...groups (20 marks) * Decode = The meanings of encoding/decoding, it is how media messages are produced, circulated and consumed by the nation, proposing a new theory of communication. Stuart Hall (cultural theorist) argued that the meaning is not fixed or determined by the sender, the message is never transparent. There is a “ lack of fit “ between the moment of the production of the message ( which is referred to as ENCODING ) and the moment of its reception ( which is referred to as DECODING ). The meaning of the text is located between the producer and the reader. The producer – encoder ‘ encoded ‘ meaning in a certain way, while the reader decoder – ‘ decodes ‘ it differently according to his/her personal background, beliefs and values. * Interactionists Labelling Theory = ‘ Interactionism ‘ is a sociological perspective that focuses on a small-scale interactions between individuals and groups. And ‘ Labelling Theory ‘ is the theory of how the self-identity – ( what someone thinks of themselves. E.g what they are, who they are e.t.c ) and behaviour of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. As we are talking about ‘ Interactionists Labelling Theory ‘ meaning that the only relevant meaning in this case, is the small group interactions and how they interact together and how the label themselves and the people in their small groups, also, what their beliefs and values are. * A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy...
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...Functionalist’s accounts of education Functionalism is based on the view that society is a system of interdependent parts held together by a shared culture or value consensus. Each part of society, such as family, economy or the education system in this case, performs functions that help to maintain society as a whole. For some sociologists/functionalists, such as Durkheim or Parson for example, the real function of education is to act as a means of promoting consensus, by socialising people into the norms that are seen to be important in a particular society. An example is to instruct on authority relationships, on the ‘correct’ behaviour in public spaces and values, for example hard work, honesty and ambition. To other sociologists, education can be seen as a source of conflict or social division, particularly when issues of gender, class and ethnicity are put under the sociological microscope. The founder of functionalist sociology and French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1903) identified two main functions of education; these are creating social solidarity and teaching specialist skills. Durkheim argues that society needs a sense of solidarity, meaning that its individual members must feel themselves to be part of a single body or community. The education system helps to create social solidarity by transmitting society’s culture, its shared beliefs and values, from one generation to the next. An example of this is that Durkheim argues that the teaching of a country’s history...
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...differences in educational achievement. * EMA – Educational Maintenance Allowance: The scheme was created to offer an allowance to those on college to encourage them to continue with the education system. An additional benefit of this was to potentially enable those on low incomes to afford to continue with an education in reference to travel and resources. * Sure Start – Sure Start aims to work with parents to promote intellectual, social and physical development of babies and other young children. They do this by offering family support, health care and advice alongside play sessions for the children. * National Curriculum – This is aimed to reduce the social class differences because everyone is taught the same subjects which is perceived to give the same equal chances across the board. 3) Using materials from item A and elsewhere, assess the importance of cultural factors in causing social class differences in educational achievement. Pupils in education from a working class background (a pupil whose background includes a far more manual job) have a tendency to underachieve in education compared to pupils in education from a middle class background (one from a nonmanual background). Hence tend to gain lower GCSE results and don’t go on to further and higher education for example statistics show. Factors outside the school such as material deprivation and cultural deprivation as well as linguistic depravation can all affect achievement, and are all linked...
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...Sociological Theories A sociological theory is a set of ideas that provides an explanation for human society. Theories are selective in terms of their priorities and perspectives and the data they define as significant. As a result they provide a particular and partial view of reality. Sociological theories can be grouped together according to a variety of criteria. The most important of these is the distinction between Structural and Social action theories. Structural or macro perspectives analyses the way society as a whole fits together. Structural theory sees society as a system of relationships that creates the structure of the society in which we live. It is this structure that determines our lives and characters. Structured sets of social relationships are the 'reality' that lie below the appearance of 'the free individual' of western individualism. Structuralism focuses on the particular set of 'structural laws' that apply in any one society. Despite their differences, both functionalism and Marxism use a model of how society as a whole works. Many functionalists base their model of society around the assumption of basic needs and go to explain how different parts of society help to meet those needs. Marxists, on the other hand, see society as resting upon an economic base or infrastructure, with a superstructure above it. They see society as divided into social classes which have the potential to be in conflict with each other. However, the main differences...
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...In this essay, the view that social class differences in educational underachievement are the result of school processes such as labelling will be assessed. Internal and external factors will be assessed with the use of researchers such as: Bernstein, Bereiter & Engelmann, Keddie and Howard. Internal factors such as labelling have been shown to effect education achievement. To label someone is to attach a meaning or definition to them. Becker carried out a study on labelling on 60 Chicago high school teachers, and found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fit an image of the ideal pupil. The pupils work, conduct, and appearance were key factors to the teachers’ judgements. Becker found that middle class children were closer to the image of the ideal pupil whereas the working class children were furthest away and seen as badly behaved. Cicourel & Kituse’s study of educational counsellors in an American high school shows how this labelling can disadvantage working class student. They found that the way in which counsellors would assess the student’s suitability for courses. They judged students on the basis of their class and/or race. Where students would have the same grades, they work more likely to label middle class pupils as having college potential and to place them on higher level courses. Rist did a study on an American kindergarten and found that the teachers used information about the children’s home, background and appearance to place them...
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...Emile Durkheim. He believed society was made up of inter-connected institutions for an example education, family and government which depended on each other to function. Functionalists see society as being similar to the human body. In the same way the body relies on the heart to pump blood round to other vital organs like the lungs and brain. Functionalists see society as being constructed of different inter-dependent components like the family and education system. So in the same way the human body would fail if the heart stopped, functionalists’ argue society would stop working properly if the family stopped functioning properly. Functionalists say this would happen because the family is an institution in which primary socialisation occurs. Primary socialisation is where younger members of a family are taught societies norms, values, roles and beliefs, By having the same values which we all share, a value consensus is establish. Therefore we can see the family has a function in the social system. This perspective of society differed from other sociologists of his era as Durkheim's theories were founded on things external in nature, as opposed to those internal in nature, such as the motivations and desires of individuals. According to Durkheim, collective consciousness, values, and rules are critical to a functional society. The functionalist perspective on the education system Functionalists focus on the...
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...In the broadest perspective, education refers to all efforts to impart knowledge and shape values; hence, it has essentially the same meaning as socialization. However, when sociologists speak of education, they generally use a more specific meaning: the deliberate process, outside the family, by which societies transmit knowledge, values, and norms to prepare young people for adult roles (and, to a lesser extent, prepare adults for new roles). This process acquires institutional status when these activities make instruction the central defining purpose, are differentiated from other social realms, and involve defined roles of teacher and learner (Clark 1968). Schools exemplify this type of institutionalization. The central insight of the sociology of education is that schools are socially embedded institutions that are crucially shaped by their social environment and crucially shape it. The field encompasses both micro- and macro-sociological concerns in diverse subfields such as stratification, economic development, socialization and the family, organi zations, culture, and the sociology of knowledge. To understand modern society, it is essential to understand the role of education. Not only is education a primary agent of socialization and allocation, modern societies have developed formidable ideologies that suggest that education should have this defining impact (Meyer 1977). Durkheim (1977) was the intellectual pioneer in this field, tracing the historical connections...
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...and may can communicate abstract ideas, in addition to this it is context free. b) Identify three policies that governments have introduced to compensate for material and cultural disadvantage, apart from education priority areas. (6 marks) Firstly, one policy is Operation Head which is a multi-billion dollar scheme in the USA, its aim was planned enrichment of the deprived child’s environment in order to motivate them and help them to develop learning skills, the well-known television programme Sesame Street was part of Operation Head Start and it provided means of reaching young children and transmitting values and attitudes needed for educational success. Secondly there is the United Kingdom version of Operation Head Start, called Sure Start. Sure Start is a nationwide programme aimed at pre-school children and their parents. However, unlike Operation Head Start it also has non-educational goals, like improving the child’s health. Sure Start promotes physical, intellectual and social development so that they can flourish and be educational successes in the future. Finally, there are EAZs (Education Action Zones) There can be many zones in a community; each zone will be run by an action forum, made up of the local partners in the scheme, including the local education authority, local and national businesses, school governors, parents and other local and community groups. Overall they aim to maximise educational opportunities in rural and urban areas. c) Outline the ways...
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...(these are factors outside of the educational system, e.g. influences from home and the family background as well as cultural deprivation etc) but also internal factors (these are factors within schools and the educational systems, such as the relationship between teachers and pupils). In this essay I intend to explain the ways in which material deprivation can affect the educational achievement between different social classes. Material deprivation, an external factor refers to poverty and a lack of resources to succeed in education, such as; books, internet and adequate housing etc. It is the working class families who have a low income and inadequate housing that affects how a child does in their education. There are 3 features within material deprivation; 1) housing- working class families are more likely to live in poor housing with overcrowding, which means a lack of personal space that can lead to illnesses to spread within the house quicker meaning children are ill more often and taking time off school, resulting in underachievement. 2) Diet and health- compared to middle class families, the working class families tend to have a poor diet which leads to a low intake of energy and weak immune system. This all leads to absences in school due to the poor health which ultimately concludes in educational underachievement. Whereas a poor diet is never a concern for middle class families as they ensure their children have a balanced diet with enough...
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...Differences of Family Values in Chinese and American Cultures ABSTRACT This paper aims to make a contrastive study on family values in Chinese and American cultures from the three parts: the attitude to the family members and their relationships, marriage and family education. As the pace of the global economy integration accelerates, cross-cultural communication between China and America is becoming more and more frequent and important，and the research can undoubtedly help Chinese people and American people to further understand with each other and their family values and to avoid the unnecessary conflict caused by the misunderstanding and mistakes in cross-cultural communication. Key words: the differences of family values, filial piety, marriage, family education Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Literature Review 2 3 The Definitions of Family, Values and Family Values 3 3.1 The Definition of Family 3 3.2 The Definition of Values 3 3.2.1 The Decisive Values in Chinese Culture: Collectivism 3 3.2.2 The Decisive Values in American Culture: Individualism 4 3.3 The Definition of Family Values 4 3.4 The Meaning of Family to Chinese and Americans 5 4 Differences Between Chinese and Americans Family Values 5 4.1 The Attitude to the Family Members and Their Relationships 6 4.1.1 The Attitude to the Family Members and Their...
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...Glossary of Sociological Terms |11-Plus Exam |Examination introduced with the 1944 Education Act, sat by all pupils in the state sector| | |at the age of 11. If they passed they went to the selective Grammar School, or if they | | |failed to the Secondary Modern School. This exam still exists in some counties such as | | |Kent and also in Northern Ireland. | |12-Plus Exam |Exam made available only to a minority of 'high-flyers' in Secondary Modern schools, | | |offering a late chance to go to Grammar School at the age of 12. | |'30-30-40 society' |A term associated with Will Hutton to describe an increasingly insecure and polarised | | |society. The bottom 30 per cent is socially excluded by poverty from the rest of society.| | |The next 30 per cent live in fear and insecurity of falling into poverty. Only the top 40| | |per cent feel secure and confident. ...
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...Sociology and Family Family is the most important social institution in sociology today, as it helps to identify all human societies. Families are developed in different genre of society and can be defined as “a basic social unit consisting of parent(s) and their children, considered as a group of people living together or not. A typical family consists of a mother, father and their unmarried child or children. Today, families are separated into categories such as a single-parent families, stepfamilies, adopted families, grandparents or uncles or aunts raising another sibling child or children, and parents raising adult kids due to them moving back home or in need of the help to remain home; not to mention gay/lesbian couples are now allowed to have a family. Due to the uniqueness of every family, there will be some kind of similarities among the other. Whichever family type it is, one will find different perspectives as it relates to a family institution. In this paper, you will read about how the three society theories: functionalism, conflict and social interaction affect and the effect it has on families. You will also gain knowledge to find that social institutions are the results of social actions and also the causes of social actions. Families can be seen as a norm in a social relationship. This tradition is conducted and reinforced by religion, politicians, mass media and other indoctrinated natives. The diversity of a family structure has changed over the...
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...ignorance can never have a progressive and peaceful end. While Education and Human socio-economic development are concerned with each other thus, it's also important to understand the meaning...
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...are exploited by the bourgeoisie (the ruling-class), because they were not paid the full value of their work since the bourgeoisie kept surplus value. According to Marxism, family developed so that men were able to feel certain of the paternity of their children. Engels (Marxist) believes that marriage would allow men to control women's sexuality and minimise the chances of women having an affair. This is supported by Murdock (Functionalist) who believes there are 4 functions to the family, one being the sexual function, which states that family prevents disruption to society by limiting sexuality to monogamous relationships, therefore preventing any conflict that may arise from sexual desire. This suggests that Marxists believe that society created the idea of family in order for men to feel confident they are passing down their property to their biological offspring. In addition, Marxist Feminists believe that society is controlled by men and the ruling-class; and that family encourages the working-class to continue working for capitalists. Marxist feminists believe men control women due to their financial power, as a result of the inequalities within the economic unit. Benston claims women are used to producing and rearing cheap labour for employers. Also, childcare provided is unpaid and wives may also help husbands work at no costs. This suggests that Marxist Feminists believe family only...
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...disadvantages and as a qualitative method they are expressed through words and relay people’s thoughts, feelings and motivations. Unstructured interviews are interviews that don’t have certain questions meaning it’s more free and relaxed. They give us a deep understanding of the interviewee’s world because we can use the answers they give to shape our questions so that they are appropriate and relevant. However, using unstructured interviews can also cause problems, for example they take a long time to conduct. When looking at the advantages and disadvantages we need to look at how this effects what we are trying to research boys underachievement at school as this will affect whether the advantages and limitations are relevant to the study. A few advantages of using unstructured interviews when studying the underachievement of boys are that the informality of the interview allows the interviewer to gain the trust of the interviewee which is important in this example. Boys at school will not feel comfortable explaining their time at school and why they do/don’t enjoy school if the interviewer is very formal and makes them feel intimidated whereas by using an unstructured interview it allows the boys being interviewed and the interviewee feel more comfortable around each other meaning the boys will be more open and truthful allowing the researcher to gain more and to collect more accurate and in depth data. Another advantage of using this method when researching boys underachievement...
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