education

• Compensatory Education


  Additional educational help given to socially disadvantaged groups to enable them to have equal educational opportunities
• Comprehensive Education


  A secondary or middle school that is a state school and does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement of aptitude.
• Correspondence Principle


  A sociological theory that posits a close relationship between social standing and the educational system.
• Counter-School Culture


  An anti-school subculture that goes against the main culture (norms and values) of the school. (Students not doing homework, disrupting lessons, and breaking school rules.) They tend to be in the bottom streams and invariable working class. They gain their status by doing disruptive things as the school system has labelled the mas 'failures'.
• Culture Capital


  Non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means.

  Ex: education, intellect, style of speech, dress, or physical appearance
• Cultural Reproduction


  Bourdieu

  The major role of the education system. The reproduction of the culture of the dominant classes. These groups have the power to impose meanings and as legitimate. They are able to define their own culture as worthy of being sought and possessed and to establish it as the basis of knowledge in the education system. (The transmission of existing cultural values and norms from generation to generation.)
• Deferred Gratification


  (Middle class subculture)

  Putting off today's pleasures for future gains
• Immediate Gratification


  (Working class subculture)

  Getting pleasures now, rather than putting them off for the future
• Material Deprivation


  Poverty and a lack of material necessities such as adequate housing
• Cultural Deprivation


  The theory that working class children are inadequately socialized, therefore, they lack the skills they need to do well in education.
• Deschooling


  Illich

  An alternative form of education based on the abolition of formal schools.
• Educational Acievement


  A narrow interpretation of this is the gaining of different levels of educational qualification.

  A concept that disagrees with some of the functionalist views on education.
• Elaborated School Codes


  A pattern of speech thought to characterize the complex structure of middle-class language.
• Restricted School Codes


  The language spoken by working-class people, in which meaning is dependent on context, is often implicit, and in which sentence structure is not developed.
• Equality of Opportunity


  The absence of discrimination based on race, color, age, gender, religion, disability, etc.
• Ethnicity


  The properties of people who share similar culture, particularly language, customs, religion, and history, that is distinct from that of other groups in society. The existence of different ethnic groups is often associated with variations in power, wealth, and life chances.
• Ethnocentric Curriculum


  Teaching certain values and culture as being dominant over others.
• Feminine/Masculine Identities


  The degree to which persons see themselves as masculine or feminine given what it means to be a man or woman in society.
• Formal Education


  A purposeful, planned effort to impact specific skills or information. A systematic process in which someone designs the educating experiences.
• Gender


  The culturally learnt aspect of a person's sexual identity. People are biologically female or male, but their behavior is either feminine or masculine as defined by the social expectations of their society. In this way, behavioral differences between men and women are culturally created.
• Gender Stereotyping


  A set of shared cultural beliefs about male's and female's behavior, personality traits, and other attributes.
• Gendered Curriculum


  Schools reinforce larger cultural messages about gender, including the idea that gender is an essential characteristic for organizing social life.
• Hidden Curriculum


  The 'unstated agenda' involved in school organization and teachers' attitudes which develops behavior and beliefs that are not part of the formal timetable (e.g. beliefs about gender, ethnic, or class differences), and which some sociologists argue forms the main way that schools socialize their pupils.
• Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)


  Althusser

  A term used to describe those parts of the superstructure (such as religion, the media, the family, or education) which maintain class control through consent rather than coercion.
• Informal Education


  Education outside of a standard school setting, the wise, respectful, and spontaneous process of cultivating learning. This works through conversation, and the exploration and enlargement of experience.
• Inequality


  The existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.
• Intelligence


  (A particularly controversial term)

  Hans Eysenck

  An abstract reasoning ability, measurable through tests. It is often thought to be innate.
• Intelligence Quotient


  A measure of intelligence of an individual derived from results of a specialized test.
• Knowledge


  Facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education.
• Labelling


  The way that people place labels on others, often based on stereotypes. It is particularly associated with the study of education and deviance, with individuals becoming failures or deviants because of the label attached to their behavior by those in authority.
• Language


  The collection of words and the rules of syntax and grammar that govern how words are supposed to be arranged in order to convey a particular meaning.
• Marketisation


  Introducing a market system in state education. Schools are run more like a business to attract consumers by providing what is wanted.
• Meritocracy


  A society in which individuals achieve educational qualifications, and their consequent position in the stratification system, on the basis of merit, talent, skills, ability, and achievement.
• Minority Ethnic Groups


  Louis Wirth

  A group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.
• Positional Theory


  A person's position in the class structure that gives them an advantage or a disadvantage, in the competitive world of education.
• Peer Group


  A friendship group, composed of individuals sharing similar age and social status, with whom an individual mixes socially.
• Positive Discrimination


  The provision of special opportunities in employment, training, etc. for a disadvantaged group, such as women, ethnic minorities, etc.
• Pupil Subcultures


  A group of pupils who share similar values and behavior patterns. They often emerge as a response to the way pupils have been labelled and normally as a reaction to streaming.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy


  A situation in which people act in accordance with predictions made by people in authority about their likely behavior or performances; associated with labelling theory in the study of education and deviance.
• Social Class


  A group of people with similar levels of wealth, influence, and status.