The topics that children learn about and how they are presented are just one way that school acts as a socializing agent. In this chapter, the complex role of socialization within schools was introduced. WebInterests. Furthermore, socialization can be divided into two types: primary socialization and secondary socialization. As noted earlier in this chapter, students with social and emotional disabilities are more likely to be punished under school disciplinary codes of conduct. As well, much flexibility exists in the structure and content of courses as they are shaped by student interest. As noted by Sweet et al. How are schools teaching morality? Figure 6.3 summarizes the major forces of socialization within schools that were discussed. WebFor example, in the United States, schools have built a sense of competition into the way grades are awarded and the way teachers evaluate students (Bowles and Gintis 1976). incorrect; in the context of education, the expectations that teachers have about their students influence how they behaved toward them, which in turn, influences students motivation and performance. Canadian studies of the outcomes associated with home schooling are much less plentiful than in the United States, where the home schooling movement has been growing rapidly. Because the school is such an important agent in the socialization of children, it can also have negative impacts on children who experience negative interactions with their teachers. In other words, boys need to be in places where traditional expressions of masculinities can be fostered and nurtured because the current organization of school does not allow this. 7 & 10(Accessed March 2012). Socialization is a twofold process occurring at both the social and individual levels that accomplish two main goals. Bourdieus theory of cultural capital (see Cultural Reproduction in Chapter 2) addresses this type of acculturation, stating that teachers regard certain types of outlooks and student styles as more desirable than others and for students to succeed they need to conform to the cultural practices of the dominant social and cultural class. These play a foundational role in socialization, particularly through schools.Modern video games are often a social environment whereby you may play with others and communicate. Research in Quebec has similarly found that when parents were asked why they home schooled, very rarely did they give reasons associated with religious or political beliefs (Brabant, Bourdon, and Jutras 2003). School provides a structured setting in which children can learn and develop social competencies, such as self-confidence, friendship, empathy, participation, respect, gratitude, compassion, and responsibility. Social and emotional learning is important for young people to become conscious members of a solidarity-based community. An internal committee comprised of the principal, two students, and two teachers hear all infractions of the rules. According to Cohen (1972), individuals (or groups of individuals), events, or conditions are perceived as jeopardizing wider societal values and interests. Infamous acts of school violence, such as the events at Columbine High School in 1999, led to increased concern about violence in schools, which resulted in the emergence of zero tolerance policies around school codes of conduct. This is a community-based school that offers mentoring to marginalized children and youth. The OHRC also found that racial minority students were also disproportionately represented among those who had been disciplined with suspensions and expulsions under the act. Personal histories of students are ignored and therefore students do not carry the stigma of past experiences with them in the school. In order to address the boy problem, the Ontario Ministry of Education has created guides for improving boys literacy.8 Booklets called Me Read? Socializing This is the complete list of articles we have written about socializing. Similarly, students who attend private schools can be conceptualized as having been streamed into elite classes that tend to reproduce social stratification in society. Since the 1990s, however, this has reversed, with girls getting the higher scores, particularly in reading. The others category was a catchall for various other peer groups, such as nerds, band club, normals, loners, and the unpopular. In 2004, the Ontario Human Rights Commission provided evidence that since the adoption of the Safe Schools Act, a disproportionate number of students with various disabilities had been suspended or expelled (Bhattacharje 2003). Critics argue, however, that further demarcating tasks as masculine and feminine continues to promote very narrow gender roles (Greig 2003). Such reading materials functioned as a type of social or cultural capital within their groups of friends. School dress codes can be a particularly contentious topic, particularly when the dress code rules appear to be targeting particular groups and if they do not appear to be enforced fairly. Socialization in the Schooling Process Sociology of Education Currie and Kelly (2006) found that the popular girls in their study tended to be slim, dress in a sexy manner, and wear lots of makeup, according to non-popular girls. Next: Structural and Social Inequalities in Schooling, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, Relationships broken at end of school year. In addition to the two dominant uniforms, Pomerantz (2008) noted that girls also described their styles as comfortable, sporty, goth, punk, alternative, dressy, classy, preppy, regular, casual, weird, skater, random, hip hop (p. 10) and various combinations. The number of children who are home schooled is on the rise in Canada. Subject options are often streamed into applied or academic streams. If activities and behaviours are gendered by teachers, this can have an impact on how children see appropriate female and male roles. As he works through arguments on the playground or resolves disagreements at his lunch table, his negotiation skills, problem-solving abilities and self-control develop, reports the Scholastic website. The next section addresses the techniques that are used within schools to socialize children into being desirable students. Students will be required to sit still during lessons. Illustrate how peer groups contribute to the social identity of students. Placing students in special education, for example, requires that students be labelled as formally needing specialized assistance in order to succeed with curricular expectations (Hibel, Farkas, and Morgan 2010). Box 6.5 Declining Male Performance in ReadingA Moral Panic? Because each province in Canada handles its own curriculum, how streaming occurs in school varies greatly by jurisdiction. No Way! Not all school violence is overt. Currie and Kelly (2006) observed that a common yet particularly severe form of name-calling that resulted in the most reputational damage was being called a slut, which results from perceived inappropriate interactions with or seeking attention from boys. Many researchers have called the reaction to perceived underachievement by boys a global moral panic (see, for example, Griffin 2000; Smith 2003; Weaver-Hightower 2003). Outside of the core are two rings of moral instruction. Learning the expected appropriate behaviours and values of the schools system is a complex ongoing process of socialization. Respondents did, however, report some negative aspects of home schooling, which included the social stigma attached to being home schooled, social challenges of not being around other children regularly, the limits of the curriculum covered in their schooling, and the challenges of integrating into classroom settings later in life.12, 6.3 Major Forces of Socialization within Schools. Gender Socialization. One suggestion for improving boys literacy is to incorporate more boy friendly books into the curriculum.9 Books that are about adventure and those that are non-fiction are thought to appeal to young males, while novels are more appealing to young females. The exceptions, of course, are private schools and many Catholic schools, where uniforms are traditional. Students who exhibit higher academic aptitude are put with similar students into advanced courses where they will be challenged. Their focus on fashion and popular music largely shaped the popular girls lives and friendships with one another, as well as their relationships with other peers inside and outside of the school. If theyre breaking what theyre saying it means nothing to us then.1 A student at the competition shot a video of the dance which quickly became an internet sensation accompanied by much public moral outrage. Research in Canada suggests that non-White students perceive that school rules are unequally enforced (MacDonell and Martin 1986; Ruck and Wortley 2002). Not all post-secondary institutions, however, accept ELA 30-2 for entry. The delinquent behaviours are thought to merge a complex interaction of individual personal characteristics with properties of their environment and situations. Similar to peer victimized children, peer rejection may occur simply because a child is perceived as being different in some way from other members of the peer group. These agents include the family, education, religion, peer groups, and the media, and they all play a significant role in shaping an individual's beliefs, values, and behaviors. Incorporating technology into the classroom has also been suggested as a way to improve boys reading achievement, particularly through the use of the internet. When a student enters high school, the courses that he or she takes greatly influence the post-secondary options available to him or her upon graduation. In contrast, the English language arts academic trajectory in Alberta is ELA 10-1, 20-1, and 30-1 [which] provides a more in-depth study of text in terms of textual analysis. Of course, popularity is a factor in social identity. It was emphasized that children have to learn how to be students and that the teacher is largely in charge of not only subject-specific education, but also the teaching of morals and values. The previous chapter discussed curriculum and how the content of schooling is closely associated with the social construction of what various groups (teachers, school administrators, parents) think children should be taught. Raby and Domitrek (2007) state that this kind of rule creation and enforcement creates a negative environment where teachers are involved in petty policing and frustrates students who would prefer to challenge the rules in more constructive ways than by breaking them. Socialization: Social institutions provide the structure within which individuals learn the norms and values of society. When peer group relationships are positive, it is reasonable to assume that the school environment is a supportive and potentially enjoyable one. Victims also tend to experience irritability (Sharp 1995), anxiety (Olweus 1978; Salmon and James 1998; Sharp 1995; Slee 1994), and anger and self-pity (Borg 1998). Other researchers have found that school sports coaches create conformity among their players by using misogynistic and homophobic comments to criticize players (Schissel 2000), further contributing to stereotypes about what is considered appropriate male behaviour. Creating and enforcing codes of conduct can therefore be viewed as a form of socialization whose objective it is to create the desirable student. As noted by the authors of these studies, such findings also suggest that zero tolerance policies that result in the suspension of problem students may be doing additional damage as they serve to severely weaken the bond that a child has with his or her school (Sprott, Jenkins, and Doob 2005). This type of aggression is often simply referred to as meanness. 5. Girls are bullied for being unattractive, not being dressed fashionably, and being physically overdeveloped (Shakeshaft and Barber 1995). Students also learn their gender at school. Instead of occurring in the public sphere, girls resistance was contained to private spaces to avoid the risk of being criticized. They found that popular girls held the most power and displayed this power in their ability to police the adherence to numerous unspoken rules about other girls dress and behaviour. Individual subjects in school also have a tendency to be sex-stereotyped. Schools which have vague and inconsistently enforced rules and ambiguous responses to rule-breaking, teachers and administration who do not agree on rules, and students who do not believe that the rules are legitimate are typically associated with higher discipline problems and have a poor school climate (Welsh et al. Students in such tracks often indicate that they are bored and that they are not engaged with the course materials (Berends 1995). Indeed, this is a problem facing a great deal of Aboriginal youth in Canada. WebSome kids need extra help learning and following social rules. Education serves as an agent of socialization because it engages students in competition in academic success which helps create a social environment for students to interact in. Medlin (2000) has noted that research on whether or not home schooled children experience adequate socialization is sparse and that which does exist often has hallmarks of poor research design and biased samples. Some schools encourage active citizenship wherein students participate in creating and modifying schools codes of conduct, and other aspects of their schooling, including course content. The term became associated with school disciplinary procedures in 1994 when the Gun-Free Schools Act was passed in the United States, which required that students who possessed a firearm at school be expelled for no less than one year (Cerrone 1999). However, Brendgen, Wanner, and Vitaro (2006) found that teacher verbal abuse actually contributed to future adolescent delinquent behaviour in their 17-year cohort study in Quebec, which tracked children from kindergarten to age 23. Manitoba, for example, has a highly tracked mathematics program (McFeetors and Mason 2005). A commitment to ones school and education; associated with protecting children from the influence of delinquent peers and reducing early aggression in young students. Although the mitigating factors clause was supposed to protect such students, the statistics indicated otherwise. Being the member of a peer group that engages in deviant or rebellious behaviour, for example, may increase the bond of students within those groups but also serve to reinforce related attitudes and behaviours that result in poor school performance. This also has the effect of creating resentment and rule breaking among students, especially when they see the rules as pointless and arbitrary. They have good self-esteem and are likely to display fewer behavior problems than do other children. Box 6.4 Alternative Approaches to School Rules. The media, in particular, have been quick to endorse a position that suggests that the main problem can be found in the ongoing feminization of schooling. Socialization that occurs within the family, where children first learn their own individual identity, acquire language, and develop cognitive skills. Use Google to find home schooling advocacy groups in Canada. They suggest, interestingly, that drinking and sexual behaviours of young people can be perceived as festive social interactions and [a source of] popularity among teens and emerging adults, as well as representing a problem behaviour (Sussman et al. The failure of children to be socially accepted by their peers. The names given to peer groups usually correspond greatly to their style of dress (particularly in the case of girls) and tastes in leisure activities. Young people are more likely to agree with rules that they accept as offering them protection. Children that act in an aggressive or disruptive manner account for about one-third of children rejected by their peers (Crick and Dodge 1996). This difference may be due to ethnic group membership, disability, physical attractiveness, or being a newcomer to the classroom (Asher et al. Theories in the Sociology of Education, 3. Benefits. WebHowever, there are some ways in which school can be considered primary socialization. Feb 23 2011 at 2:33pm. Schools were not equipped to deal with students with social and emotional disabilities, and it was these very students who were disproportionately punished through the Safe Schools Act. School administrators argued that the girls were in violation of the school dress code and that the practice had been banned by school because the duct tape outfits had become too racy in previous years.7. Schools codes of conduct serve to penalize those who do not conform. Davies and Aurini (2003) argue that Canadian parents who home schooled advocated for pedagogical individualismin other words, home schooling allowed them to cater to their childs individual learning styles and interestssomething that would not be possible in a classroom of 25 (or more) students. Failure to be accepted by peers can be devastating for children, especially when it is manifested in acts of peer victimization and peer rejection. Raby (2005) suggests that students in such environments are not learning how to be active participatory citizens in a democracy, but instead learning how to cope with rules that have been imposed upon them. Young people tend to build their social identities around specific peer groups, particularly in adolescence. So far, it has been argued that children must adapt to features of school that are much different from their family environments. Students who wish to attend university need to take a certain set of academic courses, for example. 2010). Recall from Chapter 2 that Boudon discussed how secondary effectslike the aforementioned characteristicscan impact on educational attainment because they influence the types of educational choices made by a student and his or her family. Increasing the homogeneity of ability within a classroom also promotes better classroom management (Barakett and Cleghorn 2008). Academics as a group mostly consisted of brains who did well in their studies and extracurricular activities that were academically oriented.
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