CSUSB / EDUC 695 / FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION / MURILLO

KEY TERMS AND DISCUSSION EXERCISES

Text:deMarrais, K.B. and LeCompte, M.D. The Way Schools Work: A Sociological Analysis of Education (third

edition). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999.

Directions:As you both read the text individually and subsequently meet weekly in groups, be prepared to:

1) Define and Discuss each Key Term; and

2) Choose the best answer for each Discussion Exercise, citing the page number that supports your choice.

e.g. Although some past studies indicate that those who enter education programs score higher on intelligence tests than the average college student, many other studies indicate that the standardized test scores and grade-point averages of teachers’ college graduates are among the lowest of all college programs.

True, p. 162

CHAPTER 2: THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLING

  1. Rationalization
  2. Formal Organization
  3. Bureaucracy
  4. Scientific Management
  5. Line Offices
  6. Staff Offices
  7. Site-Based and Shared Decision Making
  8. Professional Organizations and Unions

Differentiation (choose the best answer)?

a. Structural differences between the way children and adults participate in the educational process

b. Type and amount of training they have received and whether or not they are paid for their work

c. Quiet inside activities organized by adults, and noisy outside activities organized by children

d. How they enter and become participants in schools

e. Episodic nature of activity (segmented and encapsulated)

f. Whereas children are grouped by ability, adults are grouped by the length and type of this

g. Immediate extrinsic and intrinsic versus intangible or deferred

  1. Space
  2. Time
  3. People
  4. Employment
  5. Recruitment
  6. Rewards
  7. Training
  8. The physical decentralization of school systems leads to structural looseness, making direct supervision and control difficult, or what many social scientists refer to loose coupling? ___ True ___ False
  1. The U.S. school system is supervised and directed by a national Ministry of Education, like most other countries?

___ True ___ False

  1. Line offices occupy horizontal positions in the reporting structure responsible for tasks which are ancillary or consultative to the overall work of the organization, whereas Staff offices are the positions in an organization located in the vertical supervisory structure? ___ True ___ False
  1. Voluntary organizations like teachers’ unions and professional organizations have an interest in school, but are not directly affiliated with it. ___ True ___ False
  1. On one hand, parent groups can be perceived as a serious threat to the school because, as parents, they have legitimate access to school affairs, but on the other hand, the tenure of a child in a school is relatively short, and if parents cannot be discouraged, co-opted, intimidated, ignored, or otherwise resisted, school personnel can always merely wait until the children move, drop out, or graduate? ___ True ___ False
  1. In practice, states have given schools “full foundational funding,” enough to raise them to the level of funding of the wealthier districts? ___ True ___ False
  1. A common misconception is that federal dollars are a major source of educational revenue, in fact federal funds are never amounted to more than 8% and now are less than 4% of all educational resources? ___ True ___ False
  1. There are no explicit constitutional provisions for schooling, which is why states have assumed responsibility for public education? ___ True ___ False
  1. State monitoring of local graduating standards and instructional quality is rarely reinforced by regional non-governmental accrediting agencies? ___ True ___ False
  1. Bureaucracies are simple, horizontally structured social organizations? ___ True ___ False
  1. One characteristic of bureaucracy is that each task (function) the organization does has an individual, department, or group of people (structure) to carry it out? ___ True ___ False
  1. The influence of local businesses and industries is particularly powerful? ___ True ___ False
  1. Schools have multiple goals because they have multiple constituencies and clienteles, each with their own agenda and each pushing their own goals? ___ True ___ False
  1. Goal displacement occurs when procedural activities — the do’s, don’t’s, and how-to’s of organizational life — become more important than the reasons for which the organization was created. ___ True ___ False
  1. Beginning in the 1830's the middle and upper classes began to advocate that publicly supported instruction in basic literacy and morality be provided for economically disadvantaged children. The implicit purpose of this instruction was for the creation of a meritocratic society that allowed for social mobility? ___ True ___ False
  1. After World War II, global changes in the distribution of population, natural resources, trade, the labor market, and technology, as well as urbanization, industrialization, and changes in the labor force affected every facet of human existence and gave birth to modern society? ___ True ___ False
  1. The little red schoolhouse model was sufficient for relatively homogeneous small communities, but today more than 75% of the U.S. population lives in cities, where economic and ethnic diversity has exploded both the myth of the middle class and the myth of the melting pot? ___ True ___ False
  1. Frederick Taylor was an industrial engineer at the turn of the 20th century who was the chief opponent and critic of “Scientific Management?” ___ True ___ False
  1. Taylorism, which placed power in the hands of workers, argued that meticulous observation, testing, and record-keeping were not necessary? ___ True ___ False
  1. Schools are criticized for mirroring corporate America and for too closely resembling factories, and teachers for often completely accepting the legitimacy of business ideology? ___ True ___ False

Restructuring and Reform (choose the best answer)?

a. Attempted to first dismantle non-responsive, alienating, corrupt, top-heavy, and expensive bureaucracies, then make educational systems more responsive and accessible by reducing the size of the unit that people had to deal with daily and by locating administrators in the community it controlled

b. Has its origins in reports by a large number of federal commissions and study groups whose charge was to examine the supposed fragile state of schools, typified by the report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (1983)

c. Sought to improve performance by increasing the standards to be met for promotion and graduation

d. Proposed a major revamp of training programs — including eliminating the baccalaureate degree in teaching and extended the program by a year — and a variety of methods for stimulating better teaching, including differentiated staffing, merit pay, and other incentives

e. Devolves authority to a specific building principal, who is given far more control over the selection of curricula and instructional techniques, and sometimes over hiring and firing and budgetary matters

f. Gives additional power to other constituents in school — teachers, parents, and students

  1. Academic performance: the first wave of the excellence movement
  2. Site-based management
  3. Decentralization
  4. Shared decision making
  5. The “Excellence Movement”
  6. Teacher competence: the second wave of the excellence movement
  1. The terms empowerment and restructuring are almost always erroneously linked? ___ True ___ False
  2. Which are some of the alternative possibilities for school structure that are currently espoused?

a. Changing the school schedule

b. School choice

c. Keeping schools small

d. Privatization

e. Flexible groupings of students

f. a, b & c only

g. a through e

CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS: CURRICULUM AND THE STRATIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE

  1. Curriculum
  2. Sociology of Knowledge
  3. Sociology of Curriculum
  4. Reconceptualist Curriculum Theory
  5. Hidden Curriculum
  6. Ideology of Schooling
  7. Stratification of the Curriculum
  8. Ability Grouping
  9. Tracking
  10. The “Catholic School Effect”
  11. Transformative Pedagogy
  12. Networks and Coalitions
  1. Curriculum refers strictly to the planned course of study for what is to be taught in an educational institution, and does not refer to the unplanned experience provided to students? ___ True ___ False
  1. The central questions of critical theorists of curriculum is not how to manage knowledge, but what kinds of knowledge are included in the curriculum and whose interests are served? ___ True ___ False
  1. Implicit in the sociology of knowledge is the fact that humans construct and modify knowledge within their social interactions. Knowledge or truth is not an “objective” or fixed body of facts but is constructed by humans and therefore is value-laden. This conceptualization is, of course, antithetical to that of traditional curriculum theorists?

___ True ___ False

  1. In addition to the formally stated, explicit curriculum, there is an implicit, or hidden curriculum that imparts beliefs and values to students? ___ True ___ False

The Formal Curriculum (match each curriculum with its conceptualizations)?

a. The Humanist Curriculum

b. The Social Efficiency Curriculum

c. The Developmentalist Curriculum

d. The Social Meliorist Curriculum

  1. Developed from principles of scientific management, and prescribes different programs of study according to differences in students’ abilities as measured by standardized testing.
  2. Learning should be structured so that children enjoy what they are doing while learning, and should be taught when they are intellectually and emotionally ready to learn rather than in accordance with their chronological age.
  3. Students should facilitate social change by producing students who will fight inequities and oppression and make the world a better place.
  4. Originated in clinical and developmental psychology, and its focus is the individual learner rather than the needs of society or the importance of a particular body of knowledge.
  5. The purpose of schooling is to develop the intellect and power of reason by transmitting a core of the finest elements of the (Anglo) Western heritage to all members of society.
  6. Students are to move through school as quickly as possible, and to that end, the degree to which children can be kept “on task” becomes a measure of effective teaching.
  7. Students are provided with different perspectives on events and are encouraged to engage in critical examinations rather than merely reading texts and accepting the viewpoint of the author.
  8. The curriculum ignores the literature of non-European cultures and includes 20th-century American art and music only “if necessary.”
  9. The influence of all 4 of these curricula is likely to be visible in public schools, but this particular curriculum has had the strongest influence.
  1. When we discuss the stratification of the curriculum, we are not talking about a hierarchy of power? ___ True ___ False
  1. Stratification of the curriculum refers to today’s schools that are organized so that children are assigned a curricula according to the location and resources of the school, the age of the children, the number of children per classroom and — most important — the school’s expectations of how well those children will perform both in school and in future occupations? ___ True ___ False
  1. Ability grouping, or placing students according to their abilities as perceived by school personnel, does not take place in higher education? ___ True ___ False
  1. A single high school can have a tracking system with as many as 6 or 7 levels of basic academic courses. These courses share similar titles but their content and intellectual challenge differ significantly? ___ True ___ False
  1. Current research concludes that ability grouping and tracking really don’t have detrimental effects on students?

___ True ___ False

  1. As a whole, higher expectations are placed on lower track students because teachers understand they are not “college-bound,” and must perform better? ___ True ___ False
  1. Many middle- and upper-class parents argue that heterogenous grouping with slower students, who also are more likely to be disadvantaged or minority students, will retard the learning of their ostensible more advanced off-spring?

___ True ___ False

  1. Although higher track students do tend to perform better, research suggests that this is because they are taught more than students who are defined as “low achievers,” not because they are smarter? ___ True ___ False
  1. The “Catholic School Effect” refers to the fact that because Catholic schools are unable to support the number of tracks commonly found in public school, their students are forced to enroll in the only classes available: lower achieving – less rigorous – less academic oriented courses? ___ True ___ False
  1. Public schools offer so many nuances in courses, they actually reduce the initial differences in socioeconomic status and achievement that students bring with them to school? ___ True ___ False
  1. The hidden curriculum refers to the more covert effects of school organization and management, and consists of the implicit messages given to students about socially legitimated or “proper” behavior, differential power, social evaluation, what kinds of knowledge exist, which kinds are valued by whom, and how many students are valued in their own right. These messages are learned informally as students go about their daily life in schools?___ True ___ False
  1. According to some past research, the factory model still predominates for most students; only high status children systematically receive training whose hidden curriculum prepares them for professional work? ___ True ___ False

Alternative Curricula (match each curriculum with its conceptualizations)?

a. Democratic Education

b. Critical Pedagogy

c. Multicultural Education

d. Feminist Pedagogy

  1. Has been woven through discussions in the professional education literature since the 1960's, when social activists struggled against racial and gender oppression.
  2. Anti-racist, anti-sexist education that critiques both individual and structural forms of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination and that works toward social transformation.
  3. Proponents use John Dewey’s works as a theoretical base.
  4. Grown out of the work of critical theorists.
  5. Concerned with the experiences of women, particularly as related to differential power structures.
  6. Concerned with developing students’ critical abilities in order to work toward the transformation of society.
  7. Consistent with feminism and feminist theory.
  8. Schools could serve as social centers where people could build a spirit of cooperation and community as well as a sense of interdependence as they learn the critical thinking skills necessary for a democratic society.

CHAPTER 3: YOUTH CULTURE AND THE STUDENT PEER GROUP

  1. Peer Group
  2. Youth Culture
  3. Socialization
  4. Adolescence
  5. Liminality
  6. Cohort
  1. Peer group and youth culture are interchangeable and refer to the same phenomenon?

___ True ___ False

  1. The term youth culture comes from anthropology and is a broader term than peer group? ___ True ___ False

Developmental Factors in the Generation of Peer Groups (choose the best two answers for each)?

a. Not wanting to be different than your friends

b. A desire to transform the world and make it a better place

c. Role-modeling and trying on different identities exemplified by their friends or significant adult figures

d. Defiance to adult symbols of authority

e. A belief in invincibility, immortality and high ideals

f. A distaste for being similar to your parents

  1. & Conformity
  2. & Rebellion
  3. & Idealism
  1. Socialization of children in an industrialized society like the U.S. takes place exclusively by modeling the behavior of parents and family members? ___ True ___ False
  1. Adolescence is a fairly recent phenomenon produced primarily in modern industrialized societies? ___ True ___ False
  1. Adolescence is considered a liminal state because adolescents are neither children nor grown up, between and betwixt one identified social status? ___ True ___ False
  1. The more technologically advanced a society is, the less years children spend in schools? ___ True ___ False

Schooling and Adolescence (choose the best answer)?

a. To protect adult laborers from the cheaper and hence “unfair” competition of youthful workers

b. The ability to support oneself does not coincide with or closely follows puberty

c. Concentrated by age groups and segregated from contact with all adults but teachers and other school staff

d. Reinforces prohibitions against early marriage and parenthood

e. Mandated school attendance, where children spend less time exclusively in their family, neighborhood and close community

  1. Compulsory Schooling
  2. Age Grade Segregation
  3. Separation of Biological from Social Maturity
  4. Protective Custody
  5. Economic Dependence

83. The lack of clear-cut rites of passage has blurred the distinction between childhood and adulthood? ___ True ___ False

  1. Less children than ever are growing up in families that are very poor? ___ True ___ False
  1. Schools no longer operate as if most children have two heterosexual parents, one of whom is a full-time parent available for helping with homework, having parental consultations with teachers, making cookies, and other tasks?___ True ___ False
  1. As the lower-paying service sector of the labor market grows, opportunities for lucrative positions shrink and there is less room at the top of the economic ladder. Young people must reduce their aspirations in accordance with the reality of the more humdrum, less lucrative jobs available? ___ True ___ False
  1. In 1994 federal directed states to adopt a “zero-tolerance” policy on weapons at school under a gun-free schools law. Some states are setting up alternative schools to provide schooling for increasing numbers of students expelled under this law?

___ True ___ False

  1. One of the consequences of a “postponed generation” is that its members take less time to grow up and attain economic independence? ___ True ___ False
  1. Schools are organized to coincide with the natural impulses of children, and they usually involve a child’s favorite activities? ___ True ___ False
  1. Nowhere else but in schools is such a large group of non-criminals forced to remain in an institution for so long, a fact that makes children’s attitudes about their participation diverge markedly from that of adults? ___ True ___ False
  1. Acceptance involves internalization of the school’s promise that academic success and educational longevity will pay off? ___ True ___ False
  1. The important aspect of negotiators is that schooling has intrinsic rather than extrinsic value? ___ True ___ False
  1. Resistence to institutional constraints is more than simple misbehavior. It is principled, conscious, and ideological nonconformity which has its basis in philosophical differences between the individual and the institution?

___ True ___ False