SOCA02H3 Lecture Notes - Johannes Gutenberg, Hidden Curriculum, Numeracy
Document Summary
Chapter 17 education: a complete system of schools, from elementary to post-graduate, is the prerequisite of industrial society and is found in all rich societies. Consequently, national wealth and national education levels are strongly related: school systems carry out two tasks: homogenizing and sorting. Students are made similar by indoctrination into a common cultural system but are also steered and select- ed into different socioeconomic classes: mss education, once established, brings about nearly universal literacy and numeracy. Mass education inducts large populations into the linguistic and cultural uniformity that provides the basis for modern nationalism: functionalists believe that education fosters meritocracy. Conflict theorists argue that the high cost of education favours the wealthy and that schools inevitably favour stu- dents whose parents are highly educated. How- ever, men remain more likely to complete programs that most often lead to high pay. Today, more than half the people in developing nations are illiterate.
