the pupils are in the lowest socio-economic status come from
a background which can be characterized as more urban, more "blue collar", with less
formal education and low incomes. Nevertheless, nowhere are the differences extreme.
Even in schools where the majority of pupils were from low-status families, the
majority of teachers had come from 'white collar' homes.
The social origin of college and university teachers is to some extent governed by the
social background of the college and university student. This is likely to be
predominantly middle class in character even in countries like the United States.
Teachers of lower-class social origin were less likely to be employed in top-ranking
universities. In Britain university teachers have a higher social origin than those
teaching in other forms of higher education. The situation in Pakistan does not seem to
be different. Unable to find specific information. General observations are:
• Level of education and social class has a strong correlation.
• Lower education institutions used to have teachers with lower qualifications.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• Primary teaching certificate (PTC) teachers were posted at the primary schools.
Usually coming from lower class families.
• Certificate of teaching (CT) was the next higher training.

Certificate of teaching (CT) was the next higher professional training for teachers. Basic
academic qualification for it was intermediate. Bachelor of teaching (BT), which was
later on called Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.) came next. Graduation was the basic
degree required for this training. Teachers with this qualification were posted at high
schools. Master degree was minimum qualification for posting at college and university
level. There looks to be correlation between the level of schooling and the minimum
level of degree required. There looks to be correlation between the level of schooling
and the minimum level of degree required for the teachers. If education achieved is a
proxy for social class, then at lower level of schooling the teachers tend to come from
lower class families.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson27
THE TEACHING PROFESSION-II
TOPIC 089-091
Topic089-090 The Status of the Teacher
The social origin of any occupational group both reflects and is a reflection of the status
of the group. The social origin of the teachers is a reflection above all of the ambiguity
of their status. The two traditions: the teacher of the rich and the teacher of the poor.
The status of a private school vs the status of public school. Status of a teacher at
different levels of schooling.
Traditionally the status of the teacher has not been in the category of higher
administrative or professional employees in Class I. The Registrar General in UK
placed school teachers in Class II. Elementary school teacher was ranked by general
public in UK alongside the newspaper reporter, certainly below the traditional
professions. In 1947, in a study of the status of various occupations, the National
Opinion Research Centre found that the school teacher was ranked in public opinion
surveys only slightly above the average.
The situation in USA was not different at that time. The factors influencing the status
of teaching as an occupation. One of the major problems facing the teaching profession
was its very rapid rate of expansion in the West. During periods of rapid expansion, the
profession included large numbers of unqualified teachers. It took long time for school
teaching to become a graduate profession. Happened in 20th century in UK and US. In
Pakistan it happened toward the end of 20th century.
In the United States the teacher shortage was more serious and the problem of
unqualified staff more acute. Very small number of graduates entered the teaching
profession. The very rapid increase in the number of high schools at the end of the
nineteenth century also produced a similar problem in the secondary schools.
Certificate of teaching (CT) was the next higher professional training for teachers. Basic
academic qualification for it was intermediate. Bachelor of teaching (BT), which was
later on called Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.) came next. Graduation was the basic
degree required for this training. Teachers with this qualification were posted at high
schools. Master degree was minimum qualification for posting at college and university
level. There looks to be correlation between the level of schooling and the minimum
level of degree required. There looks to be correlation between the level of schooling
and the minimum level of degree required for the teachers. If education achieved is a
proxy for social class, then at lower level of schooling the teachers tend to come from
lower class families.
Teaching profession is a profession of prophets. Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon
him was also a teacher and all prophets came to teach human being Teachers are
respected and honored throughout the world. Highest and lowest status of teacher found
in different places. Even putting a foot on the shadow of a teacher is taken as an insult
by students. In Pakistan teacher’s value is not more than a common man and is
dishonoured.
Here a vice chancellor of a University was handcuffed, while a University teacher under
investigation died still in handcuffs. Looks that in Pakistan teacher’s value is not more
than a common man and is dishonoured. Who is responsible for this situation is
debatable? Fact Social status of teachers in Pakistan is very low. The teaching
profession, by and large, does not attract the best talent in Pakistan. The teaching
profession is usually the last choice for the young. Society does not perceive teaching
(particularly at primary levels) as a high-status profession. Due identification and status
are not being provided to the teachers, as a result they are facing inequalities.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Occupational respect of a profession is directly related to both income and qualification.

Profession determines the required level of qualification to enter into the profession and
income level of that job. Pay and qualification seem critical factors of SES but pay does
not provide the surety of high occupational respect of teaching profession. School
teachers seem to be of low status.
In Pakistan most of the teachers perceive that authority-wise, they are on the bottom as
compared to other occupation. The teachers being such important persons in the society
seem to complain about their low socio-economic status in the society. Low status of
teachers and teaching is reflected in the inadequate and low level of teacher preparation,
qualification and professional development.
Topic-091 The Teacher Organizations-I
Teachers' organizations play their role in the development of teaching profession. There
have been professional teachers' organizations in Britain and their counterparts in the
United States. The National Education Association (N. E. A), founded in 1857 is the
largest organization of educators in the US. Membership of this Association is open to
anyone actively engaged in the profession of teacher or other education work.
Not only teachers, but principals, superintendents and other professional workers are
all members. Many teachers charge that the N.E.A. is dominated by administrators.
The main achievement of the N.E.A. has been in meeting the needs of its members for
specialist information. The Research Division, which was created in 1922, provided
members with information and consultative services on a very wide scale. The N.E.A.
has also published an impressive list of periodicals, pamphlets, yearbooks and so on.
National Commission on Teachers’ Education and Professional Standards (N. C. T. E.
P. S) established in 1946. Aim the advancement of professional standards, including
standards for institutions which prepare teachers. The N.E.A. specifically charged one
of its agencies with responsibilities for spearheading the professional standards
movements in education. Regarded as one of the most encouraging developments
insofar as the professionalization of education was concerned. Challenged by American
Federation of Teachers (A.F.T).
• F. T. works like a trade union.
• Concerned in the main with salaries and conditions of service rather than with
the wider issues of professionalism.
• Neglected those professional functions deeply concerned with the professional
status of teaching. Has worked constantly to raise the level of recruitment to the
profession.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson28
THE TEACHING PROFESSION-III
TOPIC 092-093
Topic092-093 The Teacher Organizations
Teachers in higher education are also organized into professional associations. Both
the Association of American College Professors in the United States, and the
Association of University Teachers in Britain are important bodies which do much:
• To safeguard the interests of individual members
• To work towards professional standards and
• To improved salaries and working conditions.
Lack of consensus as to the kind of professional association required by university
teachers, as well as the kind of activity it should undertake. Neither the Association of
College Professors nor the Association of University Teachers is a particularly militant
body. The associations are only reflecting the views of many of their members. The
academic was too individualistic to submit to collective bargaining. Financial
improvement is sought by means of individual preferment rather than collective action.
The pull of divergent interests and disciplines may also hinder the development of a
loyalty to the profession itself. Individuals may feel it more important to give their
attention to the association which serves their own academic discipline than to the
association which represents them as teachers. The division of loyalties is strongly
reinforced by the conflict between the teaching and the research function, which has
reached an acute stage in the American university.
Teachers are the most critical stakeholders responsible for the delivery of quality
education. They are increasingly becoming the focus of attention for policymakers and
educationists in debates on education reform. Teachers associations are essential to any
concerted effort aimed at improving the reach and quality of Pakistan’s education
system. Represent organized and collective behavior on the part of government
employed teachers across the country.
There are a total of seventeen teachers’ associations and unions. These organizations
represent and reflect the range of social, economic and political divisions across the
country. Understanding of and engagement with teachers’ associations and unions is
necessary to improve the state of education. The study was conducted on Pakistan’s
teachers’ unions and associations spread across all the country. The major findings of
this study were:
• Historically teachers’ associations and unions have been able to score several
victories in negotiating better service conditions.
• Accusations that these organizations are weak and disorganized therefore do not
ring entirely true.
Teachers’ associations and unions almost never engage government on issues of:
• Student wellbeing
• Learning outcomes or
• Even teaching methodology.
The singular focus of teachers’ bodies tends to be to air:
• Service conditions grievances and
• Institutional grievances
This has lent credibility to accusations that these associations and unions are parochial,
and may not be genuine stakeholders in the education reform discourse. Governments
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

have historically sought to undermine and weaken these bodies. The nexus of patronage
relationships that politicians and leaders of associations and unions enjoy has furthered
this conscious effort. The vast overlap between electoral politics and the government-
employed teaching community further enhances the impact of government
undermining of associations and unions.
The pull of divergent interests and disciplines may also hinder the development of a
loyalty to the profession itself. Individuals may feel it more important to give their
attention to the association which serves their own academic discipline than to the
association which represents them as teachers. The division of loyalties is strongly
reinforced by the conflict between the teaching and the research function, which has
reached an acute stage in the American university.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson29
EDUCATION SYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD: A COMPARATIVE
VIEW-I
TOPIC 094-098
Topic-094 A Comparative View Introduction
Education for what?
It means: Is the country trying to:
• Provide one education for laborers and another for elites or leaders;
• Give all citizens an equal chance for educational advancement; or compete in
a changing world?
It means: Is the country trying to:
• Provide basic skills for survival
• Educate citizens for needs in their daily lives such as subsistence farming
• Prepare the most competent students to leave the village for further education
• Provide students with skills needed in the economy
Country leaders struggle with these and many other questions about the purpose of
education. Also: what proportion of their national budgets should be devoted to
education? Economic competition between nations has put pressure on all nations to
organize educational systems in similar ways. Has led to universality of schooling and
similarities between systems. The worldwide trends in education include:
• Increased enrollments at all levels, especially in primary schooling;
• The establishment of national educational ministries;
• Free and compulsory education laws;
• The need to increase state funds for education;
• Educational opportunity for all, including women and minorities; and
• Schools serving as both socializing agents for the nation and talent sorting
systems for business and government.
Each country brings its own unique culture into education. Some nations or groups
within nations actively resist adopting Western models. Global pressure for certain
educational content. Worldwide system that encourages uniformity of schools and
school curricula. Comparative education researchers have developed international
assessment tests to compare the skill levels of students in countries that participate in
the testing.
Education systems use test results to assess their performance in relation to other
countries and to inform educational policy and planning. Can identify factors that make
some nations more successful on comparative tests than others. The standard of
education is a powerful predictor of the wealth that countries will produce in the global
economic system.

Topic-095 Comparative Performance of Countries

Comparative education researchers have developed international assessment tests to
compare the skill levels of students in countries that participate in the testing. Seventy-
six countries participated in the OECD 2015 international tests in math and science for
high school students. Five Asian countries outranked: Singapore, Hong Kong, South
Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Finland, in Europe, ranked sixth and has been in the top-
scoring group for several years.
All these countries were not only education leaders but also world economic leaders.
Finland, in Europe, ranked sixth and has been in the top-scoring group for several years
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

All these countries were not only education leaders but also world economic leaders.
Conclusion The standard of education is a powerful predictor of the wealth that
countries will produce in the global economic system. Part of the educational success
in these five Asian countries is the national attitude toward education.
The underlying assumption is that:
• All students can learn and all students are expected to succeed through “rigor,
focus and coherence” and
• “every student has access to excellent teachers.”
Teachers are:
• Highly trained,
• Considered professionals, and
• Well rewarded in prestige and salaries.
Finland has ranked among the top education systems on assessment tests. Education
researchers cite four main reasons for Finnish success (Simola, 2015):
1. Fewer and better standardized tests Finish students take only one standardized test
in primary and secondary school.
2. More time for play Students do not start formal school or learn to read in school until
age 7.
3. Higher education is free Students who receive higher education degrees graduate
free of debt.
4. Elevated teaching profession Teaching is a revered profession. only 7 percent of
applicants were accepted into teacher education programs. Teachers:
• Are treated like professors at universities
• Have more time to plan lessons and
• Get paid salaries that are competitive with other professionals.
• Receive extensive training and have autonomy in the classroom.
South Sudan, Ghana, South Africa, and Indonesia ranked last in the group of 76
countries. having the most students that lack basic skills. Indonesia is a middle-income
country in economic and political transition, and a fledgling democracy. Corruption in
this transition phase is a serious problem; funds for education often bypass the
classrooms for civil servants’ pockets. Poorly qualified and absentee teachers; school
closings and lost school days; few materials, books, and equipment; and no technology,
children have little chance of scoring well on competitive international tests.
Topic-096 What is Comparative Education?
What is Comparative Education? The study of the variations in educational systems
and processes, and how education relates to wider social factors and forces. It is the
comparative study of educational theories and practices in various countries. It attempts
to use cross-national data to test propositions about the relationship between:
• Education and society and
• Teaching practices and learning outcomes.
Considers the implications of comparative studies for the formation and
implementation of policies in education. Comparative education scholars use cross-
national data:
• To “increase the understanding of educational issues, trends and policies
through comparative, cross-cultural and international perspectives,” and
• To “formulate and implement policies in education related to national and
international development.”
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It provides information on:

• What is unique to some educational systems, and
• What is universal—found in all. Universal educational principles.
Here though research on comparative education is interdisciplinary, sociologists have
been major contributors to the field,
• Developing useful methodologies
• Identifying key variables
• Constructing analytical models and
• Carrying out research projects.
Findings are reported in comparative education journals and used by policy makers for
applied, practical purposes. Today comparative education looks at educational systems
in comparative context. Uses variety of theories, sophisticated methodologies, and
cross-national data sets. Research techniques range from studies using descriptive
anthropological and ethnographic methods to large-scale cross-sectional studies.

Topic-097 Comparative Education and the System Approach

The world provides the global environment for individual countries. They have all kind
of interaction including economic and political. Their level of development within the
world system influences the type of education system they develop to meet their needs.
Globalization affects local curriculum and the overall education system. Global topics
(e.g. international organizations, global power structures, world trends in education)
become part of country education.
Research on globalization and education involves the study of intertwined worldwide
discourses, processes, and institutions affecting local educational practices and policies.
Most research in comparative education compares countries or regions of the world e.g.
Of particular concern today is the migrant children fleeing countries due to economic
needs or war, and experiencing disrupted education:
• No schools or teachers
• New languages to learn and
• Different educational systems with new expectations.
Destination countries struggle with the influx of new students and the lack of facilities
and teachers prepared to teach children who have experienced trauma and disruption.
Successful social integration of immigrants is essential for stability of countries and
economic success. Comparative studies provide information about successful attempts
to integrate immigrant children. Macro-level research deals with the pipeline called
school-to-work:
• How do countries prepare students for the work that is available?
Sociologists of education have studied some of the many systems in the world. In a few
state-run educational systems in centralized economies, the state determines how many
workers will be needed in different positions and plans for that number of students to
be admitted into training. In other economies, the pipeline is less structured and
predetermined Streaming of students is done at different level of education at grade 5
or at grade 8.
Germany and some others, stream children beginning with exams in about grade 5. In
UK it was grade 8. The desired result is that students come out of high school with a
path to a productive future. “Education for All” and International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) are other examples. The UN established
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MDGs (2000 - 2015) at the macro-level to aid and guide country education systems
around the world and to determine goals for the post-2015 agenda.
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) carried
out the first extensive early comparative research endeavors. The first Six Subject
Survey (1970–1) is a classic in the field of comparative studies. IEA continues regular
six-subject follow-up studies, providing additional updates for comparisons of findings
over time.

Topic-098 Theoretical Perspectives in Comparative Education-I

Education is viewed as a gateway to opportunity. Children in some developing
countries (Global South) beg foreign visitors to help them get more education. Children
in many developed countries (Global North) think they would like nothing more than
to be free of the compulsory burden of school. What can education actually do for the
people of a nation? A key question facing comparative educationalists is whether
education is reducing or increasing social inequality.
Yet high hopes on education to boost economies and provide upward mobility for
citizens. Positive contributions of education are empirically documented. Comparative
education theories that stem from major perspectives in sociology and social sciences
are:
Functional perspective: Education systems are:
• The great “levelers” of society;
• Providing individuals with opportunities to get ahead; and
• Providing society with the skilled human power needed for economic
development.

Conflict perspective: Systems of education

Reflect the interests of capitalists and the elite in society; and are organized to
perpetuate the status of those in power. Emphasis in comparative education is on macro-
level theories because of the global emphasis of the field. Micro-level theories such as
symbolic interaction and labeling theory are useful in comparative education for
comparative studies of classroom practices, teacher and student interactions, and other
micro-level issues in different countries. Some theoretical perspectives help to
understand educational systems.
Modernization and Human Capital Perspectives
Modernization and human capital perspectives dominated comparative education
theory in the 1960s and early 1970s, a time when many countries were casting off
colonialism Modernization theory views education as contributing to economic
development and stability. Developing and cultivating human capital was seen by
business leaders and governments as an investment in development. Human capital
perspectives have been criticized. For example:
• Meritocracy is an ideal reached in very few countries
• Human capital perspective assumes all nations will emulate the Western model
of development
• Lack of jobs, gender inequality, and low wages for the educated may result in
discontent and “brain drain” and
• Many new jobs in service and sales require only limited specialized training.
Two alternative views:
1. World systems perspective and
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

2. Dependency theory.
The perspectives challenge the claim that: education is a positive force that enhances
economic development and individuals’ ability and opportunities to work.
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Lesson30
EDUCATION SYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD: A COMPARATIVE
VIEW-II
TOPIC 099-101 100
Topic-099 Theoretical Perspectives in Comparative Education-II
World Systems Theory and Dependency Theory
During colonial times, the natural and human resources of today’s Global South
nations were systematically plundered and underdeveloped under colonialism.
Presently these constitute peripheral nations in the global system. The Global South
continues to supply raw materials and cheap labor to the industrial centers.
National elites in Global South countries, usually educated in Western school systems,
became rich from the profits of raw materials valued by core nations and multinational
corporations. By seeking to maximize returns to foreign investments and by setting
national priorities according to foreign standards, the actions of the national elites have:
• Intensified internal inequalities
• Reinforced the dependency of Global South nations and
• Retarded long-term economic development in Global South countries.
Developed capitalist states are often involved in the educational development of
developing states. Serves the developed countries by training the workforce to capitalist
specifications, resulting in a return of capital to the same nations. Dependency theory
explains the relationships between societies and education. A chain of exploitation
exists at several levels:
• Developed countries and world organizations coordinating education
worldwide over developing countries;
• Centers of power in “Third World” countries (usually in urban areas and
elites) over peripheral rural areas.
The developing areas may gain by getting some needed resources and jobs. The price
is domination and control of institutions such as education by the developed areas over
local affairs. In education this includes curricula, texts, and reforms. Developed
countries have the power and money to promote ideas and programs around the world,
and models advocated by international agencies have spread around the world.
Reproduction & Resistance Theories
At the micro-level, reproduction and resistance theorists argue that:
• Elites who dominate capitalist systems mold individuals in societies to suit
their own purposes.
The argument is that local schools can increase inequality through curricula and
teaching methods. If schools serve capitalist interests, teaching children roles
appropriate to their statuses in class-based society will benefit the elites and reproduce
the class structure.
“Legitimation of knowledge” Perspective
“Legitimation of knowledge” refers to what those in power feel:
• We should know
• How we know it and
• How it is interpreted and taught.
Legitimation implies that there needs to be some consensus—at least among decision
makers.
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The knowledge passed on to students in the texts has become a battleground for
decision makers on the right and left. Talk about controversy! How do we pass on
knowledge about?
• Sexual behavior
• Human history and
• About climate change?
Legitimation implies that there needs to be some consensus—at least among decision
makers.

Topic100-101 Education in Rich Vs. Poor Countries

Poor Countries
Systems of education have been in existence for centuries. Every community must have
a way of passing on its accumulated knowledge to the next generation to ensure survival
and continuity of the community. Traditionally, older generations passed on the needed
knowledge, skills, behaviors, and customs—the culture. The young were taught how to
farm, hunt, fish, prepare food, build a house, and whatever other necessary skills.
The methods were “informal education,” learned alongside elders by listening,
watching, and practicing. With the coming of colonial powers and interactions with the
larger global community, new skills were needed, even required in formal schools. In
19th and 20th centuries there was lot of colonization by the Europeans. They extracted
raw materials to expand industrialization. Missionaries set up schools to spread
Christianity, and colonial government systems of education reflected those of the
colonial power.
In poor countries poverty and hunger take priority over literacy. Most children receive
literacy training, and education ranges from technical, vocational, and agricultural skills
to systems patterned after Global North countries. Some students from more elite
backgrounds receive advanced education abroad. Whether to teach in the Native or
colonial language and what curricula will benefit children in their villages and in the
global system are continuing questions.
Some international organizations and funding agencies such as The World Bank have
agendas to help shape education for competitive positions in the world economy. All
countries do not choose to adopt these models. Basic education may be free, but not all
children have access to schools or teachers depending on where they live and whether
the children have opportunity, money. Reaching the secondary school or college may
be a luxury.
Sons and daughters of the urban elite have a disproportionate share of places. Some of
the rich go abroad to pursue prestigious fields in foreign educational institutions.
Although basic education is free, not all children have access to schools or teachers.
Depending on where they live and whether the children have opportunity, money for
school supplies and sometimes uniforms, and transportation.
College and university educations are available to a small number of the qualified
students. Some attend one of the comprehensive universities and others technical or
professional schools and programs. A few students attend universities abroad, but they
often return dissatisfied and alienated because they are:
• Overeducated for the available jobs or
• Reject their own countries’ traditional values, cultural uniqueness
Education in a Rich Country
Let us take the example of UK as one of the rich and a colonialist country. Formal
education took shape in Britain during the Middle Ages. Schools were organized by
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religious groups to teach students to read religious texts. In the late 1300s grammar
(elementary) schools appeared. Initially schools mostly were church-affiliated and
attended by children from families with means. Working-class families seldom had the
means or time (even the interest) to attend school.
During early industrialization peasants moved to urban areas for work. The elite owners
of industry received higher levels of education. The masses received training needed
for the labor force. Training also included:
• Morality, obedience, and frugality,
• Skills thought important to suppress crime and drunkenness, push Christian
morality, and
• Prepare lower classes for a life of hard work.
The growing working class demanded more access to education. As industrialization
expanded and a more skilled labor force was needed, support for more universal
education grew. The 1944 Education Act made education free for all—including
university, if one qualified. Even with open access, some universities remained elite
institutions (for example, Oxford and Cambridge), admitting only the top tier of
students.
The goal became to raise the standards at all ability levels. Elite educations are found
in “public schools.” They serve Britain’s elite and professional upper-middle class. This
elite wish to retain a social distinction from lower classes. These schools prepare the
statesmen and gentlemen (and now women). “Public schools” provide excellent
academic foundations that result in admission to the elite universities. Government and
corporate leaders are often drawn from this group.
The structure of British schools:
• British infant schools begin at age five.
• In most state schools, the first three years are in multi-aged classes from 5 to 7
years, called British Infant Schools. Older students help younger.
• It is very child-centered.
In 2013, the compulsory school age was raised to 18, in part because of high
unemployment and the need to both keep students out of the workforce longer and train
them for more options. Inequality in Britain stems largely from the credentials one
obtains, as determined by national examinations and certificates received. These
establish whether a student is admitted to a vocational or technical college, or, after an
additional year of comprehensive school, qualifies for university entrance. The critics
of the education system say that those who can afford elite primary and secondary
education have more opportunities to attend elite universities.
Higher education opportunities have been expanding with the establishment of
polytechnic institutions for those who fail entrance exams to major universities. In
addition, college educations now reach students who are not otherwise served by a
nearby college. Begun in 1971, the Open University brought educational opportunities
to those working, home-bound, or at a distance from colleges. While British education
remains stratified, more groups of people have opportunities for continuing education
and training.
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Lesson31
EDUCATION SYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD: A COMPARATIVE
VIEW-III
TOPIC 102-104
Topic102-103 Global Interdependence: Meso-Level Institutions
Every society shares a set of common institutions: family, education, religion, polity,
economy, and health systems. As the world “shrinks” due to technology,
communication networks, and transportation systems, different institutional models
around the globe become more similar. However, political systems, economic systems,
and religious beliefs still remain major differences separating countries.

World countries roughly divided into the Global North and Global South. Southern
hemisphere includes the developing world, often characterized by recent independence.
Have legacies of colonialism and debt to wealthier countries. Problems of poverty,
disease, hunger, rapid population expansion, and illiteracy occupy governments and
force educational issues onto the back burner. Institutional theorists see education as
creating a redistribution of political and economic power as they relate to education in
national societies. Approaches to institutional interdependence can be:
• Global or cross-national, as economic–political typology of societies
• Studies of curricula, knowledge, or assessment tests.
Global interdependence helps in taming the extremes thus moving them towards the
middle i.e. Meso-level institutions; may be modified institutions the institutional
approach focuses on education in relation to other institutions and examines:
• Ways in which mass and elite educations alter important social constructions
and institutional arrangements in a society
• Countries in relation to the global system
• Institutional Interdependence
Family and Education
The family is the primary social bond and provider of values for individuals. Develops
self-concept as well as expectations concerning our education in family receive
informal education, and also encouragement, support, and proper behavior for success
in formal educational pursuit. Families in some poor communities may be too poor to
take advantage of formal educational opportunities. Thus, continues the cycle of
poverty for some and great opportunity for others. As a society becomes more literate,
certain attendant changes occur: Urbanization, mobility, modernization, and education.
These changes have a direct bearing on the family like:
1. Extended families begin to break down
2. As urbanization increases, the birth rate decreases
3. Women’s status often changes.
Changes in one part of society inevitably affect other parts. The position of one’s family
in the social structure affects both one’s chances for education and one’s place in an
educational system. Parents in Global North countries generally want to have a say in
their children’s education, to “manage” their school careers.
Education and Religion
Within one country—even within one village—the relationship between education and
religion is complex and sometimes contradictory. There is a “maddarassa” stressing
traditional religious beliefs, attitudes, and behavior patterns, and is not supportive of
change. Next to it there is a state-run village school, which stresses “modern” attitudes
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

and the importance of education in “getting ahead.” Controversies about textbooks and
the questioning of certain scientific teachings on evolution are there.
Religion provides for the group a point of stability in a time of rapid and confusing
change in which norms break down—a situation sociologists refer to as “anomie.”
Attitudes toward change are reflected in religious schools, or in state schools where the
religion is represented. In Pakistan efforts are being made to bring maddarassas and
public schools closer. Introduction of science and related subjects in maddarassas and
subjects related to religion in public schools.

The Economy, Politics, and Educational Institutions

Most countries believe that there is a relationship between education, economic
development, and the demands of politics in the global world system. Governments
invest in education. Education generally reflects the political philosophy of a country
and the goals of the group in power. Many governments have the power to adopt or
reject educational programs. If the government establishes certain priorities for the
society, the education system reflects these in its curriculum, texts, assessments, and
other aspects of the education programs. The system of supply and demand of educated
persons does not always work perfectly. Illiteracy and low levels of schooling are the
major social problems confronting the Global South. These problems can inhibit
economic growth and political stability.
Developing countries who receive higher education will be among the elite, but the
prestigious fields for which their training prepares them are not necessarily those
needed in the country. Much of the supply–demand problem has arisen because of
unsuitable models of education. Some have been adopted from or left by colonial
powers; others are copied from Western science and technology.
Stages of Economic Development and Educational Change
Development of education systems can be attributed to 3 technological stages.
Stage 1: A limited number of people, a privileged few, are involved in education.
Stage 2: Goal is training a core of the population for factory work and the civil service
and to be leaders of business, industry, and government.
Stage 3: Training for the technological age, for the “communication society,” where
education, work, and society are closely interrelated/ available to all.
Arguments
Modernization theorists argue that mass education prepares the population for the
responsibilities of living in a democracy. Conflict theorists see education being used to
direct the mass population into desired positions as a way to perpetuate the existing
power structure, even in democracies. Models of change or development in education
reflect political–ideological underpinnings. Education is a program of action with
political and ideological dimensions that help explain variations in educational form
and content between countries. Educational system reflects the political structure and
distribution of power in society.

Topic-104 Higher Education Around the World

Institutions around the world share common trends like:
• Rapid growth in the demand for higher education
• Rising expectations
• Increased financial support for students
• Growing involvement of research and continuing education
• Diversification of the types of education offered
• Gender equity issues, and concern about dropouts.
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These and other issues can lead to student activism and disorder. Some common themes
encircle the world’s higher-education institutions. As outlined by Altbach and Davis
(1999), these themes include the following:
1. Access and equity
2. The link between education and work
3. The transition from school to work
4. Effects of technological developments
5. Transfer of talent across borders
6. Expansion of graduate education
7. Privatization of higher education
8. Crisis in academic professions; and
9. Accountability.
These common themes permeate the world system of higher education. People around
the globe see higher education as the key to future jobs. Countries vary greatly in their
ability to meet the demand. A growing percentage of recent high school graduates
attend college in many countries like Pakistan. Higher education systems face dramatic
change from serving the elite to providing mass universal access to a wide range of
students.
With increased access there is the question of funding the added students. Should
countries invest in citizens’ higher education, taking funds from other essential
services? Should citizens pay for their higher education, making it available to a limited
number in the population and perpetuating an elite education system? Or should
financial support come from external sources (international orgs., businesses, and
private contracts) resulting in higher Education. being influenced by these sources?
Each of these plans has advantages and disadvantages that impact global issues and
themes. Plans to enhance worldwide employment and mobility of people, especially in
European countries. Needs more collaboration and internationalizing of higher
education in European countries, with student exchanges and research collaborations.
There is also exchange of students between USA and European countries, also
exchange of students between developed and developed countries.
There is a potential downside to studying abroad. From the developing countries, a
record number of students go abroad for education and job opportunities. Some
countries are losing their best and brightest in the “brain drain.” Need for developing
education models that are more suitable for jobs available. Many students are
demanding a more vocationally oriented, practical education to help them get jobs.
Until developing countries can absorb their graduates, the brain drain will remove some
of the young talent.
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Lesson32
CURRICULUM TYPES-I
TOPIC 105-107
Topic105-106 The Concept of Curriculum
Variety of definitions of curriculum in the literature. For Glathorn curriculum can be
defined as prescriptive, descriptive, or both. Prescriptive curriculum definitions focus
on with what “ought” to happen. It is prescribed. Prescription by doctor. It is a plan, an
intended program, or some kind of expert opinion about what needs to take place in the
course of study. Teacher has the responsibility to implement the prescription. The
teacher ultimately decides whether or not to follow the prescription. Descriptive
curriculum explains how curricula “benefit or harm all individuals it touches.” For
example, one descriptive concept from curriculum theory is that of the hidden
curriculum:
• Some of the outcomes or by-products of schools.
• Those situations that are learned but not openly intended.
Descriptive curriculum is the experienced curriculum. Provides glimpses of the
curriculum in action. It is thinking about the curriculum: “not merely in terms of how
things ought to be, but how things are in real classrooms.” The experienced curriculum
provides glimpses of the curriculum in action. Experiences of students can be beneficial
or harmful to the students. Descriptive curriculum explains how curricula “benefit or
harm all individuals it touches,” i.e. the logic for the inclusion of all the
ingredients/topics in the plan. Curriculum is only that part of the plan that directly
affects students. Anything in the plan that does not reach the students constitutes an
educational wish but not a curriculum.”
The curriculum is a set of plans made for guiding learning in the schools. The set of
plans is a document. The plans are actualized in the classrooms as experienced by the
learners. These experiences take place in a learning environment that influences what
is learned. The framers of the curriculum do keep in mind the strategies for the
actualization of the goals of the theorized goals of the curriculum. Therefore, some
instructions are provided for the realization of the stipulated goals of curriculum.
Although the definition for curriculum does not deal explicitly with the relationship
between curriculum and instruction, an implicit relationship does exist.
Instruction is viewed as an aspect of curriculum. Its function and importance change
throughout the several types of curricula. In the written curriculum, when the
curriculum is a set of documents that guide planning, instruction is only one relatively
minor aspect of the curriculum. Those retrievable documents used in planning for
learning typically specify five components:
• A rationale for the curriculum
• The aims, objectives
• Content for achieving those objectives
• Instructional methods
• Learning materials and resources
• Tests or assessment methods.
Therefore, instruction is a component of the planned curriculum. Usually seen as less
important than the aims, objectives, and content at the actualized level. When the
planned or written curriculum is actually delivered, instruction takes on a new
importance as these are means to achieve the conceptualized goals of the curriculum.
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New strategies are developed for solving the problems and instructions provided for the
achievement of conceptualized curriculum.

Topic107 The Types of Curriculum-I

In the definition there was one reference to the difference between the planned
curriculum and actualized curriculum. This distinction may not be sufficiently precise
to encompass the several different types of curricula. Goodlad and associates (1979)
were perhaps the first to suggest several key distinctions. Goodlad determined five
different forms of curriculum planning.
Ideological curriculum: the ideal curriculum as construed by scholars and teachers—
a curriculum of ideas intended to reflect funded knowledge.
Formal curriculum: officially approved by state and local school boards—the
sanctioned curriculum that represents society’s interests.
Perceived curriculum: the curriculum of the mind—what teachers, parents, and others
think the curriculum to be.
Operational curriculum: the observed curriculum of what actually goes on hour after
hour in the classroom.
Experiential curriculum: what the learners actually experience.
Glathorn considered these distinctions a bit cumbersome. He suggested six types.
1.The Recommended Curriculum
The one recommended by the individual scholars, professional associations, and reform
commissions, policymaking groups (government). It is ideological curriculum.
Stresses “oughtness,” identifying the skills and concepts that ought to be emphasized.
Typically formulated at a rather high level of generality. It is most often presented as:
• Policy recommendations
• Lists of goals
• Suggested graduation requirements, and
• General recommendations about the content and sequence of a field of study,
such as mathematics.
The curricula recommended by state governments, as well as learned societies, will
help curriculum coordinators and teachers make decisions about developing their
instructional programs.
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Lesson33
CURRICULUM TYPES-II
TOPIC 108-110
Topic108 The Types of Curriculum-II
The Written Curriculum
This curriculum is intended primarily to ensure that the educational goals of the system
are being accomplished; it is a curriculum of control. It indicates:
• A rationale that supports the curriculum
• The general goals to be accomplished
• The specific objectives to be mastered
• The sequence in which those objectives should be studied, and
• The kinds of learning activities that should be used.
The chief functions of written curricula seem to be three:
Mediating
• Mediate between the ideals of the recommended curriculum and the realities of
the classroom
• Compromise between what the experts think should be taught and what teachers
believe can be taught.
• Mediate between the expectations of administrators and the preferences of
teachers. Negotiated consensus.
Standardizing, and Controlling
This curriculum is often used as management tools to control what is taught.
i. The Supported Curriculum
Reflected in and shaped by the resources allocated to support and deliver it. Four kinds
of resources very critical:
1. The time allocated to a given subject at a particular level of schooling,
2. Personnel allocations as reflected in and resulting from class-size decisions, and
3. The quality of textbooks and other learning resources provided for use in the
classroom.
ii. The Taught Curriculum
It is the delivered curriculum, a curriculum that an observer sees in action as the teacher
teaches. Teachers’ decisions about the curriculum are products of many interacting
variables. Decisions seem to represent the teacher’s considered judgment about what
compromises will be best for that teacher and a particular class.
iii. The Tested Curriculum
It is that set of learning that is assessed in teacher-made classroom tests; and in
standardized tests. Measures learning and understanding of subject concepts. Tests
aligned with state and national standards; used banks of test items. The four curricula
discussed so far— written, supported, taught, and tested —might be seen as:
• The intentional curriculum or
• A set of learning experiences the school system consciously intends for its
students.
iv. The Learned Curriculum denotes all the changes in values, perceptions, and
behavior that occur as a result of school experiences. It Includes:
• What the learner understands, learns, and retains from both the intentional
curriculum and the hidden curriculum.
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v. The Hidden Curriculum

The idea that schools do more than simply transmit knowledge. Those aspects of
schooling, other than the intentional curriculum, that seem to produce changes in
student values, perceptions, and behaviors. Students learn a great deal in school from
sources other than the intentional curriculum. Hidden curriculum is often used with
negative connotations. These learnings can be both desirable and undesirable from the
viewpoint of one aspiring to optimal human development.

Topic109 The Components of Curriculum

The concept of curriculum development subsumes several distinct entities that might
best be described as components of the curriculum.
Curricular Policies
The set of rules, criteria, and guidelines intended to control curriculum development
and implementation.
Curricular Goals
Curricular goals are the general, long-term educational outcomes that the school system
expects to achieve through its curriculum. There are three critical elements included in
this definition are:
1. Goals are stated much more generally than objectives.
2. Goals are long-term, not short-term, outcomes. The school system hopes that
after 12 years of formal schooling, its students will have achieved the goals the
system has set.
3. Curricular goals are those outcomes the school system hopes to achieve through
its curriculum. Distinction between educational goals and curricular goals.
Educational goals are the long-term outcomes that the school system expects to
accomplish through the entire educational process over which it has control. Curricular
policies and curricular goals are interrelated. The policies establish the rules of the
game and the goals set the targets.
i. Fields of Study
A field of study is an organized and clearly demarcated set of learning experiences
typically offered over a multiyear period. Examples: English language, mathematics,
social studies, science.
ii. Programs of Study
Delineation of subjects which are required and which are electives, with corresponding
time allocations and credits.
iii. Courses of Study
A course of study is a subset of both a program of study and a field of study. Courses
offered in a semester with specified credit.
iv. Units of Study
A unit of study is a subset of a course of study. It is an organized set of related learning
experiences offered as part of a course of study.
v. Lessons
A lesson is a set of related learning experiences typically lasting 20 to 90 minutes,
focusing on a relatively small number of objectives. Ordinarily, a lesson is a subset of
a unit, although, as noted above, the unit level is sometimes omitted by teachers while
planning for instruction.
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Topic110 The Basic and Enrichment Curriculum

Divide the learning between those that are basic and those that are enrichment. Basic
learning is essential for all students. Enrichment learnings are the knowledge and skills
that are interesting and enriching but are not considered essential; they are simply “nice
to know.” Divide the basic learnings into those that require structure and those that do
not require structure. Structured learning has four characteristics:
i. Sequencing
ii. Planning
iii. Measurable outcomes
iv. Clearly delineated content
Non-structured learning, on the other hand, includes all those skills, knowledge, and
attitudes that can be mastered without such careful sequencing, planning, testing, and
delineation. Non-structured learning yields the three types of curricula. Mastery,
organic, and enrichment. Mastery learnings are those that are both basic and structured.
An example of a mastery objective for language arts is the following:
• Use a capital letter for the first word in a sentence.
Organic learnings are those that are basic but do not require structuring.
They are developed day by day, rather naturally, as the result of numerous interactions
and exchanges. They are just as important as the mastery outcomes, but they do not
require sequencing, pacing, and articulation. Example of organic learning for language
arts:
• Listen courteously while others speak.
Enrichment learnings simply extend the curriculum; they are not considered basic. The
teacher might emphasize that learning on every occasion, not devote a specific lesson
to it. Enrichment learnings simply extend the curriculum; they are not considered basic.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson34
THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM-I
TOPIC 111-114
Topic111 Introduction
The term hidden curriculum was coined by Philip Jackson in his 1968 classic, Life in
Classrooms. Since then, the concept has been embraced by educators, sociologists, and
psychologists who wish to draw attention to what happens within the informal system
of schools. It is through the hidden curriculum that students subtly absorb the norms,
values, and beliefs that govern both the educational system and the wider society.
Almost everything within the school has meaning and has an impact on the people who
inhabit that school.
School experiences exert a powerful and yet often invisible influence on students. This
powerful yet often invisible influence emerges from the informal system that exists
within schools. The internal system of the school is composed of two parts
i. The formal part, consisting of roles and structure; and
ii. The informal part, consisting of those unplanned, unofficial, and often
unintentional aspects that exist alongside or independent of the formal, official
functions of the school.
Hidden curriculum: All the things that are learnt during schooling in addition to the
official curriculum. Many ways in which the power of school is “hidden in plain sight.”
For example, how the hidden curriculum of the school, its organizational habitus, and
even its architecture impact on students’ identities, experiences, and educational
outcomes. School is a place where students learn to raise their hands and wait their turn,
stand in line, listen attentively, and stifle boredom. The functionalist perspective views
the hidden curriculum as a necessary and positive feature of the educational system. It
is through the hidden curriculum that students learn collective values (e.g., patriotism
and competition) and how to cooperate with others.
From the conflict perspective, the hidden curriculum looks very different. The routines
and regulations that govern the school day not as the means by which we are integrated
into a cohesive whole, but as tools that essentially perpetuate the power and privilege
of capitalists and others in positions of authority. These routines dull our creativity and
foster obedience in ways that benefit capitalism and the powerful.

Topic112 Space Talks: The Hidden Curriculum of Educational Building

There are layers of meaning of school building. Analyze the setting in which dramas of
education take place. Look at the messages from space the placement of objects in space
is not arbitrary and rooms represent in physical form the spirit and souls of places and
institutions. A teacher’s room tells something about who he is and a great deal about
what he is doing. Kohl (1970). Looks like a ‘closed’ teaching:
• Classroom based on compulsion rather than participation, imposing decision
rather than enabling choice making.
Why does a classroom have to have a front, a back and two sides? The notion that:
• There is a ‘front of the class’ and the authoritarian mode of delivering
knowledge received from above, to students who are below – both go together.
The school lay out can provide layers of meaning which may be hidden for a common
person. Analyzing the setting in which dramas of education take place is crucial.
Spatial Settings
• Suggest possibilities and opportunities for schooling.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• They place constraints on what can be done.

• They imply psychological, philosophical sociological, and pedagogical ideas
about schooling that can often be taken for granted, but are open to question.
Open plans schools provide interesting contrasts in a number of features of space and
design because:
• The classrooms lose their ‘front’ and ‘back’.
• Thereby allowing teachers to move everywhere.
Desks and tables are so arranged that pupils have:
• Eye contact with each other,
• The opportunity to share more experiences and communicate with each other
more frequently.
• The learning environment is likely to be further relaxed.
A common arrangement of furniture in school classroom is:
• Desks are arranged in rows facing the ‘front’ of the room, defined by the
teacher’s desk and other features.
• The teachers can usually see all or most of the pupils.
• Teachers think that classroom is ordered and tidy.
• Pupils can see their neighbors and the teacher.
The learning message is ‘sit and listen’: a lecture or instructional approach is implied.
Little chance of discussion due to arrangement constraints. Class discussions seem to
be most productive when students are arranged in a semi-circle around the teacher. This
permits greater eye contact, which stimulates greater trust and minimizes students’
feelings of invisibility and lack of accountability.

Topic113 Hidden Aspects of Official Curriculum

‘The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope to creating the future dominates the
minds of those who control the teaching of the young.’ Bertrand Russell. Hidden
curriculum is often considered as a contrast with official curriculum. There are hidden
aspects of contents of schooling, and of school knowledge. The world of the reading
schemes in use in school contains messages. The messages reflect the views of the
writers about their world.
Look at the messages about gender roles. Men are associated with careers whereas in
contrast females are depicted as passive in domestic roles. Children are socialized
accordingly. Boys are involved in adventures, while girls help mothers with housework.
This is a sexist approach portrayed in the textbook’s lessons, stories, essays, dramas.
The characters portrayed in different male/female role can be models.
Male and female images in school textbooks in Pakistan are typical of gender role
distribution. Up to grade 12 the textbooks are published by the local Textbook Board.
The Board gets the books written by selected writers under the given rules and
regulations. The essays, stories, the dramas, the poems have characters playing different
gender roles. The portrayed characters, playing different roles can be taken by the
young students as role models.
One important aspect of these books is that the young female characters are invisible in
the textbooks. Textbook stories, dramas, essays are one of the important sources of role
models the youngsters choose from. If young female characters are missing from the
textbooks, then the young high school girls are being denied of variety of possible
career openings.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Topic114 Is Knowledge in Schools is Neutral? History

Common-sense view that knowledge in school is neutral is mistaken. It is not a new
idea. Russell in 1916 wrote:
• In history and religion, and other controversial subjects that the actual
instruction is positively harmful.
Policy to instil certain views:
• History in every country, is so taught as to magnify that country.
Children learn to believe:
• Their own country has always been in the right and almost always victorious
• That it has produced all the great men and
• That it is in all respects superior to all other countries.
School history teaching promotes nationalism and ethnocentric attitudes. For B. Russell
(1916):
• Every state promotes national pride, which cannot be done by unbiased history.
• The defenceless children are taught by distortions and suppressions and
suggestions.
History of India being taught in UK is an example of biases. History of India is basically
the story of East India Co. presented as a respectable body of merchants engaged in
legitimate trade. British rule is unreservedly maintain-ed to have been beneficial to the
development of India. Claim: Britain had done much to help the millions of peasants
who were ignorant and poor. Streamers traded with their ports, the first railroad was
laid between Calcutta and Bombay, the telegraph enabled important messages to travel
swiftly. Many cruel customs had been abolished and plan made to feed sufferers in time
of famine and to educate native children.
The motives for expansion into India were economic. The Indian subcontinent was
virtually stripped of its wealth during 200 years of British imperialism. Thriving
industry of India was ruined for the benefit of Lancashire. By the end of 19 th century,
returns from India provided more than two fifths of Britain’s balance of payments
surplus.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson35
THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM-II

Topic115 Religious Education

Religious education has a unique place in the curriculum of schools. It is usually made
compulsory by law. As per law daily worship is made compulsory. The hidden
curriculum of RE teaching usually is as if there is no alternative to the state religion –
be it Islam or Christianity. Who created God may be the often-asked question by little
children? Answer is usually given in line with the state religion. The hidden message is
that everyone agrees that this the answer. Alternative answers, by implication, simply
do not exist. Not touched. Different versions of religious education like:
• Rreligious instruction with the intention to convert children to a particular
religion.
• Religious education, where the intention is to convert children in the religious
thinking and sympathies, without specifying which religion.
• Life stances education, where the intention is to teach dispassionately about
belief systems, whether supernatural or secular.
The outcome of much religious education in schools has been seen as the advocacy of
belief rather than thought. In this context, the prevention of inquiry is unavoidable so
long as the purpose of education is to produce belief rather than the thought. Contrary
to real education to see the children being doubtful. In reality they should be encouraged
to have independence of mind. Wish for truth not for conviction for a particular creed
is the truth. (Russell) It helps the pupil in his search for meaning. We should not
predetermine the limits. It has conviction only after all the search for alternative
answers to the question posed by the child.
Topic116 Teacher Expectations
Hidden curriculum is broadly defined as everything else that is learnt in addition to
official curriculums. One important aspect is:
• Teacher expectations pupils either read or absorb from their teachers’
behaviour.
• Resultantly – Pupils tend to perform as well or badly as their teachers expect.
Teacher’s prediction of a pupil’s or a group of pupil’s behaviours is held to be
communicated to them, in unintended ways. It influences the actual behaviour of pupils
that follows. The build-up of expectations and consequent actions and reactions make
for complicated story. Prediction based on a teacher’s interpretive schemes or
ideologies of education before meeting pupils for the first time. Retrospective
assessment and reflection, leading to reinforcement or modification of interpretive
schemes.
The central proposition of teacher expectations is that pupils tend to perform as well or
badly as their teachers expect. Problems arise when teachers have false or inaccurate
impressions. Researches support the proposition that teacher expectations can have a
self-fulfilling prophecy effect. R. K. Merton argued that the self-fulfilling prophecy
begins with a false statement of a situation, and this, in turn, leads people to act in such
a way that creates the situation.
The black children brought up in a US society that held them to be inferior learned to
be inferior and act inferior. The teacher expectations of black children fulfilling their
prophecy:
• They did not expect the black children to succeed so they saved their resources
and time for those who would benefit.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• Subsequent test scores reinforced it.

It helps the pupil in his search for meaning. We should not predetermine the limits. It
has conviction only after all the search for alternative answers to the question posed by
the child.

Topic117 The Hidden Curriculum of Language

Language used in schools and classrooms for education is crucial. We cannot consider
language in the classroom only in terms of communication but must consider how
children themselves use language in learning. Teachers and students bring with them
into school:
• A stock of meanings of words
• Understanding of linguistic rule systems
• Knowledge of language etiquette which they share.
All this is drawn from a linguistic heritage common to the culture in which they are
located. Before even the child reaches school, he or she gets exposed to predetermined
language patterns. In learning language, the individual is exposed to the often-hidden
messages of what constitutes ‘proper’ language. Teachers show concern with the form
of their pupils’ communication than their content. Bernstein came up with a linguistic
theory showing a complex relationship between language and education.
Idea was to devise conceptual framework upon which the relatively poor educational
attainment of working-class pupils as against that of their middle-class peers. The focus
was upon ‘how the class system acts upon the deep structure of communication in the
process of socialization.’
Postulate Social relations of particular social groups generate a system of
communication specific to that group and their conditions of life. These systems are
distinguishable and can be placed on a continuum.
The continuum moves from ‘restricted code,’ (RC) on one end, to the ‘elaborated code’
(EC) at the other end. Religious education carries implicit meanings that are useful only
at a local level. It has particular characteristics. Elaborated code carries explicit
meaning. Does not depend upon shared and taken-for- granted assumptions. It has
universalistic characteristics. Family favours one meaning system or another depends
upon its class position.
Bernstein believes that schools, almost by definition, ‘are predicated upon an elaborated
code and its system of social relationships.’ Children who, through primary
socialization, have not been oriented to such a code, and have not learned when
meaning needs to be made explicit, will experience feelings of cultural discontinuity
between life at school and life at home. Middle class children expected to perform more
successfully in the present school system. Reason: school code is organized as typical
for middle class family.

Topic118 The Hidden Curriculum of Assessment

Assessment is an activity commonly regarded as a very important aspect of schooling.
A good school is often defined as one where pupils achieve higher than average grade
of some Standard Assessment. Assessment may mean collecting information, on which
to base judgements about learning experiences, in schools. Assessment involves four
related questions:
• Who assesses?
• What is assessed?
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• How is assessment undertaken?

• Why is assessment taking place?
Who assesses?
The participants in the assessment activity in schools appear to be teachers, pupils, and
inspectors. Nine combinations of participants are possible. What is assessed? The
selection differs according to point of view. For examiners and inspectors, the written
end-product of an examination is selected. Though final judgements of teachers
emphasize written end-products, yet they may select scholastic behaviour, institutional
adjustment and personal character.
The assessment of teachers, examiners and examiners tend to stress end-products rather
than on processes.
• One outcome is “right aneurism’.
• Pupils absorb the idea that learning means finding the right answer.
• The way to find that answer is of little importance.
One research found that pupils tend to fall in one of the three groups: The cue-
conscious, the cue- seekers, and the cue-deaf. The cue-conscious recognized the need
to work out certain things to do well under assessment. Those things included:
• Identifying which pieces of work really counted and which were exercises
• Which methods of presentation would get highest marks?
• What hints were available about examination topics and
• Which would please the staff marking particular work.
It is all part of hidden curriculum. The cue-seekers appear more alert:
• Quizzed members of the staff
• Sought out information about the external examiners
• Checked the research interests of the staff, and
• Deliberately tried to create a good impression.
The cue-deaf remain large oblivious that this is an important feature of assessment.
They fail to become aware of this aspect of the hidden curriculum Over time pupils
might prefer to search for ‘cues’ rather than preferring for ‘learning to think
independently and critically’
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson36
THE STATUS OF EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN
TOPIC 119-121
Topic119 Education as a Right
Investment in education is investing in the future of the country and to achieving all
other human rights. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan guarantees
provision of education to its citizens.
Article 25-A1
The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five
to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.
Article 37-B
The State shall remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education
within minimum possible period. Under the 18th Constitutional Amendment,
Education has been devolved to the provinces which are responsible for the award of
education up to intermediate level.
Pakistan’s International Commitments
Pakistan is a signatory of important international initiatives regarding education:
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
• Education for All (EFA) (1990)
• Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (2000)
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015)

SDGs were developed to replace the MDGs. Education has been directly/indirectly
addressed in the commitments. SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals set by the
United Nations. The broad goals are interrelated though each has its own targets to
achieve. The SDGs aim at "Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development". SDGs were developed to replace the MDGs that ended in 2015.
The SDG framework does not distinguish between "developed" and "developing"
nations. Instead, the goals apply to all countries. Goal-4 relates to Quality Education
and to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all. The signatory countries are encouraged to develop local
framework to achieve international commitment according to the requirements and
resources.
Topic120 Structure of Education Sector up to Higher Secondary
At the foundation are the Pre-Primary schools. Usually covers the age of 3-4 years. Call
it Prep Class, Kindergarten, Play Group, Nursery. In Pakistan the in-take is usually
from beyond the lower class. This is the characteristic mostly seen in the private sector.
One may come across its proto-type as ‘Kachi class’ in Government schools.
Primary schools usually cover age period of 5-9 years. It corresponds with grades 1-5.
Middle schools cover age period of 10-12 years and the students cover grades 6-8. If
Primary and Middle level classes are in the same institution then it is named as
Elementary School. Next higher-level education institution is High School. Here the
students are mostly aged 13-14 years and are in grade 9-10. These students are usually
referred to as doing their Matriculation.
They appear in the final Examination arranged by the relevant Board of Intermediate
and Secondary Education. Higher Secondary Schools have students aged 15-16 years.
This period covers grades 11-12. Earlier these students used to be referred to as in
Intermediate class. At this level students mostly select their professional specialization.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Topic121 Education Statistic- An Overview

Use 2016-17 data published in 2018. The education system of Pakistan is comprised
of:
• Institutions = 317,323
 Public = 196,998
 Private= 120,273
• Students = 50,292,570
Public = 28.68 Million
 Private = 21.60 Million
About 38% of private educational institutions serving 43% of students. Increased public
interest and trust in the private sector, resulting in a gradual growth in the private sector.
Teachers Walking in:
❖ Private sector = 51 %
❖ Public sector = 49 %
Percentages show that the public sector has a deficiency of teachers as compared to
private. Of the total student’s gender ratio was:
➢ Male = 56%
➢ Female = 44%
Primary School Level
No of primary schools = 150129
➢ Public sector = 88 %
➢ Private sector =12 %
No of primary stage students
=19.351 million
➢ Public sector = 61%
➢ Private sector = 39%
➢ Male students = 55%
➢ Female students = 45%
No. of Primary teachers = 453,614
➢ Public sector = 75%
➢ Private sector = 25%
Middle School Level
No. of middle schools = 49, 090
➢ Public sector = 34%
➢ Private sector = 66%
Enrolment Total = 6.526 Million
➢ Public Sector = 62%
➢ Private sector = 38%
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

➢ Male students = 3.664 million

➢ Female students = 2.862 million
High School Level
Total high schools = 31,551
➢ Public sector schools = 42%
➢ Private sector schools =58%
Total enrolment = 3.325 million
➢ Public sector = 68%
➢ Private sector = 32%
➢ Male enrolment =58%
➢ Female enrolment = 42%
Higher Secondary / Inter Colleges
Total No. = 5130
➢ Public sector = 39%
➢ Private sector = 61%
Total enrolment = 1.583 million
➢ Public sector = 88%
➢ Private sector = 12%
➢ Male enrolment = 61%
➢ Female enrolment = 39%
Degree Colleges
Total No. of colleges = 1431
➢ Public Sector=89%
➢ Private Sector = 11%
Enrolment in grade 13/14 = 0.956 Million
➢ Public Sector = 86%
➢ Private Sector = 14%
➢ Of the total male enrolment = 56%
➢ Of the total female enrolment = 44%
Important reason for low percentage of students in private sector is the expensiveness
of private education. Also, few diversified graduate subjects. The quality of
education is expected to be better.
Universities
Total No. Universities = 185
➢ Public sector =59%
➢ Private sector= 41%
Total enrolment = 1.463 Million
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

➢ Public sector enrolment = 81%

➢ Private sector enrolment = 19%
➢ Total male enrolment = 54%
➢ Total female enrolment = 46%
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson37
EDUCATION POLICY AND REFORMS
TOPIC 122-125
Topic122 History of Education Policy Making
The importance of an educated and skilled manpower was recognized just after
independence in 1947. A National Education Conference was convened in Nov. 1947.
The conference recommended the universalization of primary education. Since then,
universal primary education has remained an important objective of all governments.
Considerable resources have been expended in creating new infrastructure and
facilities. The desired progress has not been achieved, either quantitatively or
qualitatively.
In 1951, a six-year National Plan of Educational Development for the period 1951-57
was adopted. The Plan identified problems and constraints facing the task. The
principal constraint identified was that of lack of trained teachers. Almost one half of
the teachers in primary schools were untrained. Expansion of primary schools needed
over 86,000 additional teachers. Identified other needs for schools. 2/3rds of children
aged 6-11 yrs. were out of school. V-AID would cover Adult literacy. It Failed to
achieve the objectives. The literacy ratio went down from 16.4 percent in 1951 to 16.3
percent after a decade. (0.1%-point decline). To look at each policy and plan for its
objectives and achievements may be interesting but require lot more time. Here we look
at some general important features. See the diversity in each education policy like:
➢ Emphasis on science and technology
➢ Nationalization of private institutions;
➢ Focus on Islamic and spiritual education with Urdu as a medium of
instruction
➢ Look for demand-oriented curriculum;
➢ Importance of equal opportunities in education
➢ Zeroing-in on same curricula at different levels in different institutions.
The striking common feature of all the policies, plans, programs, and schemes has been
the philosophical pronouncements about the importance of education. Yet:
➢ A common feature is the repeated admission of failure.
➢ Each policy commenced with a lament about the failure of past efforts,
including the immediately preceding ones, to achieve the targets.
Efforts to increase enrolment and literacy were not rare. All policies were partially
implemented due to financial and political constraints. The implementation left so much
to be desired that not one policy achieved its declared goals and the targets of time set
for realizing these goals.

Topic123 National Education Policy 2017- Goals and Objectives

After 18th amendment implementation of National Education Policy 2009 was virtually
stopped. None of the provinces or federating units could formulate its own
comprehensive policy plans. It resulted in a vacuum and big gap that was filled by
Education Policy 2017. Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference, a forum
created, decided to revise NEP 2009.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Goals
The policy listed twenty goals that were grouped under the following eight
subheadings:
• Character building
• Meeting Learning Needs (Knowledge, Skills, & Values)
• Pakistani Nationhood and National Integration
• Right to Education: Expanding Access
• Quality of Education & Institution Building
• Enhancing Education Budget
• Science and Technology
• Harmonization of Curriculum and Standards
Objectives
There were 60 objectives listed under the following 28 subheadings:
1. Promotion of Early Childhood Education
2. Achieving Universal Primary Education
3. Provision of Free Elementary and Secondary Education
4. Non-Formal Education (NFE), Online and Distance Learning (ODL)
5. Towards A Literate Pakistan
6. Knowledge Economy through Higher Education
7. Advancement of Science, Technical and Vocational Education
8. Improving Quality and Efficiency of Education System
9. Facilitating Private Sector Education
10. Promoting Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
11. Achieving Gender Equality in Education
12. Reforms for Quality
13. Selection, Recruitment, and Capacity building of Teachers
14. Curriculum and Standards
15. Libraries & Instructional Technologies
16. Languages and Medium of Instruction
17. Religious Education & Reforms in Deeni Madaris
18. Mass Mobilization & Community Involvement
19. Physical Education, Sports and Games
20. Health and Hygiene
21. Public Private Partnership
22. Enhancing Coordination for Achieving SDGs
23. Reforms in Assessment and Examination System
24. Expanding Access to Special and Inclusive Education
25. Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Guiding and Counseling
26. Increasing Education Budget
27. Research and Database for Effective Educational Planning
28. Mechanisms for Implementation and Monitoring of Education Policy
Topic124 National Education Policy 2018-Education Priorities and Way Forward
I
Pakistan faces significant education challenges:
➢ Addressing out of school children (OOSC) and ensuring that enrolled
children complete their education.
➢ Addressing uniform education for all children
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

➢ Providing quality education to all children across the system

➢ Addressing skill levels and Higher Education
➢ Outlined strategic priority areas
Priority1. Decrease OOSC and Increase School Completion Priority
➢ Almost 22.5 Million OOSC.
➢ More girls than boys out of school.
➢ Increase in primary net enrolment rates across the country.
➢ Limited access to schools particularly at the secondary level.
➢ Government primary schools in some areas are underutilized.
➢ Some other areas lack a qualified teaching force.
➢ Access to middle and high schools is very low resulting in a
disengagement of communities from schooling.
➢ Many other reasons for poor schooling situation.
Way Forward
Infrastructure
i. Maximize existing school infrastructure by consolidating primary, middle and
high schools.
ii. Introduce afternoon shifts where feasible to address school shortage.
iii. Improve missing facilities in existing schools to attract and retain children.
iv. Increase access to secondary schools particularly for girls.
v. Redeploying unused public buildings as education facilities.
Removing Financial Barriers
i. Improve targeting of the Waseela-e-Taleem (conditional cash transfers for
education under BISP) to increase primary enrolments and completion
ii. All provinces are already providing girls stipends for transition to secondary
and will consider better targeting of stipends for improved results
iii. Catalytic funds to support provincial implementation, especially in
disadvantaged areas.
Innovative Solutions
i. Taleemi Razakar/ Teach for Pakistan internship programs
ii. Integration of basic skills programs with non-formal programs
Non-Formal Programs
i. Restructure and improve existing programs
ii. Community mobilization for bringing OOSC in schools
iii. Use of Technology
iv. Tracking Results
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Topic125 National Education Policy Framework 2018 – Education Priorities and

Way Forward-II
Priority 2: Uniform Education System
• System divided broadly into a) public b) private and c) madrassa school system,
with several internal variations.
• Issue of the delivery of equitable quality education.
Priority 2: Uniform Education System
Way forward:
i. Curriculum reforms: Review and revision of curriculum frameworks and
selection of a common curriculum framework across the country.
Common national teaching and learning standards:
ii. Core subjects to be agreed across school systems with a common curriculum
framework
iii. Agreement on a multi-lingual policy, with English to be taught as a second
language.
iv. Establish and strengthen regulatory bodies to ensure cohesion and coordination
across school systems
v. Strengthening of Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) and adoption of
common assessment and examination standards
vi. Build capacity of the National Education Assessment System
vii. Active campaigns and reforms to raise awareness about the quality of education
in public sector schools.
viii. Education information dissemination for community action and accountability
of systems.
Priority 3: Quality
• Quality of learning across the country is very low.
• Especially true for public sector and low-cost private schools.
• Directly linked to low instructional quality by teachers.
• Also lack of qualified subject specialist teachers.
• Teacher training, both pre- and in-service remains weak compounded by the
absence
• The placement of teachers also shows wide variations.
• Political interference in teacher placement and transfers is the main contributor
to the imbalance.
Way forward:
i. Improving teacher management
ii. Lead National action and development of political will for teacher certification
and licensing reforms by the provinces
iii. Increasing equity in teacher placement:
iv. Improve learning in Early Grades:
v. Strengthening student assessments:
vi. Improving the school environment:
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Priority 4: Skills - Enhance access to and relevance of skills training

i. The indicators of both skills training and higher education in Pakistan are low.
ii. The technical and vocational education sector lacks the capacity to deliver
market oriented technical training.
iii. Listed factors that contribute to the poor relevance and quality of skills
education:
iv. Lack of clarity on the roles and functions of key skills and higher education
institutions since the passing of the 18th Amendment.
v. Shortage of qualified faculty, combined with a lack of incentives and adequate
accountability mechanisms;
vi. Outdated curricula and inadequate and often insufficient teaching learning
materials and resources.
vii. Lack of competency-based training and assessments.
viii. Nascent and un-coordinated efforts to develop national qualifications, without
pathways between general education and skills training programs.
ix. Weak linkages with employers in terms of design, delivery, research, and
employment placement, and consequently unresponsive to labor market needs.
x. Weak linkages between the public sector and industry, marked by distrust
and/or lack of trust in relationship with the private sector as whole.

Way Forward
i. Common certification framework, regulation and licensing at the national level.
ii. Leverage multi-source funding, tapping into resources like the -Industry,
Public- Private Partnerships and Donors.
iii. Capacity Enhancement - Increase the number of skilled workers in priority
sectors, identified for their potential contribution to economic growth;
iv. Communication campaign to raise a ‘Skills Brand” for e.g. “Hunarmand
Pakistan – Kamayab Pakistan”
v. Improve the quality and relevance of courses offered, and supporting
improvements in certification and testing mechanisms; and
vi. Vi. Strengthen the institutional framework of the sector, including improving
the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector skills training provision
vii. Industry led Skills Councils in key economic sectors
viii. Industry engagement enhanced in TVET authorities
ix. National Skills Information System for better planning, student placement and
setting priority skills areas
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson38
QUALITY OF EDUCATION-I
TOPIC 126-127(No Videos)

Topic 126 Rise of Private Education

Different types of private education institutions can be seen:
• Non-profit Community Based schools and trust schools
• Profit-making school managed by an individual or a corporation.
• Madrassas -- in operation for centuries.
The growth of private schooling in Pakistan is a response to an increasing demand for
education:
• A rapidly expanding school-age population
• A reflection of the public sector’s lack of capacity to attract and provide
education for all potential students.
Between 1999-2000 and 2007-08 the number of private schools increased by 69 % as
compared with a mere 8% increase in the number of government schools. Rate of
increase in the number of private schools was much higher than the rate in public sector
schools. Most of this growth has been in low fee private schools (LFPS), which now
account for 30% of total enrollment. Private schools cater to all socio-economic
segments and all areas of Pakistan. LFPS are privately owned and operated and charge
low fees. The private education sector – especially at the primary level – has been one
of the fastest growing sub-sectors of the education industry in Pakistan. Currently more
than 70,000 LFPS are operating in the country. Providing schooling to a significant
percentage of the population.
A phenomenal mushrooming of private schools first in the urban areas and more
recently in the rural areas. Government supports the private schooling. One way to
support is through the provincial Education Foundations. Yet, increasing State spending
in support of private education institutions, to the detriment of public schooling. On the
whole it looks that private education initiatives are a response to local parental demand.
This is not due primarily to a shortage of government schools, rather a concern to buy
a “better” education than what the State schools’ government presently provide. What
is considered “better” by parents about the private education provided is:
 The increased contact hours
 The regular attendance of the teachers
 Classes are found to have smaller teacher-student ratios, making it possible for
the teacher to provide individual attention
 The improved pass rate of the private school in the qualifying certificate
examinations. Private school.
There is a common assumption that the quality of private schooling is higher than that
provided by government schools. While this may be true for a select number of private
institutions, it is by no means the case for a majority.

Topic127 Quality of Teaching and Learning

Quality of teaching and learning is supposedly the main factor in the rapid growth of
private educational institutions in Pakistan. Popular perception is that:
⚫ Quality is much better in private schools than the government schools.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

⚫ This perception is debatable.

Generally, quality is hardly questioned as far as high-cost private school chains (serving
the elite class). The issue of quality is raised more frequently for low-cost private
schools (serving the low-income class). Even if quality is low in such private schools,
it need not be a cause for concern given the low costs in the sector. For the high cost
private schools, parents have positive opinion yet may not have enough data to measure
it. Parents can infer quality variation between schools through the range of fees which
varies in predictable ways to measured school inputs. Evidence presented about:
Academic qualifications of private school teachers that are comparable with those of
government school teachers (private school teachers mostly don’t have professional
training), and low student-teacher ratios (between 15 to 25 students to a teacher). Me
be ‘school inputs’ is a crude indicator of quality of teaching and learning. Other crucial
factors are:
⚫ Personal references
⚫ Marketing and publicity campaigns
⚫ Scores of school students in annual examinations.
Even good measured inputs become misleading. Examples abound of complaints about
quality for schools with good building and low student-teacher ratios. Assessments of
learning and student achievements shape an idea of overall level of quality in private
schools but they present different pictures. Assessments of third graders of public and
private schools in Punjab by a 2007 World Bank study (LEAPS) showed that pupils in
private schools out-performed public schools. Data from other studies (Punjab
Examination Commission in Punjab and National Educational Assessment System
nationally) of grades 5 to 8 pupils showed only marginal differences between the
performance of pupils from public and private schools. One could come across various
discrepancies in these studies. Hence nothing conclusive. Private schools may look
good only because the public schools' performance is abysmally low.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson39
QUALITY OF EDUCATION-II
TOPIC 128-130
Topic128 Concept of Public-Private Partnership
Broadly public-private partnership may refer to an arrangement “… between public and
private actors for the delivery of goods, services and/or facilities.” For the provision of
education, the focus is on the public funding of private schools, directly provision of
grants or per student subsidies to schools or indirectly provision of vouchers for
students/parents for the payment of school fees. Pakistan has adopted PPPs as a primary
strategy to address issues of access, quality, and equity in education.
The influence of international institutions (World Bank, Asian Development Bank,
USAID) in promoting the idea of PPPs is evident in both government and donor
documents. Lately PPPs in education were covered under the National Education Policy
2009. While these initiatives appear to have supported the provision of education at
lower cost, they also give rise to concerns about equity.
Across the country, there are great discrepancies in who is able to access private
schooling. Structural disparities linked to wealth, gender, ethnicity, language,
disabilities, and other markers of disadvantage are jeopardizing the education of
millions of children in Pakistan. PPP schools may display superior learning outcomes
compared with government schools, but private tuition is a key factor in the differences
in performance.
An over-emphasis on private provision of education via PPPs is unlikely to improve
the problem of access to very low-quality schooling among poor people. The World
Bank has been a key advocate for PPPs in education, through its policy advice,
financing of country programs, and publications. The World Bank funded programs
included direct support for the private provision of education. Bank-led research
(LEAPS study) has found positive outcomes in low-fee private schools in Punjab.
The World Bank has generally viewed the growth of private sector involvement in
education as a positive development in the context of the country in general and Punjab
in particular. The Bank has played an instrumental role in promoting the private sector
in education since the early 1990s. Relatively more intensive support for a PPP
approach is seen during the last decade in the projects in Punjab and Sindh provinces,
starting with the first Punjab Education Sector Program (PESP) and Sindh Education
Sector Program (SESP), Both projects were approved in 2009.
In Punjab, the World Bank has engaged with the private sector by providing funding
via the provincial government to the semi-autonomous Punjab Education Foundation
(PEF), which administers the PPP programs. Support to LFPS via PEF is described in
World Bank project documents as a key strategic intervention to expand access and
improve the quality of education, especially in underserved areas. Through PESP III
the Bank is also supporting a PEF program to outsource existing public schools to
private operators including entrepreneurs and NGOs. Punjab Education Foundation’s
(PEF) programs employ different PPP models as:
⚫ A voucher program for students to be spent in low fee private schools (LFPS)
⚫ A program that provides per-student stipends to existing low fee private schools
⚫ Another that funds the establishment of new schools in rural or underserved areas;
and
⚫ A management of public-school takeover program which transfers the management
of public schools to private entrepreneurs and civil society organizations.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Minimum pass percentage on a standardized test required in order to continue receiving

funding.

Topic129 The Myth of Public-Private Partnership

Taking the private sector on board for attaining the goal of “Education for All” is in
operation. National/Provincial/Regional Education Foundations have been actively
involved in variety of ways. Governments and businesses are working either together
or individually to benefit the society at all levels. Taking the private sector on board for
the achievement of the goal of education for all is in operation.
National/Provincial/Regional Education Foundations have been actively involved in
variety of ways.
Governments and businesses are working either together or individually to benefit the
society at all levels. PPPs that subsidize low-fee private schools are being pursued by
the governments of Punjab and Sindh provinces with donor support, as a means of
expanding educational access and improving the quality of schooling. Provinces of
Sindh and Punjab appear to have made lot of progress in this direction. Evidence is still
limited on the impacts of this policy approach. However, the academic literature that
looks at equity and inclusion raise profound concerns. A study of PPP in Punjab by
Afridi (2018) showed that 97 percent of school owners, as well as teachers and CSO
officials interviewed, complained that:
⚫ They did not feel that they were partners with Punjab Education Foundation
(PEF).
⚫ Their relationship was more one of answering to an authority.
PEF was not based on a cooperative model but was essentially a regulatory model, PEF
was trying to control private school owners through reward and (more often)
punishment. PEF was buying a service from the private sector, while also setting the
rules and conditions for the payment. There was a lack of trust between the two sides,
which contrasts sharply with the model of partnership. Both school owners and other
stakeholders reported that:
⚫ Political affiliations were important when PEF selected its school locations and
partners.
⚫ Political affiliations to the province’s ruling party led to corrupt practices. Instances
of corruption and bribery practices among PEF monitors were reported, e. g.
⚫ Accepting payments in exchange for a good school report or higher enrollment
numbers.
Possibilities of corruption based on an analysis of the activities and processes involved
in PEF’s Education Voucher Scheme were reported in another study (Car-Hill and
Murtaza, 2013 quoted by Afridi) Reportedly there was a high risk of:
⚫ Very poor and vulnerable children being excluded because of the way in which
areas are selected,
⚫ Fake enrollments in PEF schools
⚫ Poor attendance rates due to a lack of parental motivation
⚫ The charging of fees for absent students
⚫ Poor educational outcomes because of poor-quality teaching
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Government education systems are often accused of being inefficient because of

corruption. If PEF is associated with similar practices by its partners in the private
sector, then one wonders how different and efficient it is compared with public
education system.

Topic130 Education Problems

Pakistan faces varied education problems in providing uniform and quality education
for all children. In its National Education Policy Framework (2018) Government of
Pakistan has taken salient problems as challenges. Pakistan's education system focuses
strongly on primary education.
⚫ Almost 22.5 million OOSC, with more girls than boys, are out of school.
⚫ A substantial proportion of the enrollees drop out. (Call it another problem)
⚫ Net enrolment rates (NER) across the country have remained static.
⚫ Primary NER (age 5-9) for the country is 57%.
Appears that the primary system needs to expand if universal primary enrolment is to
be achieved. The OOSC challenge when disaggregated by levels of education shows an
alarmingly high number of OOSC at the middle (Grade 6-8) and higher level (Grade 9-
10). Even the number of middle and high schools available across the country are much
less as compared to primary schools. Balancing growth at the primary level with growth
at the higher levels of education should be a priority. Has economic and social
implications for Pakistan's future.
Lack of uniform education for all
Disparity in access across the country:
⚫ Huge differences in the standard and quality of education.
⚫ Pakistan’s schooling system consists of three main school types- public sector
schools, private sector schools and madrassah schools.
⚫ Differences in curriculum, quality of textbooks, exam systems, medium of
instruction.
Lack of quality education for all
Includes many aspects like school infrastructure, curriculum, textbooks, assessment,
financial efficiency of education budget.
Quality of teachers is low
This situation is grimmer in remote areas; where either teacher is not there or of poor
quality. Lack professionalism. Tertiary education and skills training face serious
challenges. Pakistan faces significant skills shortages and mismatches. Growing
demand for market-relevant, job-specific skills produced by the higher education and
skills sectors. There is a weak linkage between education and industry. Poor quality and
relevance of teaching and research conditions. The challenges to Pakistan’s education
system are multiplying. The current education system in Pakistan is for the most part
unable to educate the existing and the coming large numbers of students. This progeny
has to constructively contribute to overcoming the country’s vast development
challenges.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson40
QUALITY OF EDUCATION-III
TOPIC 131-133
Topic131 Background
For business concerns quality equals customer satisfaction. There are quality awards.
Educational institutions are being required to develop their own approaches to quality.
Need to demonstrate publicly that they too can deliver a consistent quality service. Total
Quality Management is both a philosophy and a methodology. TQM can assist
institutions to manage change and to set their own agendas for dealing with the plethora
of new external pressures.
The four quality imperatives:
1. The moral imperative
The customers and clients of the education service (students, parents and the
community) deserve the best possible quality of education. Moral high ground in
education. Little dissent Duty to provide the very best possible educational
opportunities. Total quality.
2. The professional imperative
A commitment to the needs of students. There is an obligation to meet their needs by
employing the most appropriate pedagogic practices. It is a professional duty to
improve the quality of education. It ensures that both classroom practice and the
management of the institution are operating to the highest possible standards.
3. The competitive imperative
Competition is a reality in the world of education. Educationists can meet the challenge
of competition by working to improve the quality of their service and of their
curriculum delivery mechanisms. The competition requires strategies that clearly
differentiate institutions from their competitors. The quality may sometimes be the only
differentiating factor for an institution.
4. The accountability imperative
Schools and colleges must meet the demands for education to be more accountable and
publicly demonstrate the high standards. TQM supports the accountability imperative
by promoting objective and measurable outcomes of the educational process and
provides mechanisms for quality improvement. Institutions have to demonstrate that
Topic132 Quality Education
Quality is difficult to define and is an elusive concept. The word implies different things
to different people. It can be used both as an absolute and as a relative concept. As an
absolute, things that exhibit quality are of the highest possible standard that cannot be
surpassed. The quality products are things of perfection made with no expense spared.
They are valuable and convey prestige to their owners. It conveys status and positional
advantage. The ownership of things of quality sets their owners apart from those who
cannot afford them. Quality is a concept with class. Synonymous with high quality or
top quality.
‘Most of us admire it, many of us want it, few of us can have it’. In educational context,
the concept of quality is essentially elitist. Only a few institutions are able to offer such
a high-quality educational experience to their learners. Most learners cannot afford it,
and most institutions cannot aspire to provide it. The relative definition views quality
not as an attribute of a product or service, but as something which is ascribed to it
‘The quality of your essay varies between good and excellent’.
Quality in this sense is about being measured against criteria/standard. Quality products
or services, in this relative or ascribed definition, need not be expensive or exclusive.
They do not have to be luxurious or special. They can be ordinary, commonplace and
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

familiar. Overhead projectors, laptops, ballpoint pens and the school catering service
may all exhibit quality. They do not have to be exclusive. While the absolute notion is
elitist, the relative notion is potentially egalitarian. It must do what is claimed for it, and
do what its customers expect of it. A product measuring up to predetermined standards
and meeting those standards time and time again. Quality can be defined as that which
satisfies and exceeds customers’ needs and wants. This is sometimes called quality in
perception. It is the consumers who make the judgments on quality. According to
UNICEF, quality education includes:
1. Learners who are healthy, well-nourished and ready to participate and learn, and
supported in learning by their families and communities
2. Environments that are healthy, safe, protective and gender-sensitive, and provide
adequate resources and facilities
3. Content that is reflected in relevant curricula and materials for the acquisition of
basic skills, especially in the areas of literacy, numeracy and skills for life, and
knowledge in such areas as gender, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention and
peace.
4. Processes through which trained teachers use child-centered teaching approaches
in well-managed classrooms and schools and skillful assessment to facilitate
learning and reduce disparities;
5. Outcomes that encompass knowledge, skills and attitudes, and are linked to
national goals for education and positive participation in society.
Topic133 Components of Quality Education
UNICEF has listed the following five component of quality education
1. Quality Learners
2. Quality Learning Environments
3. Quality Content
4. Quality Processes
5. Quality Outcomes
Quality Learners
School systems work with the children who come into them. The quality of children’s
lives before beginning formal education greatly influences the kind of learners they can
be. Many elements go into making a quality learner, including health, early childhood
experiences, and home support.

a. Good health and nutrition

Physically and psychosocially healthy children learn well. Healthy development in
early childhood, especially during the first three years of life, plays an important role
in providing the basis for a healthy life and a successful formal school experience.
b. Early childhood psychosocial development experiences
Positive early experiences and interactions are also vital to preparing a quality learner.
Parental involvement.
c. Regular attendance for learning
When they reach school age, research demonstrates that to achieve academically,
children must attend school consistently.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

d. Family support for learning

Parents may not always have the tools and background to support their children’s
cognitive and psychosocial development throughout their school years.
Parents’ level of education, for example, has a multifaceted impact on children’s ability
to learn in school.
e. Healthy children with positive early learning experiences and supportive, involved
parents are thus most likely to succeed in school.
f. Quality can be defined as that which satisfies and exceeds customers’ needs and
wants. This is sometimes called quality in perception. It is the consumers who make
the judgments on quality.
2. Quality Learning Environments
Learning can occur anywhere. But the positive learning outcomes generally sought by
educational systems happen in quality learning environments. Learning environments
are made up of physical, psychosocial, and service delivery elements.
Quality of school facilities
Physical learning environments or the places in which formal learning occurs, range
from relatively modern and well-equipped buildings to open-air gathering places. The
quality of school facilities seems to have an indirect effect on learning, an effect that is
hard to measure. Interaction between school infrastructure and other quality dimensions
Even when schools do have adequate infrastructure, parents may be reluctant to allow
children — especially girls — to attend if they are located too far away from children’s
homes.
a.Class size
⚫ Do larger class sizes hurt the quality of education?
⚫ Class size has not consistently been linked to student achievement
b. Psychosocial elements
Peaceful, safe environments, especially for girls within schools and classrooms, a
welcoming and non-discriminatory climate is critical to creating a quality learning
environment.
⚫ Teachers’ behaviors that affect safety
⚫ Effective school discipline policies
⚫ Inclusive environments
⚫ Non-violence

c. Service delivery
⚫ Provision of health services
⚫ High quality physical, psychosocial and service environments in schools set the
stage for learning to occur.
⚫ This learning begins with quality content.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson41
QUALITY OF EDUCATION-IV
TOPIC 134-136
Topic134,136 Components of Quality Education-I
3. Quality Content
QC refers to the intended and taught curriculum of schools. National goals for
education, and outcome statements that translate those goals into measurable
objectives, should provide the starting point for the development and implementation
of curriculum. Student-centered, non-discriminatory, standards-based curriculum
structures. Curriculum should emphasize:
⚫ Deep rather than broad coverage of important areas of knowledge
⚫ Authentic and contextualized problems of study
⚫ Problem-solving that stresses skills development as well as knowledge acquisition.
Curriculum should:
⚫ Provide for individual differences
⚫ Closely coordinate and selectively integrate subject matter
⚫ Focus on results or standards and targets for student learning.
Curriculum structure should be:
a. Gender-sensitive and inclusive of children with diverse abilities and backgrounds,
responsive to emerging issues.
Uniqueness of local and national content
The specific content of school curriculum depends on local and national values.
Literacy
Literacy, or the ability to read and write, is often considered one of the primary goals
of formal education.
d. ````
Numeracy encompasses a range of skills from basic arithmetic and logical reasoning to
advanced mathematics and interpretative communication skills. Numeracy skills:
1. Give people more control in their daily lives through, for example, more informed
management of household or small enterprises.
2. Allow for more effective participation in communities and nations, since
understanding many collective issues requires an ability to make sense of financial
and other quantitative data.
e. Life skills
UNICEF defined as “psycho-social and interpersonal skills used in every day
interactions…not specific to getting a job or earning an income”. It focuses on attitudes,
values and behavioral change, rather than seeking to provide young people with a body
of knowledge about a set of topics.
f. Peace education
Seeks to help students gain the ability to prevent conflict, and to resolve conflict
peacefully when it does arise, whether on the intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup,
national or international level.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Challenges in reaching large numbers of children with quality content

Teachers often find curricular integration and inter-disciplinarily difficult, especially
when the teacher does not have a role in curriculum design. Subjects that do not appear
on important examinations are not always taken seriously. Social attitudes towards the
subject may not be favorable, and cultural patterns are difficult to change. Ideas
conceived in other regions of the world may not be adequately adapted to the local
context. Political and economic instability can lead to discontinuity in policies and
programs, as well as teacher and administrator turnover.
4. Quality Processes
Until recently, much discussion of educational quality centered on system inputs, such
as infrastructure and pupil-teacher ratios, and on curricular content. Presently, more
attention has been paid to educational processes i.e. how teachers and administrators
use inputs to frame meaningful learning experiences for students. Their work represents
a key factor in ensuring quality school processes.
a. Professional learning for teachers
Quality teachers should have mastery of both their subject matter and pedagogy.
Command over subject and the ability to use that knowledge to help students learn. It
affects educational quality since student achievement.
Teachers need to have pre-entry training.
b. Teacher competence and school efficiency
Efficient use of school time has a significant impact on student learning. Teachers’
presence in the classroom represents the starting point. Different reasons for inefficient
use of time. Coming late and leaving early. Missing school altogether. Having second
job (detracts time and energy). While in school attending to administrative duties or no
instructional processes.
c. Ongoing professional development
Professional development can help overcome shortcomings that may have been part of
teachers’ pre-service education. Keep teachers abreast of new knowledge and practices
in the field. Can have a direct impact on student achievement.
d. Continuing support for student-centered learning
Teacher education, both pre-service and in-service, should help teachers develop
teaching methods and skills that take new understandings of how children learn into
account. Just presentation of knowledge no longer fits with current understandings of
how and what students learn. Instruction should help students build on prior knowledge
to develop attitudes, beliefs and cognitive skills; as well as expand their knowledge
base.
e. Active, standards-based participation methods
Education that supports and empowers both teachers and students through democratic
processes increasingly defines quality in the 21st century empowering student-centered
education. It promotes critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and community
involvement.
f. Teacher feedback mechanisms
Good teachers are skilled not only in instructional methods, but also in evaluation and
assessment practices. It helps to gauge individual student learning and adapt activities
according to student needs. This process should include both performance assessment
and assessment of factual knowledge.
g. Teacher beliefs that all students can learn
Pupils’ failure not to be blamed on the pupils and their family environment.
h. Teachers’ working conditions
All job-related aspects affect teachers’ ability to provide quality education.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

5. Quality Outcomes
The environment, content, and processes that learners encounter in school lead to
diverse results, some intended and others unintended. Quality learner outcomes are
intentional, expected effects of the educational system.
a. Achievement in literacy and numeracy
Teaching students to read, write and calculate is often considered the primary purpose
of formal education. Nevertheless, students’ regular attendance and attention in school
does not guarantee this outcome. Researches underscore the critical relationship
between outcomes and the quality of environments, contents and processes.
b. Using formative assessment to improve achievement outcomes
Testing information tends to be used primarily as a screening device to decide who can
continue to the next grade of level rather than as a tool to help improve educational
quality for individuals and systems. Assessment of student performance can provide
teachers with the information they need to improve student learning.
c. Outcomes sought by parents
Parents tend to see academic achievement as closely related to the opportunity for social
promotion and employment. Parents who view education unfavorably cite the
following potential outcomes:
⚫ Children do not respect their parents,
⚫ School leavers consider themselves superior to their fellow villagers,
⚫ School leavers become delinquents,
⚫ Girls object to the traditional rules governing marriage, and
⚫ School girls do not master the required domestic duties
d. Outcomes related to community participation, learner confidence and life-long
learning
Academic achievement is often used as an indicator of school quality because it is easily
measurable using standardized tests, while other outcomes may be more complex and
less tangible. These include:
⚫ Education for citizenship (participating in and contributing to the community,
learner confidence and self-esteem), and
⚫ Skills for behavioral development and change.
e. Experiential approaches to achieving desired outcomes
Experiential community-based approaches that lead to these results. Education and
Participation in a project like the Social Forestry. Students learn about forest
management.
f. Health outcomes
Educational quality also implies positive outcomes for participants’ health. Students
should receive services to improve their health. General literacy and socialization
provided by schools have been shown in particular to affect women’s maternal behavior
and reproductive health.
g. Life-skills and outcomes
Psychosocial and interpersonal skills can be applied to many contexts —HIV/AIDS
prevention, drug abuse prevention, nutrition and hygiene behavior and many non-health
contexts as well. However, these skills are better assessed within a particular context.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson42
INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION
TOPIC 137-139
Topic137 Introduction
One billion reasons for investing in education. Improving the futures of all children is
the most important reason to invest in education. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (article 26) states that education is an inherent right:
“Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the
elementary and fundamental stages.”
The Convention on the Rights of the Child asserts children’s right to education in
article 28, and states in article 29 that:
“The education of the child shall be directed to … development of the child’s
personality, talents and physical abilities to their fullest potential.”
Growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s
most disadvantaged citizens – addressing inequity – not only will give all children the
opportunity to fulfil their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability
of countries. Despite common agreement about children’s right to education, millions
are still excluded. When the time comes to make choices, education is too often
considered less important, or even a luxury. There is evidence of the positive impact
education has on individuals, families and nations, both in terms of:
⚫ National income
⚫ Economic growth and poverty reduction
⚫ In human development outcomes such as health, fertility, women’s empowerment,
risk management, individual and community resilience, civic engagement and
increased tolerance.
The level of education that should be prioritized in times of budget constraints depends
on the overall development of the country. Good-quality pre-primary, primary and
lower secondary education – basic education – is the level that most influences equity
and economic and human development in low-income countries. In middle-income
countries, on average, the secondary level (general and vocational/ technical) has the
most effective economic impact in high-income countries, tertiary-level education is
the most cost-effective in economic terms.

Topic138 Economic Returns

Among the most often cited rationales for education is its impact on:
⚫ Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita
⚫ Individual earnings and
⚫ Poverty reduction.
This relationship has been well analyzed for decades, now, there remains little doubt
about education’s causal role. Three main ways to estimate economic returns to
education:
1. Macro-estimated cross-country regression models, which assess the association
between one additional year of education on average and national economic
income (GDP per capita or GDP per capita growth)
2. Use of the rates of return, which compare the additional costs and earnings
associated with an increase in individuals’ number of years of education.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

3. Estimation of the association between average years of education and poverty

incidence.
Education and national economic income
The evidence that education is a driver of national economic growth has been
extensively studied and is well accepted. Studies confirm that additional years of
education have a significant influence on GDP per capita or its growth. Providing more
education, knowledge and skills to individuals of a country, accumulating human
capital, increases their productivity and employability, which in turn increases the
overall income and development of the country. Calculations show that each additional
year of education is associated with an 18 per cent higher GDP per capita. There is a
correlation between increasing the education level in a country, measured by average
years of education, and decreasing income inequality.
Rates of return (private)
Rates of return are typically estimated by comparing the increase in individuals’ labor
market earnings (benefits) from the completion of an additional year of education
with its increased costs.
Adults with higher education levels have, on average, higher incomes.
Globally, the average private return for one additional year of education was found to
be a 10 per cent increase in income, according to computations from more than 800
surveys in 139 countries. The returns are generally higher in low- or middle-income
countries than in high-income countries.
Education, poverty, and equity
Higher levels of education are associated with lower poverty rates. The correlation
between average years of education for young adults aged 25–34 and poverty incidence,
measured as the percentage of the population living on less than $2 per day in terms of
purchasing power parity. Research shows that on average, for each additional year of
education among young adults, poverty rates were 9 per cent lower. Ravalli on (2001)
used data from 47 developing countries to show that for any given rate of economic
growth, poverty reduction was significantly associated with greater income equality.
More inclusive education – with equitable educational opportunities for all – has the
potential to be an important driver of inclusive growth. There should be a focus on
inclusive economic growth where all segments of society have equitable opportunities:
• Inclusive growth is not just inherently fairer, but also a more effective
investment for countries on the path of development.
Topic139 Human Development Returns Education benefits are often measured in
economic terms, such as increased income and reduced poverty. Far-reaching effects
are found in the health and social areas. Educated people and their children tend to be:
• Healthier
• More empowered regarding their own lives and their society
• Socially more tolerant and resolution-seeking.
Social impacts are linked to women’s education, hence, the importance of girls’
education for future social welfare.

Child mortality, prenatal care and family formation

Prenatal care is one factor related to this remarkable outcome. Education is linked to
the likelihood that a pregnant woman will see a health-care professional for prenatal
visits, whereas the likelihood is lower if she has no education. After they are born,
children of more educated mothers are more likely to:
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

• Receive vaccines
• See a doctor if they are sick
• Receive rehydration if they have diarrhea
• Sleep under insecticide-treated nets and
• Benefit from other health-related practices.
Education also delays childbirth, which improves health outcomes of pregnancy for
both the mother and the child. Women’s education is correlated with decreases in
overall fertility rates. Women with primary education have, on average, 0.7 fewer live
births than women with no education. The effects for secondary education are even
greater:
• Women with secondary education have, on average, 2.3 fewer children than
women with no education.
Adult health, life expectancy and HIV/AIDS Education’s influences are felt long after
youth and continue through all age groups. Prenatal care is one factor related to this
remarkable outcome. Education is linked to the likelihood that a pregnant woman will
see a health-care professional for prenatal visits, whereas the likelihood is lower if she
has no education. After they are born, children of more educated mothers are more
likely to:
• Receive vaccines
• See a doctor if they are sick
• Receive rehydration if they have diarrhea
• Sleep under insecticide-treated nets and
• Benefit from other health-related practices.
Disability
Disabled children may have fewer educational opportunities. There is some evidence
that suggests that less education itself leads to higher disability rates. Through lower
access to health care, higher-risk jobs or unsafe health-related behaviors. Adults with
disabilities may not consider themselves disabled as children. But as adults, education-
level differences suggest that the lack of education somehow has an impact on
disability.
Empowerment and civic engagement
Higher education levels lead to higher empowerment and civic engagement importance
of education for understanding of and support for democracy, participation in civic life,
tolerance for people of a different race or religion, and concern for the environment and
adaptation to climate change.
Resilience and social cohesion
Education is crucial for fostering more cohesive societies and mending the social fabric
that may have been damaged by conflict and violence. Education can help children,
communities and systems become resilient against conflict and disasters by building
capacities and skills that will enable them to manage and resolve tensions and conflict
peacefully.

Inter-generational effects
One of the most important effects of education is its impact on future generations. At
the individual level, education provides people with an increased likelihood to break
the cycle of poverty. At the national level, education leads to economic growth, which
provides countries with more resources to educate children. It also leads to lower birth
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

rates, which makes it easier to accommodate all children in schools. A national increase
in education creates better conditions to educate further generations.
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Lesson43
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN EDUCATION-I
TOPIC 140-142
Topic140 SDG 4 of SDGs 2030
In the year 2015, leaders from 193 countries of the world came together to face the
future. What they saw was daunting: Famines. Drought. Wars. Plagues. Poverty. Not
just in some faraway place, but in their own cities and towns and villages.
⚫ They knew things didn’t have to be this way.
⚫ They knew we had enough food to feed the world, but that it wasn’t getting shared.
⚫ They knew there were medicines for HIV and other diseases, but they cost a lot.
⚫ They knew that earthquakes and floods were inevitable, but that the high death tolls
were not.
They also knew that billions of people worldwide shared their hope for a better future.
So, leaders from these countries created a plan called the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). This set of 17 goals imagines a future just 15 years off that would be rid
of poverty and hunger, and safe from the worst effects of climate change.
“Sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” Brandt and
Commission Report (1987)
It is an ambitious plan.
1. No Poverty
End extreme poverty in all forms by 2030
2. Zero Hunger
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable
agriculture. In the past 20 years, hunger has dropped by almost half. Many countries
that used to suffer from famine and hunger can now meet the nutritional needs of their
most vulnerable people. It’s an incredible accomplishment. Now we can go further and
end hunger and malnutrition once and for all.
3. Good Health and Wellbeing
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Quality Education
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all
5. Gender Equality
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Clean Water and Sanitation
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sustainable for all
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and
foster innovation
10. Reduced Inequalities
Reduce inequality within and among countries
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11. Sustainable Cities and Communities

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Responsible Production, and Consumption
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Climate Action
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Life Below Water
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable
development
15. Life on Land
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainable
manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt
biodiversity loss
16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access
to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Partnerships for the Goals
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for
sustainable development
Topic141-142 Sustainable Development Goal 4-Targets
SDG 4. Quality Education
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all UNESCO took the view that education for sustainable
development should “integrate into the teaching and learning process the key themes of
sustainable development, such as:
⚫ Climate change
⚫ Prevention of natural risks
⚫ Biodiversity
⚫ Poverty reduction or sustainable consumption.
Focus on the adoption of participatory pedagogical methods aimed at motivating and
empowering learners to change their behavior and become actors of sustainable
development.
The Sustainable Development Goal 4 targets
1. By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary
and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.
2. By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood
development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary
education.
3. By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality
technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.
4. By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant
skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and
entrepreneurship.
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5. By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all
levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons
with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.
6. By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and
women, achieve literacy and numeracy.
7. By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to
promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for
sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality,
promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and
appreciation of cultural diversity, and of culture’s contribution to sustainable
development.
To achieve the end targets, following associated targets have been stipulated:
a. Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability, and gender
sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning
environments for all.
b. By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to
developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island
developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education,
including vocational training and information and communications technology,
technical, engineering and scientific programs, in developed countries and other
developing countries.
c. By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through
international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially
least developed countries and small island developing States.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson44
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN EDUCATION-II
TOPIC 143-145
Topic143 A Humanistic Approach to Education
The changes in the world today are characterized by new levels of complexity and
contradiction. These changes generate tensions for which education is expected to
prepare individuals and communities by giving them the capability to adapt and to
respond. Needs rethinking education and learning. Rethinking is inspired by a
humanistic vision of education and development. Humanistic education is couched in:
⚫ Respect for life and human dignity
⚫ Equal rights
⚫ Social justice
⚫ Cultural diversity
⚫ International solidarity
⚫ Shared responsibility for a sustainable future.
These are the fundamentals of our common humanity. The aspiration of sustainable
development requires us to resolve common problems and tensions and to recognize
new horizons.
Challenges and Contradictions
Economic growth/creation of wealth vs. inequality, exclusion, violence. Economic
production and consumption vs. global warming, environmental degradation.
Strengthening of international human rights frameworks vs. implementation and
protection of these norms remain to be a challenge. Education must find ways of
responding to such challenges. Rethinking the purpose of education and the
organization of learning is urgent. A humanistic and holistic approach to education can
and should contribute to achieving new development model. A humanistic vision
reaffirms a set of universal ethical principles that should be the foundation for an
integrated approach to the purpose and organization of education for all. Looking for
the acquisition of education in the service of our common community. Central concern
of education for:
⚫ Inclusiveness (no exclusion, marginalization)
⚫ Transformation of the global learning landscape
⚫ Facilitating learning for the sustainable development of all.
Must go beyond the strictly utilitarian vision and the human capital approach. Education
is not only about the acquisition of skills; it is also about:
⚫ Acquisition of values of respect for life and human dignity required for social
harmony in a diverse world.
⚫ Education to follow a humanistic approach to learning throughout life for social,
economic and cultural development.
The concept of humanism in education implies:
⚫ Sustaining and enhancing the dignity, capacity and welfare of the human person in
relation to others, and to nature.
The humanistic values of education include:
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

⚫ Respect for life and human dignity

⚫ Equal rights and social justice
⚫ Cultural and social diversity
⚫ A sense of human solidarity and shared responsibility for our common future.
Reject learning systems:
That alienate individuals and treat them as commodities, and of social practices that
divide and dehumanize people. Educate in such values if we are to achieve
sustainability and peace. Sustaining and enhancing the dignity, capacity, and welfare of
the human person in relation to others, and to nature, should be the fundamental purpose
of education in the twenty-first century.

Topic144 Ensuring Inclusive Education SDG4A

Significant progress has been made in ensuring the right to basic education since 2000.
Driven partly by the Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals
(MDG) frameworks. Still lot more to be done. Significant inequalities among countries
persist and national averages in many countries mask striking inequalities within
countries in levels of attainment and outcomes in basic education. Children with
disabilities are often overlooked.
Gender equality in Basic Education
Despite progress in gender equality, majority of out-of-school children are girls, while
two-thirds of youth and adults with low levels of literacy in the world are women. To
help ensure women’s empowerment, boys and men must also be engaged in the fight
against gender inequality. Traditional factors of marginalization in education such as
gender and urban or rural residence continue to combine with income, language,
minority status and disability to create ‘mutually reinforcing disadvantages’,
particularly in low-income or conflict-affected countries.
Education as a potential equalizer
Education often reproduces inequalities, but it can also serve to equalize. Inclusive
educational processes are essential for equitable development, and this appears to be
true for various levels of educational provision.
Early childhood education
Research results demonstrate that early interventions for young children are essential
not only for their own well-being. They also have sustainable, long-term effects on the
development of human capital, social cohesion, and economic success.

Evidence shows that the most disadvantaged children experience the most dramatic
gains from good quality Early Childhood Development programs. Nevertheless, it is
exactly such children who are least likely to participate in these programs. Intervening
earlier requires fewer resources and less effort; at the same time, it is more effective.
Secondary education
Expansion of access to basic schooling worldwide has increased demand for secondary
and tertiary education and concern for vocational skills development. The expansion of
post-basic educational opportunities combined with pro-poor public policies have been
shown to reduce inequality:
⚫ Investment in education, labor market institutions and regulations can change
patterns of inequality.
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⚫ Increase in public expenditure on education is expected to rising secondary

enrolment and completion rates, and this is becoming a major determinant of the
fall in inequality.
Higher education
Access to higher education has shown a spectacular expansion over the past fifteen
years. Global enrolment in tertiary education has doubled since 2000 with today some
200 million students worldwide, half of whom are women. However, disparities based
on income and other factors of social marginalization remain widespread. Learners
from higher income groups have retained their relative advantage in access to tertiary
education across the world. Even in countries with high enrolment rates, the
participation of minorities continues to lag behind the national average. Most of the
growth in higher education has been and continues to be in the private sector. The
growing share of private institutions and the privatization of the public sector
worldwide have implications for access and equity.

Topic145 Global Governance of Education

Emerging Forms of Global Governance
Systems of norm-setting and regulation in the delivery of education are becoming more
complex. Traditionally these systems were the responsibility of national governments
and inter-governmental organizations. There is increasing participation by a range of
non-state actors. Progressive shift in the locus of authority from the state to the global
level. It is promoted not only by intergovernmental organizations but also increasingly
by civil society organizations. and think tanks.
Governance arrangements at the global level have become more complex, as illustrated
by multi-stakeholder arrangements such as the Global Partnership for Education. The
potential influence of global governance in education is more controversial than in other
development sectors such as health. Because of the fundamentally political nature of
national education policy and the multiple and intertwined ethical, cultural, economic,
social and civic dimensions it comprises.
Changing patterns of Educational Financing
As access to both basic and post-basic education expands, there is lot more pressure on
public financing of formal education and training systems. The resulting need is:
⚫ To seek more efficient use of the limited resources
⚫ To ensure greater accountability in the investment of public resources for education
⚫ To find ways to supplement them through greater fiscal capacity, advocacy for
increased official development assistance and new partnerships with non-state
actors.
Donors have traditionally played an important role in supplementing national public
spending, particularly for basic education. The share of international aid to public
education remains important for many low-income countries. Call for global collective
action, in particular for a funding mechanism that may supplement national public
expenditure for education as a global public good.
The Influence of Donors on National Policy-Making
Donors not only provide development aid; they also wield tremendous influence on
education policy. When donors impose conditions or rules for the giving of aid,
governments may be forced to change their policies accordingly. Donor financing by
results may be variant to national policies that take into account national aspirations,
priorities, contexts and conditions.
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Changing Dynamics of International Cooperation

As countries face increasingly similar difficulties (unemployment, inequalities, climate
change), there is now a call for universality and integration as essential features of the
future post-2015 development agenda. Universality indeed implies that all countries
will need to change their development path, each with its own approach and according
to its own circumstances. This paradigm shift compels to think in terms of shared
responsibilities for a shared future.
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

Lesson45
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN EDUCATION-III
TOPIC 146-149
Topic146 Education as a Public Good
Public good: A concept found in market economics. A commodity or service that is
provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or by a
private sector. It is for the benefit or well-being of the public. Extrinsic use of good the
consumption of such a good lead to no subtractions from any other individual’s
consumption of that good. Those goods that, irrespective of any public or private origin,
are characterized by a binding destination and necessary for the realization of the
fundamental rights of all people.
Growing call for Inclusion, Transparency and Accountability
A growing demand for voice in public affairs and for change in the modes of local and
global governance. It is also increasingly transnational and addresses issues of global
concern. A greater role is implied for non-state actors in the management of public
affairs at the local, national and global levels. Also true for education policy where both
public and private sectors have a stake in the building of inclusive knowledge societies.
Increased voice having an impact on curricula frameworks, textbooks, and policies
concerning affirmative action.
Growing Private Engagement in Education
The privatization of education is growing at all levels of provision across the world.
The trend towards the privatization of education is growing at all levels of provision
across the world. The privatization of education Is the process of transferring activities,
assets, management, functions and responsibilities relating to education from the state
or public institutions to private individuals and agencies.
The Impact of Privatization on the Right to Education
The privatization of education can have a positive impact for some social groups, in the
form of:
⚫ Increased availability of learning opportunities
⚫ Greater parental choice, and
⚫ A wider range of curricula.
Negative effects can be:
Insufficient or inadequate monitoring and regulation by the public authorities (schools
without licenses, hiring of untrained teachers and absence of quality assurance), with
potential risks for social cohesion and solidarity. ‘Marginalized groups fail to enjoy the
bulk of positive impacts and also bear the disproportionate burden of the negative
impacts of privatization.’ Uncontrolled fees demanded by private providers could
undermine universal access to education. On the enjoyment of the right to a good
quality education and on the realization of equal educational opportunities.
Supplemental private tutoring, or ‘shadow education’ emerges. The reproduction and
possible worst inequalities of learning opportunities. It raises important questions about
the notion of education as a public good and about the role of the state in ensuring the
right to education.

Re-Contextualizing the Right to Education

The principle of education as a fundamental human right that enables the realization of
other human rights is grounded in international normative frameworks. The state must
act as a guarantor of the right to education. Given this growing demand for post-basic
Sociology of Education-SOC602 VU

education and for lifelong learning, how are the principles of the right to education to
be understood and applied? How does it differ from the right to basic (compulsory)
schooling in terms of entitlements of rights-claimants and responsibilities of duty-
bearers?
What are the responsibilities and obligations of the state at post-compulsory levels of
education, whether upper secondary education, higher education, and technical and
vocational education at secondary and tertiary levels? How can responsibility be shared
while preserving the principles of non-discrimination and equality of opportunities in
access to post-basic levels of education and training?
Blurring of Boundaries Between Public and Private
Education is often referred to as a public good in international education discourse. The
primary responsibility of states in the provision of public education is increasingly
being contested. The multiplication of stakeholders is blurring the boundaries between
public and private education. The nature and degree of private engagement in
educational provision is blurring the boundaries between public and private education.
Emerging forms of the private are changing the nature of education from a public to
private (consumer) good. In the rapidly changing relationship of society, state and
market, how can the core principle of education as a public good be protected in the
new global context?

Topic147 Education as a Common Good

The common good may be defined as ‘constituted by goods that humans share
intrinsically in common and that they communicate to each other, such as values, civic
virtues and a sense of justice.’ It is ‘a solidarity association of persons that is more than
the good of individuals in the aggregate.’ The common good is inherent to the
relationships that exist among the members of a society tied together in a collective
endeavor. The concept of common good goes beyond the limits of the ‘public good’ in
at least three ways:
1. The notion of common good goes beyond the instrumental concept of the public
good in which human well-being is framed by individualistic socio-economic
theory.
It is not only the ‘good life’ of individuals that matters, but also the goodness of the life
that humans hold in common. It cannot be a personal or parochial good. The notion of
education as a ‘common good’ reaffirms the collective dimension of education as a
shared social endeavor (shared responsibility and commitment to solidarity).
2. Define common good with regard to the diversity of contexts and conceptions of
well-being and common life.
Diverse communities will therefore have different understandings of the specific
context of the common good. Public policy needs to recognize and nurture this diversity
of contexts, worldviews and knowledge systems, while respecting fundamental rights,
if it is not to undermine human well-being.
3. The concept emphasizes the participatory process, which is a common good in
itself.
The shared action is intrinsic, as well as instrumental, to the good itself, with benefits
derived also in the course of shared action. Education as a common good therefore
necessitates an inclusive process of public policy formulation and implementation with
due accountability. Participatory democracy. It goes beyond the policies of
privatization.
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Recognizing Education and Knowledge as Global Common Goods

Education is the deliberate process of acquiring knowledge and developing the
competencies to apply that knowledge in relevant situations. The development and use
of knowledge are the ultimate purposes of education. It is guided by principles of the
type of society to which we aspire. We must consider not only how knowledge is
acquired and validated but also how access to it can be made commonly available.
Knowledge is the common heritage of humanity. Knowledge, like education, must be
considered a global common good. If knowledge is considered only a global public
good, access to it is often restricted. The current trend towards the privatization of
knowledge production, reproduction and dissemination is a cause for serious concern.
Much of the knowledge we consider a public good, and which we believe belongs to
the knowledge commons, is actually being privatized.
Given the central concern for sustainable development in an increasingly
interdependent world, education and knowledge should thus be considered global
common goods. This means that the creation of knowledge, its control, acquisition,
validation, and use, are common to all people as a collective social endeavor. The
governance of education can no longer be separated from the governance of knowledge.

Topic148-149 The Way Forward

As part of SDGs 2030 there is new vision for education. Vision is to transform lives
through education:
⚫ Education as the main driver of development and in achieving the other proposed
SDGs.
SDG4 proposed:
'Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all.' SDG 4 is inspired by a humanistic vision of education and
development that is based on:
⚫ Human rights and dignity
⚫ Social justice
⚫ Inclusion
⚫ Protection
⚫ Cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity
⚫ Shared responsibility and accountability.
Education is considered:
⚫ A public good
⚫ A fundamental human right
⚫ A basis for guaranteeing the realization of other rights.
It is essential for peace, tolerance, human fulfillment and sustainable development.
Issues of educational policy-making in a complex world.
1. Need to recognize and to respond to the gap between formal education and
employment.
2. Must face the challenge of recognizing and validating learning in a world of
increasing mobility across borders, professional occupations and learning spaces.
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3. Rethink citizenship education, balancing respect for plurality with universal values
and concern for common humanity.
4. Consider the complexities of national policymaking in education, together with
potential forms of global governance.
There is need to re-contextualize foundational principles for the governance of
education, particularly the right to education and the principle of education as a public
good. UNESCO proposed that:
⚫ Greater attention be paid in education policy to knowledge, and to the ways in
which it is created, acquired, validated and used.
⚫ Considering education and knowledge as global common goods could be a useful
approach to reconciling the purpose and organization of learning as a collective
societal endeavor in a changing world.
Considerations for the Future
UNESCO, as an international organization, has a global observatory and normative
function qualifying it to promote and guide global public policy debate. In considering
the way forward and as a call for dialogue, UNESCO has proposed the following
questions for further debate:
⚫ While the four pillars of learning – to know, to do, to be, and to live together – are
still relevant, they are threatened by globalization and by the resurgence of identity
politics. How can they be strengthened and renewed?
⚫ How can education respond to the challenges of achieving economic, social and
environmental sustainability?
⚫ How can a plurality of worldviews be reconciled through a humanistic approach to
education?
⚫ How can such a humanistic approach be realized through educational policies and
practices?
⚫ What are the implications of globalization for national policies and decision
making in education?
⚫ How should education be financed?
⚫ What are the specific implications for teacher education, training, development and
support?
⚫ What are the implications for education of the distinction between the concepts of
the private good, the public good, and the common good?
Humanity has entered a new phase in its history with increasingly rapid developments
in science and technology. These have both utopian and dystopian possibilities. To
benefit in an emancipatory, just, and sustainable way, we must understand and manage
the opportunities and the risks. Making this possible should be the fundamental purpose
of education and learning in the twenty-first century. UNESCO, as an intellectual
agency and think tank, can provide the platform for such debate and dialogue. In this
way it will help enhancing our understanding of new approaches to education policy
and provision, with the aim of sustaining humanity and its common well-being.