Course Description
Theories of social structure, stratification, and social change. Relationships among social institutions and educational processes and outcomes, and how various social institutions contribute to the maintenance of existing structured inequalities.
Athena Title
Sociological Theories of Ed
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students will: 1. Analyze how education and school structures, school culture, and pedagogical practices are influenced and shaped by American society. (Topics 1, 2, 3) 2. Study how citizens become socialized into their society; schools. (Topic 4) 3. Examine how single-cause theories (e.g., class), are inadequate for explaining life changes and schooling success and failure. (Topics 5, 6, 7) 4. Gain an understanding of how race, class, and gender dynamics influence and shape education and schooling outcomes. Explore questions such as why there are inequalities between individuals and groups along class, racial, and gender lines. (Topics 8, 9, 10, 11) 5. Examine the role that social institutions outside of the school, such as family, the church, and neighborhoods (community) play in the education process. We will examine the influence of the informal education process in the transmission of culture from one generation to the next--to understand how students’ perceptions about education and schooling are shaped; and how education consists of more than just formal schooling. (Topic 12)
Topical Outline
1. Sociological Theories of Education: Laying the Foundation 2. Stratification Theory and structural Inequality 3. Historical Issues in Education and Schooling 4. Reviewing Sociological Research on Education and Schooling: Its Interpretations and Applications to School Culture and Praxes 5. Social Class and its Relationship to Education and Schooling 6. Race and its Relationship to Education and Schooling 7. Gender and its Relationship to Education and Schooling 8. Equality and Inequality: Tracking and Grouping 9. School Culture: Schools as Organizations 10. Curriculum and Multicultural Education 11. Teachers and Teaching: Relationships with Students and Parents