EDUCATION
Process through which academic, social, and cultural ideas and tools are developed
Functionalism  latent and manifest functions
Functional illiteracy
Inability to read or write well enough to function in society
14%
Innumeracy
Having insufficient math skills to function in society
22%
Human capital
Knowledge and skills that make someone more productive and bankable
Socialization
Hidden curriculum – nonacademic and less overt functions of education
Helps social cohesion, but has also been used to impose dominant cultural values on outsiders or minorities
Marxist theorists
Schools are pawns of capitalism
Teaching skills that maintain dominant/subordinate workforce positions
Sorokin (Functionalist)
Schools are sorting machines
Test for ability, talent, character
Promote best students, eliminate worst
Critics argued sorting is not based only on merit
Ultimately reproduces social inequality
Coleman Report (1966)
School resources had no effect on student achievement
Curvilinear
2. Family background and peers did
More recent findings
Students in small (13-17) classes had fewer disciplinary problems, higher test scores
Test score rankings by school type
1. Catholic private school (social capital)
2. Secular private school
3. Public school
Tracking
Dividing students into different classes according to ability or future plans
Does not help students on the general track
Privileged students more likely to be in college tracks
Educational Inequality
Cultural capital
Symbolic and interactional resources that people inherit and use to their advantage
Forms of cultural capital
1.