1. UNIT 2 THEORIES ON SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF EDUCATION

2. Does schooling create a society or does society create schools
Does schooling create a society or does society create schools? Do schools transmit the culture of a society or do schools transform the culture of a society? These questions point out on the roles of schools in the society which can be examined on a sociological lens. What do you think is the role of schools in the society?

3. scientific study of human social behavior
concerned with all group activities: economic, social, political, religious, and even educational.
Sociology of Education is the study of how social institutions and individual experiences affects education and its outcome.

4. Theories on Social Dimensions of Education INTERACTIONIST THEORIES
CONSENSUS & CONFLICT THEORIES
STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM
Theories on Social Dimensions of Education
INTERACTIONIST THEORIES

5. CONSENSUS & CONFLICT THEORIES
Society has two faces: the face of consensus and the face of conflict.
Society cannot exist without both conflict and consensus.
CONSENSUS
a general or widespread agreement among all members of a particular society. Consensus is the absence of conflict.
CONSENSUS
a clash between ideas, principles and people. Conflict entails disagreement – covert or overt.

6. CONSENSUS & CONFLICT THEORIES
Society as a structure of rules
Schools as a social structure which helps maintain social order.
Society as a structure of inequality
Schools contribute to the unequal distribution of people into jobs in society; with powerful members taking the best positions and less powerful groups (minority, ethnic, racial, women) the lowest rank.
Education as a means of widening the gap in social inequality. 
Stresses what social groups have in common:
Shared norms and values as fundamental to society.
Stresses the fact that different groups in have widely varying access to power and wealth. Emphasize the dominance of some social groups
Social classes; bourgeoisie vs. proletariat
Focus on social order based on tacit agreement
See social order as manipulation and control by dominant groups

7. CONSENSUS & CONFLICT THEORIES
Social change occurs in slow and orderly fashion
Social change occurs rapidly and in disorderly fashion as subordinate groups overthrow dominant groups
Examine value integration in society
Examine conflicts of interest and coercion that holds society together
Absence of conflict is seen as the equilibrium sets on a society based on a general or widespread agreement among all members of a particular society
Conflict: can be COVERT or OVERT
Focus on the heterogeneous nature of society and the differential distribution of political and social power.
Originated from Durkheim, Parsons, Merton, Mead, Blumer, Althusser etc.
Karl Marx (The Father of Communism)
Weber

8. Reorganization and Change
The Conflict Theory Model:
THE CONFLICT MODEL
The conflict model is concerned with the stresses and conflicts that emerge in society because of competitions over scarce resources. It focuses on the inequalities that are built into social structures rather than on those that emerge because of personal characteristics.
Social Structures produce patterns of inequality in the distribution of scarce resources.
Conflict
Reorganization and Change

9. PROPONENTS OF CONSENSUS & CONFLICT THEORIES
Emile Durkheim – believed that society shapes the individual. According to him, it is not the consciousness of the individual that directs human behavior but common beliefs and sentiments which shape his or her consciousness. He also theorized that institutions such as schools serve as agents of socialization and provide the “social glue” in creating social solidarity.
Talcott Parsons - Parsons argued that social order was mainly achieved not through the rule of force, but through institutions promoting Value Consensus – which is agreement around shared values. Two of the most important institutions which do this are the family and school.
Karl Marx – considered as the Father of the Social Conflict Theory which views society as structured to benefit the few at the expense of the majority. Factors such as class, gender, race and age are all linked to social inequality.
Max Weber – argues that schools teach and maintain particular “Status Cultures”, that is, groups in society with similar interests and positions in the status hierarchy. Education system trains individuals in specialties to fill needed positions or prepare “cultivated individuals”

10. STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM
A successful society has a stable social structure, in which different institutions perform unique functions that contribute to the maintenance of the whole.
Society is a system of interconnected parts that work together in harmony to maintain a state of balance and social equilibrium for the whole.
Education offers a way to transmit a society’s skills, knowledge, and culture to its youth.

11. FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION
SOCIALIZATION - Perhaps the most important function of education is socialization. If children are to learn the norms, values, and skills they need to function in society, then education is a primary vehicle for such learning.
SOCIAL INTEGRATION - For a society to work, functionalists say, people must subscribe to a common set of beliefs and values.
SOCIAL PLACEMENT - Beginning in grade school, students are identified by teachers and other school officials either as bright and motivated or as less bright and even educationally challenged. Depending on how they are identified, children are taught at the level that is thought to suit them best.
SOCIAL & CULTURAL INNOVATION - Our scientists cannot make important scientific discoveries and our artists and thinkers cannot come up with great works of art, poetry, and prose unless they have first been educated in the many subjects they need to know for their chosen path.

12. THE STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL MODEL
Social structures provide preset patterns which evolve to meet human needs.
Stability, order and harmony
Maintenance of society
THE STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL MODEL

13. Talcott Parsons
Parsons believes that education is a vital part of modern society, a society that differs considerably from all previous societies.
Schooling performs an important function in the development and maintenance of a modern, democratic society, especially with regard to equality of opportunity for all citizens.

14. Parsons’ structural functionalism has four functional imperatives also known as AGIL scheme.
Adaptation – a system must cope with external situational exigencies. It must adapt to its environment and adapt environment to its needs.
Goal attainment - a system must define and achieve its primary goals.
Integration - a system must regulate the interrelationship of its component parts. It must also manage the relationship among the other three functional imperatives (A,G,L)
Latency (pattern maintenance)- a system must furnish, maintain and renew both the motivation of individuals and the cultural patterns that create and sustain the motivation.

15. INTERACTIONIST THEORIES
Interactionist theories are critiques and extensions of the functionalist and conflict perspectives.
Interactionist theories attempt to make the “commonplace strange” by turning on their heads everyday to taken-for-granted behaviors and interactions in schools.
Symbolic Interactionism views the self as socially constructed in relation to social forces and social structures and the product of ongoing negotiations of meanings. Development of the individual is a social process.
Symbolic Interactionists are not only interested in socialization but also in interaction in general which is of “vital importance in its own right”.
Interaction is the process in which the ability to think is both developed and expressed.

16. PRINCIPLES OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
Human beings are endowed with the capacity for thought.
The capacity for thought us shaped by social interaction
In social interaction, people learn the meanings and the symbols that allow them to exercise their distinctively human capacity for thought.
Meanings and symbols allow people to carry on distinctively human action and interaction.
People are able to modify or alter meanings and symbols that they use in action and interaction on the basis of their interpretation of the situation.
People are able to make these modifications and alterations because, in part, of their ability to interact with themselves, which allows them to examine possible courses of action, assess their relative advantages and disadvantages, and then choose one. The intertwined patterns of action and interaction make up groups and societies.

17. PROPONENTS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
2. Herbert Blumer
The importance of thinking to symbolic interactionist is reflected in their views on objects.
Blumer differentiates among three types of objects:
Physical objects- chairs, trees
Social objects- student, mother, teacher
Abstract objects- idea or a moral principle. Objects are seen simply as things, the greatest significance is the way they are defined by actors.
George Herbert Mead
Non-Symbolic Interactionism and Symbolic Interactionism
Mead’s approach to symbolic interaction rested on three basic premises.
People act toward the things they encounter on the basis of what those things mean to them.
We learn what things are by observing how other people respond to them through social interaction.
The result of ongoing interaction we use in dealing with others acquire symbolic meanings that are shared by the people who belong to the same culture.

18. PROPONENTS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
3. Charles Horton Cooley
Cooley developed a concept that has long been used by symbolic interactionist and it is the LOOKING- GLASS-SELF it means “that we see ourselves as others see us”
We come to develop a self – image on the basis of the messages we get from others, as we understand them.
Schools play a significant role in educating the Filipino citizens. It is our duty as teachers to really inculcate the value of fairness and honesty to our students. We also need to teach them how to learn, so they may be able to adapt in any situations/events that they will be presented. The looking –glass-self simply tells us that we must be cautious in giving remarks to others. Let us all be generous in giving positive comments and lessen the words that will hurt others.