Showing papers in "Sociology Of Education in 1987"

Social class differences in family-school relationships: the importance of cultural capital

Abstract: This paper summarizes a qualitative study of family-school relationships in white working-class and middle-class communities. The results indicate that schools have standardized views of the proper role of parents in schooling. Moreover, social class provides parents with unequal resources to comply with teachers' requests for parental participation. Characteristics offamily life (e.g., social networks) also intervene and mediate family-school relationships. The social and cultural elements of family life that facilitate compliance with teachers' requests can be viewed as a form of cultural capital. The study suggests that the concept of cultural capital can be used fruitfully to understand social class differences in children's school experiences. The influence of family background on children's educational experiences has a curious place within the field of sociology of education. On the one hand, the issue has dominated the field. Wielding increasingly sophisticated methodological tools, social scientists have worked to document, elaborate, and replicate the influence of family background on educational

The Political Construction of Mass Schooling: European Origins and Worldwide Institutionalization

Abstract: This paper examines the origins of state educational systems in Europe in the nineteenth century and the institutionalization of mass education throughout the world in the twentieth century. We offer a theoretical interpretation of mass state-sponsored schooling that emphasizes the role of education in the nation-building efforts of states competing with one another within the European interstate system. We show that political, economic, and cultural developments in Europe led to a model of the legitimate national society that became highly institutionalized in the European (and later, world) cultural frame. This model made the construction of a mass educational system a major and indispensable component of every modern state's activity. We discuss the usefulness of this perspective for understanding recent cross-national studies of education.

The Stratification of High School Learning Opportunities.

Abstract: This paper suggests that students' opportunities to learn may be stratified both between and within schools: Schools serving a more affluent and able clientele may offer more rigorous and enriched programs of study, and students in college-preparatory curricular programs may have greater access to advanced courses within schools. This notion is tested with a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of public school students from the High School and Beyond data base. The results show few between-school effects of school composition and offerings but important within-school influences of curriculum tracking and coursetaking. In most cases, the difference in achievement between tracks exceeds the difference in achievement between students and dropouts, suggesting that cognitive skill development is affected more by where one is in school than by whether or not one is in school.

Curriculum tracking and status maintenance

Abstract: Prior studies of the role of curriculum tracking in status maintenance have offered contradictory results, suggesting either that (1) tracking sorts children from different backgrounds into different curricular programs where they receive differential educational treatments; (2) tracking sorts children on the basis of ability rather than class background, thus facilitating social mobility; or (3) while tracking may sort children, it has little effect upon educational outcomes and thus has no role in status maintenance. This paper uses 1980s data from the High School and Beyond Study to estimate the effects of curriculum tracking over a two-year period on a number of dependent variables for students who have experienced only one track placement. The results show that there are substantial differences among students from different socioeconomic origins in ultimate track destination. Track location is modestly to moderately related to number of courses taken,. academic performance, educational and occupational aspirations, satisfaction with school, perceived values of friends, self-esteem, extracurricular participation and leadership, enrollment in postsecondary education, disciplinary climate, and teacher treatment. A reopening of the status maintenance hypothesis is suggested.

The Cultural Production and Reproduction of Gender: The Effect of Extracurricular Activities on Peer-Group Culture.

Abstract: Considerable attention has been given to the cultural reproduction of social-class differences in educational settings, but much less attention has been given to the processes by which gender differences are produced and reproduced. The few studies that have examined gender socialization in schools have focused primarily on the role of textbooks and formal instruction in the promotion of traditional gender roles. Since most middle schools and high schools also sponsor extracurricular activities, it is important to determine the role these activities play in the promotion of gender differences in values and behavior. In this paper, we examine the effect of athletic-related activities on the peer-group culture of students at a predominantly working-class middle school. We find that certain extracurricular activities influence the predominant male and female cultures of early adolescents. Since male athletic events are the main social events of the school, both male athletes and female cheerleaders have considerable visibility and are likely to be members of the elite group. Males and females are exposed to very different values through these activities. Male athletes are encouraged to be achievement-oriented and competitive, and cheerleaders are reminded of the importance of appearance and emotion management. These values are incorporated into the informal peer culture of the school, where they are further refined and applied to specific situations and behaviors.

The Effects of Community Colleges: Aid or Hindrance to Socioeconomic Attainment?.

Abstract: The community college is both important and controversial. It now enrolls 36 percent of all students in college. But there is much debate over whether it aids or hinders its students' socioeconomic attainment. This paper aims to measure the community college's effects and to explain how those effects are produced. In the first section, I critically synthesize research comparing the effects of community colleges and the effects of other postsecondary institutions on educational attainment and economic success. I conclude that baccalaureate aspirants entering community colleges attain less educationally and economically than comparable students entering four-year colleges. But community-college entrants seeking only subbaccalaureate vocational training seem to get more education than if they had entered a four-year college. However, the research allows no conclusion on which type of institution best promotes the economic success of subbaccalaureate aspirants. In the second section of the paper, I develop a model of the factors that impede the educational attainment of community-college entrants who aspire to a baccalaureate.

Student Passivity: A Study of Question Asking in K-12 Classrooms.

Abstract: This study examines the socialization of student question-asking behavior, one aspect of learning how to learn in school. Good (1981) argues that because of differential teacher feedback, some students learn to become intellectually passive in classrooms. The study documents students' self-initiated questions in an attempt to determine whether highand low-potential students learn different questioning skills. To examine this question, we developed a coding system to differentiate nine types of questions students in grades K-12 ask. The system also identified target students to allow comparisons of students by ability (teachers' ratings) and sex across different types of questions. Twelve observations were made in each of 22 classrooms. Findings indicate that students in grades K-12 asked similar numbers of questions; however, the distribution of those questions varied somewhat with grade level. Requests for meaningful explanations were relatively infrequent at all grade levels, and procedural questions were relatively frequent at all grade levels. Male kindergarten students and students perceived by teachers to be low-achieving asked many more questions than female kindergarteners and all high-achieving students. As age increased, female students asked about the same number of questions as male students; however, low-achieving students over time askedfewer questions than students at other achievement levels, which provides some support for Good's (1981) passivity model.

Ability grouping and sex differences in mathematics achievement

Abstract: desegregated and segregated schools. The results show that sex is a factor in the assignment of students to ability groups: Males are more likely than females to be assigned to the high-ability group. Nevertheless, the analyses do not reveal an effect of ability-group level on growth in mathematics achievement.

Residence, Migration, and School Progress.

Abstract: This paper seeks to clarify the effects of migration on the age-grade progress of children in school. The analysis is based on 3,334 teenagers living in the households sampled in the national 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. Results support the main hypothesis that the detrimental effect of a move on children's progress in school is a positive function of the cultural difference between the previous and the current places of residence, but only among teenagers with less-educated parents.

Girls academic achievements: single sex versus coeducational schools in Australia

Abstract: This paper compares the effects of parents' occupational status, teachers' encouragement for further study, and high school curriculum on girls' academic achievement in girls' schools and coeducational schools. Data on high school seniors were collected in two Australian states: Victoria and Queensland. We used multiple regression analysis to identify the most important predictors of year 12 academic success among girls at girls' schools and coed schools. In both states, we found that mother's education was the most important independent predictor of the type of school a girl attended. In one state, attendance at a girls' school was a significant predictor of a girl's exposure to key social influences, her enrollment in a science course in year 12, and her academic achievement. In the other state, however, the sex composition of the school did not affect academic achievement or selected antecedents.

Student Discipline and High School Performance.

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between student misbehavior and academic performance and the effects offamily structure and mother's employment on misbehavior and performance. Using panel data on high school sophomores from the High School and Beyond (HSB) survey, we estimate a number of linear panel models. The findings indicate that sophomores with low grades misbehave more as seniors than those with high grades. Academic achievement in the sophomore year has little effect on changes in misbehavior. Misbehavior, however, has negative effects on changes in grades and achievement test scores. Finally, living in a single-parent family and mother's employment negatively affect both achievement and behavior.

Children who do exceptionally well in first grade

Abstract: Children's progress in the early years of school is thought to be important for understanding their later achievement, but most sociological research carried out at the primary level skirts a broadly inclusive accounting of the social and personal processes that underlie early achievement. The study reported in this article aimed to fill part of that gap. It used a modified school process model to examine factors that contribute to unexpectedly large gains in verbal competence (outlier status) among a diverse and representative sample of urban first graders. A set of logistic regression analyses indicated that exceptionally high growth over the first grade is associated prominently with the characteristics of teachers (especially their job conditions) and two characteristics of students (personality/maturity and academic self-image). Background/family variables had a negligible impact, as did the students' first-quarter marks. For policy purposes, these findings are encouraging because it is more feasible to make changes in classrooms and in the climate of a school than in a family's educational status or parents' attitudes. Patterns of advantage and disadvantage across generations seem to be perpetuated mainly by socioeconomic differences in achievement in school; that is, children of the well situated tend to go further in school than do those of the less well off and, as a consequence, fare better in the labor market. These fundamental insights from the early status-attainment literature (Blau and Duncan 1967; Duncan and Hodge 1963) caused scholars who were curious about the transmission of inequality across generations to become interested in schools and how they work. And it was by this path that students' performance in school and their parents, teachers, and peers as agents of academic socialization entered the mainstream of the discourse on stratification. The first, and still most elegant, integration of these themes is the school-process model that was developed by Sewell and his colleagues (see Sewell and Hauser, 1980, for an overview). This framework gives primacy to the individual as a goal-oriented actor and examines the interpersonal and situational processes through which individual differences in achievement in secondary school arise. The advantages of middleclass youngsters in the competition for high levels of schooling stem, in large measure, from

Self-Selection in Japanese Junior High Schools: A Longitudinal Study of Students' Educational Plans.

Abstract: The U.S. educational system is viewed as a model of opportunity in many countries, but it may also have some undesirable consequences. Researchers find that youths' plans are often vague or inconsistent with their school performance and that these problems arise from confusion and cooling-out processes, which are treated as inevitable. Are they inevitable or are they a product of the U.S. educational system? This study examines how youths' plans are formed in the Japanese educational system, which is more conducive to the formation of clear and responsive plans. Using longitudinal data, we address four questions: (1) Are Japanese students' plans already stable by junior high? (2) Are their plans responsive to grade changes or are they constrained by confusion or cooling-out processes? (3) Does the rank of students' high schools affect their plans and mediate the effect of grades on their plans? (4) Do grades affect students' perceived vocational options? We examine whether junior high students are capable offorming clear and responsive plans in a system that conveys clear information, or whether confusion and cooling-out processes still obscure their plans. We also consider whether the Japanese selection system overdetermines youths' plans, including plans unrelated to academic achievement.

Microcomputers and Elite Boarding Schools: Educational Innovation and Social Reproduction.

Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu has argued that class position is maintained over time through what he calls strategies of reproduction. But most reproduction theory deals primarily with the effects of schools on the working classes; the role of the dominant classes in the process is seldom studied. The inevitability of change requires that elites adopt and channel innovation to retain control over emerging forms of knowledge. In this paper we examine how private secondary boarding schools and their students have responded to the emergence of microcomputers. Using field data from visits to 48 private secondary boarding schools and survey data from a sample of 2,475 students, we analyze the nature of computer facilities, the frequency of use, and the social attributes of frequent users at such schools. We distinguish between symbolic and instrumental acquisition of cultural capital and consider the implications of our findings for class reproduction.

A Reconsideration of the Impact of School Desegregation Programs on Public School Enrollment of White Students, 1968-76

Abstract: Franklin Wilson's lead article in the July 1985 issue of this journal addressed two central issues surrounding responses to desegregation programs in public schools. What are the timing and magnitude of the losses of enrollment of white students that accompany school desegregation? And, are losses sensitive to the specific features of plans-such as mandatory versus voluntary reassignments-or are they reactions only to increased interracial contact? A finding that the losses are temporary and result only from increased interracial contact says, in effect, that the design of programs is unimportant and that the costs of integration are transitory. In contrast, a finding that the losses are permanent and that the losses resulting from mandatory reassignment are larger than those that accompany voluntary programs highlights the need for a careful program design. An important feature of Wilson's article is that it is one of the few attempts to assess the timing of the enrollment response of white students to desegregation plans and to condition enrollment responses on the features of plans. Much of the earlier work concentrated only on the existence and magnitude of the flight of white students from integrated schools. The landmark study by Coleman, Kelly, and Moore (1975) used data from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) surveys for the period 1968-73.1 It related the annual percentage change in the districtwide enrollment of white students to the one-year change in an index of interracial exposure and reported a statistically significant association. This work drew heavy criticism, but the main conclusions were later verified by Farley, Richard, and Wurdock (1980) in this journal. Like the Coleman et al. study, the Farley et al. study used OCR data but added data for 1974 and 1976. It also included a larger sample of districts and an improved statistical methodology.2 The work by Coleman et al. and the main work by Farley et al. estimated only a contemporaneous enrollment response to changes in integration. Farley et al. described a subsequent attempt to estimate lagged responses and, although they included some evidence of continuing effects, they reported the finding as not statistically significant. Both Coleman et al. and Farley et al. examined the enrollment responses of white students to changes in the racial mix of schools without explicit reference to the way increased

Differences Among School Outputs and Educational Production Functions.

Abstract: Schools produce multiple outputs, most obviously, the achievement of students in different subject areas. This article reports on a study of the differences between two academic subjects and the consequences of this differentiation for educational production functions. In examining the achievement of Greek ninth-grade students in physics and literature, I found that the influence of the students' background and of the inputs of the schools differed systematically as the achievement context changed and that it conformed to hypotheses on salient epistemic and exogenous differences between academic subjects. Particular features of Greek society and of the Greek educational system that are pertinent to the observed results are included as well.

A Piece of the Educational Pie: Reflections and New Evidence on Black and Immigrant Schooling Since 1880.

Abstract: This paper uses individual-level data to present new evidence on the impact of discrimination, class, family structure, and culture on black schooling. That evidence is used to reconsider several of the important conclusions of Lieberson's (1980) analysis of schooling. The paper confirms Lieberson's conclusions about the relative importance of economic well-being and the unimportance of family structure. When family background is controlled, Lieberson's conclusions concerning grade attainment in the early years of the century are confirmed. However, the use of the early attainment data to study the importance of cultural factors is complicated by an understanding of child labor opportunities. Measures of school performance less affected by that complication are offered. Finally, the appendix questions the evidence for Lieberson's contention that changes in the relative position of blacks were especially great in the 1925-35 birth cohort.

Collective Bargaining and Faculty Compensation: Faculty as a New Working Class.

Abstract: This article assesses the impact of the unionization offaculties on the average salary and compensation offaculty members in four-year colleges and universities generally and in public and private institutions separately. A multivariate model that included other institutional characteristics apt to affect the association between unionization and faculty remuneration was tested with data on 1,194 four-year colleges and universities. We found that collective bargaining has been more effective in public institutions than in private institutions, as predicted by recent discussions of public sector unionization and the "new working class." We also found that differences in the missions of institutions, the institutions' ability to pay, and regional values had significant effects on faculty remuneration. Finally, we discuss how organizational structure and institutional environment affect the economic worth of faculties.

Folk Norms and School Reform: English Secondary Schools.

Abstract: Turner's (1960) sponsored and contest mobility framework has been much utilized in analyzing mobility in England and the United States This paper focuses on Turner's more central concern with how folk norms influence educational practices and the efforts to reform them To test Turner's proposition that reformers and reform debates are bound by the logic of folk norms, I investigated efforts to reform the General Certificate of Education examinations in English secondary education between 1966 and 1976 Qualitative analysis of focused interviews and documentary data suggests that English educators and reformers alike were by and large actuated and constrained by sponsorship beliefs But the paper moves beyond Turner It reveals how sponsorship folk norms and functions are inscribed in the ideology and interests of particular educational constituencies who effectively institutionalized and perpetuated sponsorship principles in England

School Desegregation: An Exchange. A Reconsideration of the Impact of School Desegregation Programs on Public School Enrollment of White Students, 1968-76.

Abstract: Franklin Wilson's lead article in the July 1985 issue of this journal addressed two central issues surrounding responses to desegregation programs in public schools What are the timing and magnitude of the losses of enrollment of white students that accompany school desegregation? And, are losses sensitive to the specific features of plans-such as mandatory versus voluntary reassignments-or are they reactions only to increased interracial contact? A finding that the losses are temporary and result only from increased interracial contact says, in effect, that the design of programs is unimportant and that the costs of integration are transitory In contrast, a finding that the losses are permanent and that the losses resulting from mandatory reassignment are larger than those that accompany voluntary programs highlights the need for a careful program design An important feature of Wilson's article is that it is one of the few attempts to assess the timing of the enrollment response of white students to desegregation plans and to condition enrollment responses on the features of plans Much of the earlier work concentrated only on the existence and magnitude of the flight of white students from integrated schools The landmark study by Coleman, Kelly, and Moore (1975) used data from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) surveys for the period 1968-731 It related the annual percentage change in the districtwide enrollment of white students to the one-year change in an index of interracial exposure and reported a statistically significant association This work drew heavy criticism, but the main conclusions were later verified by Farley, Richard, and Wurdock (1980) in this journal Like the Coleman et al study, the Farley et al study used OCR data but added data for 1974 and 1976 It also included a larger sample of districts and an improved statistical methodology2 The work by Coleman et al and the main work by Farley et al estimated only a contemporaneous enrollment response to changes in integration Farley et al described a subsequent attempt to estimate lagged responses and, although they included some evidence of continuing effects, they reported the finding as not statistically significant Both Coleman et al and Farley et al examined the enrollment responses of white students to changes in the racial mix of schools without explicit reference to the way increased