SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Education, government & economy

A R E P O R T B Y : T H A L I A E R I K A L . L A P U T
3 PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION

SYMBOLIC
FUNCTIONALISM CONFLICT THEORY
INTERACTIONISM
FUNCTIONALISM Latent functions include child
care, the establishment of peer
relationships, and lowering
a) Socialization unemployment by keeping high
b) Social Integration school students out of the full-
c) Social Placement time labor force. Problems in
the educational institution harm
d) Social and Cultural society because all these
Innovation. functions cannot be completely
fulfilled.
CONFLICT THEORY
Education promotes social inequality through
the use of tracking and standardized testing
and the impact of its “hidden curriculum.”
Schools differ widely in their funding and
learning conditions, and this type of inequality
leads to learning disparities that reinforce
social inequality.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
This perspective focuses on social interaction in the
classroom, on the playground, and in other school venues.
Specific research finds that social interaction in schools
affects the development of gender roles and that teachers’
expectations of pupils’ intellectual abilities affect how much
pupils learn. Certain educational problems have their basis in
social interaction and expectations.
School as a formal organization
Bureaucratization of Schools

Teachers: Employees and Instructors

Student Subcultures
 Bureaucratization of Schools
• A bureaucracy is a large, formal, secondary organization
characterized by a hierarchy of authority, a clear
division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonal
interactions between its members.
• In a pluralistic society, disseminating the dominant
culture through public education is a topic of heated
social debate.
 Bureaucratization of Schools
• Advances in information technologies provide constant
connectivity to the virtual world. Schools have begun to
take advantage of these virtual tools as enhancements
and replacements of physical school structures and
face-to-face learning experiences.
 Critical issues
• Bureaucracies are intended to ensure equal
opportunities and increase efficiency based on a
meritocratic structure. Meritocracy means that hiring
and promotion should be based on proven and
documented skills, rather than on nepotism or random
choice.
 Critical issues
•However, the theory of
meritocracy becomes
convoluted when it is
applied to schools because
some individuals have
access to privileges that
give them advantages over
other individuals.
 Teachers: Employees and Instructors
A TEACHER IS A PERSON WHO PROVIDES EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS

•Teachers, like other professionals, may have to

continue their education after they qualify, a
process known as continuing professional
development.
Teachers: Employees and Instructors
• In education, teachers
facilitate student learning,
often in a school or academy,
but also in other
environments such as
outdoors. A teacher who
teaches on an individual
basis may be described as a
tutor.
Teacher at a British Museum: A teacher and young
pupils at the British Museum Duveen Gallery.
 Teachers: Employees and Instructors

• The relationship between

children and their teachers
tends to be closer in the
primary school, where they
act as form tutor, specialist
teacher, and surrogate
parent during the course of
the day. Teacher in Laos: Teacher in primary school in
northern Laos.
 Student Subcultures
A youth subculture is a group characterized by distinct styles, behaviors and interests that offer an
identity outside the mainstream.
• Thesubculture
A youth study is of subcultures
a group often
characterized by distinctconsists of and
styles, behaviors theinterests
studythatofoffersymbolism
an identity
attached to clothing, music or other visible affections by members of the
outside the mainstream.

subculture. It also studies the ways these same symbols are interpreted
by members of the dominant culture.
• The term “scene” refers to an exclusive subculture or faction. It may also
be geographically based, i.e. the London punk scene.
 Student Subcultures
• Early studies in youth culture
were mainly produced by
functionalist sociologists and
focus
A youth on isyouth
subculture as a single
a group characterized by
form of culture. In explaining
distinct styles, behaviors and interests that offer an
identity outside the mainstream.
the development of the
culture, they utilized the
concept of anomie.
GOVERNMENT: POWER & authority
POWER authority
the ability to accepted power—
exercise one’s will that is, power that
over others (Weber, people agree to
1922) follow.
 Types of authority

Rational-
Traditional Charismatic
Legal
Types of authority
Traditional
Source of Power :
Legitimized by long standing custom
Leadership Style:
Historic Personality
Example:
Patriarchy
Types of authority
Charismatic
Source of Power :
Based on a leader’s personal qualities
Leadership Style:
Dynamic Personality
Example:
Napoleon, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther
King, Jr.
Types of authority
Rational - Legal
Source of Power :
Bureaucratic officials
Leadership Style:
Authority resides in the office,
not the person
Example:
Modern British Parliament
 ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
• Economies consist of producing goods and exchanging them.
• A formal economy is the legal economy of a nation-state, as
measured by a government’s gross national product (GNP), or
the market value of all products and services produced by a
country’s companies in a given year.
• An informal economy is economic activity that is neither taxed
nor monitored by a government; the terms “under the table”
and “off the books” typically refer to this type of economy.
Informal economic activity can be found in various economic
systems.
 The market
• A market is a central space of exchange through
which people are able to buy and sell goods and
services.
• the prices of goods and services is mainly
controlled through the principles of supply and
demand and competition.
 The market
• “Supply and demand” refers to the balancing of the amount of
a good or service produced and the amount available for sale.
• Prices rise when demand exceeds supply and fall when supply
exceeds demand.
• The market coordinates itself through pricing until a new
equilibrium price and quantity is reached.
• Competition arises when many producers are trying to sell the
same or similar kinds of products to the same buyers.
 ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

CAPITALISM SOCIALISM
CAPITALISM
• Capitalism is generally considered by
scholars to be an economic system that
includes private ownership of the means
of production, creation of goods or
services for profit or income, the
accumulation of capital, competitive
markets, voluntary exchange, and wage
labor.
• Government does not have control over
markets, and on property rights Profile of Adam Smith, by James Tassie,
1787: Author of the Wealth of Nations
socialism
• Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production
are socially owned and used to meet human needs instead of to
create profits.
• The means of production refers to the tools, technology, buildings,
and other materials used to make the goods or services in an
economy.
• Social ownership of the means of production can take many forms.
It could refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership,
direct public ownership, or autonomous state enterprises
socialism
• Social ownership contrasts with
capitalist ownership, in which the means
of production are used to create a profit.
In a socialist economic system, the
means of production would instead be
used to directly satisfy economic
demands and human needs.
• Accounting would be based on physical
quantities or a direct measure of labor-
Karl Marx helped to create the system
time instead of on profits and expenses.
of social thought now called Marxism.
The changing face of workforce
1 2 3
Workers are
It has created a
situation in which
Workers are being replaced
workers who being forced by computers
perform easily
automated tasks
to compete in that can do the
are being forced to a global job job more
find work that is effectively and
less automated.
market.
faster.