Soc 346 Study Guide - Soc 346 Study Guide(exam 1 In Class...

Soc 346 Study Guide (exam 1)
In Class:
• Educational Expansion
• Changes in rates of high school and college completion
 1950-34% of 25 year olds had completed high school
• 6% completed college
 2001-84% completed high school
• 26% college
 Asking a lot more of educational system but with less resources
• Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Social Reproduction v Social Mobility
 Social Reproduction
• People likely to end up in positions similar to that of their parents
 Social Mobility
• People end up in higher or lower position
o Schools and status cultures
 Max Weber
• Status group-makes up social order, social honor, lifestyle
• Social class-economic order
o Often these two overlap
• Schools maintain “status cultures”
• Education system justifies existing status groups that already exist
o Social Reproduction
o 0>E>D path diagram
 Father’s occupational status and level of education(origins-O)
 Person’s own educational attainment level (education-E)
 One’s own occupational destinations(dest-D)
o Mobility (Ralph Turner 1960’s)
 Ideal Types
• Contest mobility(U.S.)
o Contest for elite systems
o Relatively “open” to all
o Those who earn elite status get it
o Multiple elites (opens up to competition)
o No early or premature judgments of status

o Always the hope “chance” because of delayed decision
making
• Sponsored mobility(Britain)
o Established elite group
o Established elite choose future elites and “sponsor” them
o Early determination of “talent”
o Early selection and sorting
o Training is geared towards one’s adult status
o Diff kids get diff education
o Train the masses to see elites as having superior
competence
• Consequences
o US.
 Discouragement (failure)
 Unrealistic expectations
o Britain
 Unrecognized talent
 Possibility of revolt
 Higher dropout rates
• Human, Social, and Cultural Capital theories
o Social closure and the relationship between human and social capital
o What educational phenomena they help explain/examples of research showing the
benefits of each.
• Credentialism
o What credentials “signal” to employers
 They have the necessary knowledge and socialization to be good workers
• School funding and school segregation
o How much variation within/between states?
 Large differences in funding between schools in poor and wealthy
communities
• Districts range of funding is often more important to pay attention
to than the differences between states
• Almost half the districts spend less than $6000 per student per year
• The amount per pupil is highly dependent upon the wealth of the
community the school is in
o Relationships between student poverty and school funding
 The higher the level of poverty, the less money per student
 Kids in poverty face a lot of obstacles
• Poorly funded schools is one of them
o