Education

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Education

• Chapter 14
• By
• Dr. John Brenner

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Education and the EU

• The European Union has 25 members
• Focus of this chapter because
• EU invests heavily in education to make members
  competitivescholarships for super-scholars
• Wants to challenge the US for top position
• US was the first country in the world to adopt
  mass-education

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Education and the EU

• American education according to Europeanscreates
  students who
• Knowledge for income and wealth generation
• Value personal observations over accumulated
  knowledge and experience
• Ideal person is self made

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Education and the EU

• American education according to Europeanscreates
  students who
• Place a high value on educational achievement but
  not on the dedicated study needed to attain it

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Education and the EU

• This chapter explores the impressions of
  Europeans to USA education
• European educational practices are noted but not
  a particular country
• The focus is on the depth and rigor of the
  curriculum

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What is Education

• Educationexperiences that train, discipline, and
  shape the mental and physical potentials of a
  maturing person
• Informal educationoccurs in a spontaneous,
  unplanned way
• Formal education--purposeful, planned effort to
  impact specific skills and modes of thought
• Viewed as enriching, liberating and offering
  positive experiences
• It is considered a success when people
  internalize it

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What is Education

• Schoolingformal and systematic instruction that
  takes place primarily in classrooms
• Includes extra curricular activities and out of
  classroom assignments
• Conceptions of it vary from time and place
• Is it a means by which society wants to think
  independently?
• Or is it a mechanism to control individual
  thinking?

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Social Functions of Education

• Emile Durkheim
• Education functions to serve the needs of society
• Schools teach the children skills they need to
  adapt to the environment
• Educators must
• Pass on a sufficient community of ideas to
  facilitate the society
• Education liberates the individualbroadens their
  horizons
• Students learn to think independently
• The learning experience becomes an agent of
  change and progress

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Social Functions of Education

• Functionally illiterate
• Some people do no possess the level of reading,
  writing, calculating skills to adapt to society
• To many people the illiteracy rate has reach a
  crisis proportion
• It is essentially the inability to understand the
  symbol system be it sounds, letters, numbers
  pictographs or something else
• There are many types of illiteracy

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Illiteracy in the United States and EU

• Languages
• There are about 9,000 languages in the world
• Not to know some of them is being illiterate
• Illiteracy is a product of ones environment
• When one cannot understand or use the symbol
  system of ones environment
• In the U.S. at one time a person was expected to
  sign their name and read the Bible
• Now need to compute and solve problemslook at
  reading, math and science scores

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Illiteracy in the United States and EU

• In the science knowledge area
• Seven EU countries score higher than USA students
• When comparing the scores of the top 25 to
  bottom 25 of students
• Finland has the smallest difference
• USA has the largest gap between to two

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Historical Factors

• Schools seen as Americanizing
• Today 89 of all students are enrolled in public
  educational systems
• First country in the world to have mass education
• 1852 Massachusetts making public education
  mandatory
• As industrialization increased there was a need
  to have children overseen
• Immigrants (especially 1880-1920) in large
  numbers lifted the need for child laborers

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Historical Factors

• Textbooks
• First ones were modeled about catechisms
• Short books written in question and answer format
• The students were not encouraged to be active
  learners
• Readers job was to find the right answer
• Today students are to read a chapter and answer
  questions at the end
• Students learn to skim the text to find the key
  words
• Educators question the value of textbookssome
  opt for childrens literature books and daily
  writing assignments

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Historical Factors

• Single-language instruction
• Only nation in the world that does not emphasize
  learning at least one other language
• This leads to a parochial nature of American
  education
• This cuts students off from seeing the connection
  between language and culture
• English was seen as a way for people to be mobile

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Characteristics of USA/EU Education

• Availability of college
• In theory anyone can attend college
• 67 of high school graduates enroll in college
  the year after they graduate76 of Asians
• 62 of Blacks
• 61 of Hispanics
• 68 of Whites
• 20 of 4-year colleges accept students regardless
  of grades
• 28 of 2-year and 4 year graduates take remedial
  courses
• There is a decline in value of high school diploma

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Characteristics of USA/EU Education

• 40 of 25-34 year olds have a college education
  whereas in Italy it is 12 and Czech Republic 11
• USA gives the lowest public funding for education
  in 18 of the EU countries 67 of funding is from
  the state in USA it is 33.9

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Fundamental Characteristics

• Differences in Curriculum
• No uniform curriculum for the U.S.
• Each state has its own and each school in a
  state is different
• Students are usually grouped or tracked into
  some sort of a academic or technical grouping
• This grouping exaggerates and widens the
  differences between students

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Fundamental Characteristics

• Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Spain
  and UK all have national curriculum
• A national body recommends minimum requirements
• Other countries are like the USA but teachers
  (88 of USA) still want more control over
  curriculum and instruction

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Fundamental Characteristics

• Funding
• Elementary and Secondary schools receive 7 from
  Federal government
• 49. from the state and 44 from the local sources
  (primarily property taxes)
• Size of disparities among funding from the
  wealthiest to the poorest is greater in U. S.
  than in other countries
• There are differences of funding within states
  and between the states
• States, such as Kentucky have recognized that
  inequality can only be corrected by completely
  rethinking and overhauling the delivery of
  education to students

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Fundamental Characteristics

• Despite these educational inequalities
• The USA ranks 3rd in per-pupil spending at
  7,397.
• Belgium and Denmark spend more
• Biggest gap in spending in USA is between New
  York and Mississippi

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Fundamental Characteristics

• Social problems
• U.S. uses education-based programs to address
  social problems
• Parents absence from home, racial inequality,
  drug and alcohol addictions. Malnutrition, teen
  pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and
  illiteracy
• In the U.S. education is seen as primary solution
  to the above problems (this view is unique among
  nations)
• Americans are ambivalent about purpose and value
  of education
• Many view education as something that should be
  endured

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Classroom Environment

• The curriculum
• Formalincludes all the courses that a student
  must take
• Hiddenconsists of the other activities that go
  on while learning it conveys the value and
  meaning of what they are learning
• It is learning the important cultural values of a
  society
• Students learn to fear failure and envy success
• Students learn fit into the competitive and
  consumption oriented society
• Some do poorly in school because they do not fit
  in

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Classroom Environment

• Spelling Baseball
• Children learn the cultural value of fear of
  failure and envy of success
• Students learn to be absurd as there is not
  connection between spelling and baseball
• Learn to fit into a competitive and
  consumption-oriented culture
• Students who do not like these repetitive
  assignments may rebel and drop out with being
  called stupid but they may not bestudents are
  not prepared to question the truths of the world

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Classroom Environment

• Tracking
• Arranging students in instructional groups
• By academic performance or standardized tests
• Rational
• Students learn better in groups
• Slow learners develop positive attitudes
• Groups of similar abilities are easier to teach
• Research suggests that tracking has positive
  effects on high-achievers but negative effects on
  low-tracked students with no effect on
  middle-tracked students

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Classroom Environment

• Effects of Tracking (Oakes)
• An extensive study of how tracking affected
  students
• Poor and minority found in lower tracks
• Groups were treated differently in each track
• Low-track students were publicly identified as
  educational discards and this fostered lower-self
  esteem
• Brighter students do well regardless of the
  academic achievement of the other students

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Classroom Environment

• In EU countries relative to USA somewhere between
  35.6 to 80.7 of students are in vocational
  programs
• This puts them in direct entry jobsless than 10
  of USA students are in vocational
• These vocational programs are very rigorous and
  like preparatory training

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Classroom Environment

• Teachers expectations (Rosenthal/Jacobson)
• Self-fulfilling prophecyit is a false definition
  of the situation that is accepted as accurate
• If teachers believe that a student is fast,
  average or slow the prediction will impact
  students
• These researchers went to a school presenting
  information to teachers that certain students
  would bloom in ability the next year
• The students identified as bloomers had greater
  intellectual success as measured by test scores

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Classroom Environment

• Teacher problems
• Gallup poll stated that 50 of teachers stated
  that discipline is fairly serious or fairly
  serious problem I their school
• When comparing American teachers to German and
  Japanese teachers, U.S. teachers problems are
• Uninterested students, uninterested parents, low
  student morale, tardiness and intimidation or
  verbal abuse of teachers/staff

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Classroom Environment

• Teachers Problems
• They work in environments that discourage
  systematic learning outside the classroom and
  collaboration with other teachers
• Asian teachers work closely with each other in
  preparing lesson plans
• Asian teachers are in the classroom 60 of the
  day teaching
• American teachers spend many more hours a day in
  classroom

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Social Context of Education

• Colemans findings
• Explored the degree of segregation and
  inequalities in American education
• Studied 4,000 schools across the country
• Study was done a decade after 1954 Supreme Court
  case to desegregate
• Found schools were still segregated80 of white
  children attended schools that were 90-100 white
  and 65 of black students attend schools that
  were 90 black
• Schools in south and southwest were 100
  segregated

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Social Context of Education

• Colemans findings
• Mexican Americans, Native Americans, Puerto
  Ricans and Asian Americans were segregated but
  not from whites like blacks
• White teachers taught black children but black
  teachers did not teach white children
• 60 of blacks teachers were black
• 97 of whites teachers were white
• No statistical differences in professional
  qualifications of these teachers

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Social Context of Education

• Colemans findings
• In achievement whites scored highest followed by
  Asian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican
  Americans, Puerto Ricans and African Americans
• He found no significant differences in the
  quality of the schools (buildings, library and
  facilities)
• Test scores were affected by family background
• The most important variable was social class
• Blacks that participated in integration programs
  scored higher than those who were in schools with
  the same social class

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Social Context of Education

• Colemans findings
• His research was used by people to support the
  busing of students as a means of achieving
  educational equality
• 196876 Black, 55 of Hispanicsin minority
  schools
• 2001-70 Black, 76 of Hispanics in minority
  schools
• Minority students more likely to be in in school
  where academic achievement is undervalued and low

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Social Context of Education

• Colemans findings
• Family background is most important in
  educational achievement
• One study of 22 countries found that home
  environment was most powerful factor in school
  achievement of children
• Most studies would say home environment explains
  30 of the variation in student achievement
• Schools do have an impact

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Adolescent Subcultures

• Early 20th Century
• Less than 10 of teens 14-18 attended high
  school
• As jobs became factory and office type, parents
  had less time training with their children
• Training shift to the school cut adolescents off
  from the rest of society and forced them to spend
  most days with members of their own age group
• Became a small societyinto self and with few
  contacts with other generations

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Adolescent Subcultures

• Coleman discovered clear patterns in 10 schools
• Athletics important for boys as it equaled
  success and for girls it was being a cheerleader
• The girl named as the best student had fewer
  friends and is less often in the leading crowd
  than the boy named as best student
• Boys can be popular but the most important thing
  is for the boy to be an athlete
• Peer group more important than teacher or parents

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Adolescent Subcultures

• Coleman discovered clear patterns in 10 schools
• The way that students are taught contributes to
  their lack of academic interest
• School work requires conformity not creativity
• Students then focus on athletics, dating,
  clothes, car, and extracurricular activities
• Athletics allow the boys to represent the others
  that surround them
• Peer group influences learning

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Adolescent Subcultures

• Coleman discovered clear patterns in 10 schools
• The Students Multiple Worlds Model
• There in an interplay between the students
  family, peer, and school world
• Looks at boundaries and borders of these worlds
• They maintain that there are four distinctive
  patterns that students follow as they adapt and
  move between different settings and contexts
• Youth of the same ethnicity or students who have
  achieved in each of the models

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