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Sociology of Education:

The study of experience of individuals and public institutions after perceiving education and it outcomes is called sociology of education. It incorporates the matters of modern schooling system in the industrial societies that includes expansion of educational area from lower to higher education. The concept of sociology of education was introduced by George Payne in 1928 in his book “Principles of Educational Sociology”. He has mentioned the affects education on group of people, also the effects of group life on the education. Moreover, he has mentioned all the factors that affect the human growth and development (Payne, 1925).

Marxists Ideas on Education:

According to Marxists, the educational system is working for the interests of the elite class. The functions possessed by the educational system for the elites are to reproduce inequality in the class, legitimates the inequality in class, and to work for the capitalist employers (Choonara, 2017). While evaluating Marxists perspectives, there are several evidences that reproduces inequality in class as the middle class are better in education because they are aware of cultural and material deprivation (Atasu and Erus, 2020). The expansion of private schooling system supports the Marxists ideas as the elite class is attaining admissions there and are able to afford the universities; this generates the job inequality by hiring the elite class students on reputable positions (Jiang and Probst, 2017). The negative impact of the Marxists is its determination toward the passive response of the people; while the working class do not always accept what they are taught. The principles of Marxists is not applicable for today’s labour market and the middle class people are also aware of the discrimination posed by the private schools towards them (Hill, 2017).

 

Functionalism of Education:

According to Functionalists, the education systems perform positive functions like creating social solidarity, necessary teaching skills, teaching core values, and allocation of roles and meritocracy. On evaluating these positive impacts of education system it can be said as schools can reduce the exclusion and truancy rates among the pupils and mentioned that the meritocratic system was more focused in 19^th century. The criticism against Functionalism is that it ignores the negative elements in the schools like bullying (Sever, 2012). Moreover, the Marxists also criticized by claiming the educational system to benefit the wealthy only.

Social Action Theory:

The theory was introduced by Max Weber and he argues about the behaviour of the people and their life and confesses that it is not determined by their social background. The social action theory suggests that the social interaction of people shapes the personality of the person. He disagrees with Marxists and presents the need of understanding the change in individual with society (Jones et al., 2011). This idea can evolve into huge structural changes in the society like emergence of capitalism. The critics said that there might be more aspects of motivation and they would have more potential to shape the human personality irrespective of interaction among the people. Moreover, Capitalism is the theory emerged from the idea social action theory; the capitalism is criticized several times by different theorist with validations in their argument.

Impacts of Social Factors on Educational Attainment:

In all social groups there are some factors that effects the attainment of education like class, ethnicity, and gender. Class difference plays major role in the discrimination in attainment of education at all levels. According to Annamma and Morrison (2018), the educational system is biased on the basis of class and the provision of educational facilities are different in different class system. The middle class children is attaining higher educational regards as compared to the working class, same as the elite class student is attaining the highest quality educational system. However, there are more researches that shows the similarity between abilities of the students in every social class; this means that the class system has no relation with the intelligence of the student. There are students from middle or working class who are intelligent enough to attain betterment for them but lack behind due to lack of social and economic factors (Rose and Malkani, 2020).

Ethnicity is the word that refers to the national identity of the individual. In educational system, ethnicity plays an important part in provoking discrimination on attainment of education. The people with similar ethnic background are grouped together, sometimes by themselves or by the system. For example, in educational systems, the black African are week in English and seems to attain little educational facilities as they lack in communication with the family, while the white students are confident and being entertained by the teachers in a more gentle manner. The ethnic boundaries led the students lack behind fulfilling their educational requirements (Colombo, 2018).

Another social factor that affects the attainment of facilities of education among the students are the subcultures within the system. Barry Sugarman, a Britain sociologists, describes the culture of classes within the educational system by categorizing them according to their working style. The elite class people seems to be fatalistic, passive learners, and present time oriented. While, the middle class students are non-fatalistic, future time oriented, and considers delayed satisfaction. The subcultural traits are one of the factor that reduces the capability of attainment in educational system. These traits are generated by societal differences that supports the theory of Functionalism (Sever, 2012).

Gender inequality in the education system is one of the significant aspects that limits some individuals in attaining the education. There are several studies that has showed the diminished number of female students attaining education. Women all around the world often seems to be discouraged to attain education especially in the developing countries, the literacy rate among the female is quite low. There are also some studies that showed that the female students are getting more educational achievements than men due to gender sympathy and some of them are hardworking in real. The emergence of the concept of Feminism has embarked the rate of education among the females, yet there are inequalities prevailing in the educational system for men and women both. Such social factor play great role in reducing the attainments of education among groups of people (McLeod, 2017). The theory of Marxists is somewhere justified that the elite class is being entertained the most and the educational system is working for their interests, while other theories are also supported with the variations of the events occurred (Jones et al., 2011).

Impacts of Contemporary Issues on Education:

Education is an important tool for making a healthy society and it is necessary for both men and women. Education enables many opportunities for the individuals and groups as well to enhance their livelihood socially, economically, and personally. The societies and schools contain elements that affect the students’ personality. The obstacle s in attaining the education has adverse effects on the personality of the student; the teachers and the parents need to look after those obstacles and issues for better development of their child. There are several issues in the education system that impacts the attainment ability of the children like classroom racism, ethnic issues, gender discrimination, cultural issues, unequal opportunities, cultural differences, and substance abuse. These issues collectively create an alarming situation for an individual while attaining education.

Social issues such as economy plays a great part in embracing the issues for the students. The financial burdens and the expenses of the students began to realize when he grows a little up. For the middle class family, finance is an element to consider before committing any action. Students from such background attain admissions in public schools and most of the public schools are not providing the quality education, thus they lack behind their abilities due to lack of economic resources. Even in the private schools, the students from the middle class is found to be deprived and marginalized. Whereas, the students form elite class enjoy the high-end facilities form educational system. The middle or working class students have to face these economic issues that impact their career and affect their capabilities to grow and develop (Rose and Malkani, 2020). There are more issues such as substance abuse at the educational institutes impact the attainment of education among the student. There are students who are found to be involve in the drug and alcoholic addiction which is an alarming element for the students and their concerned ones. The addiction of such elements leads the student to criminal behaviour, violence, and lack of interest in studies (Bloomfield et al., 2006). These issues act as an obstacle for the students to attain the education even if they are capable of attaining it.

Conclusion:

The study explains the perspectives of the theories presented for the sociology of education. However the theories contradict at some points with each other, yet they have significance in the educational sociology. The educational system contains major elements of biasness in the society; this biasness depends on several social factors like class, race, ethnicity, and gender. These issues has significance impact on attainment of education. Education must be provided to all individual regardless of the differences possessed by them as it is important for the growth and development of the society.

 

References:

Annamma, S. and Morrison, D., 2018. Identifying dysfunctional education ecologies: A DisCrit analysis of bias in the classroom. Equity & Excellence in Education, 51(2), pp.114-131.

Atasu, I. and Erus, B., 2020. Cultural Differences and Measurement of Material Deprivation: EU-SILC questionnaire revision in Turkey. Economics Bulletin, 40(2), pp.1357-1367.

Bloomfield, K., Grittner, U., Kramer, S. and Gmel, G., 2006. Social inequalities in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems in the study countries of the EU concerted action ‘Gender, Culture and Alcohol Problems: a Multi-national Study’. Alcohol and alcoholism, 41(suppl_1), pp.i26-i36.

Choonara, J., 2017. Class and the classical Marxist tradition. In Considering Class: Theory, Culture and the Media in the 21st Century (pp. 13-30). Brill.

Colombo, M., 2018. The impact of Ethnicity on school life: a cross-national post-commentary. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 10(3).

Hill, D., 2017. Social class and education. In Considering class: Theory, culture and the media in the 21st Century (pp. 31-50). Brill.

Jiang, L. and Probst, T.M., 2017. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer: Country-and state-level income inequality moderates the job insecurity-burnout relationship. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(4), p.672.

Jones, P., Bradbury, L. and LeBoutillier, S., 2011. Introducing social theory. Polity.

McLeod, J., 2017. The administration of feminism in education: revisiting and remembering narratives of gender equity and identity. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49(4), pp.283-300.

Payne, E.G., 1925. Principles of educational sociology.

Rose, R. and Malkani, R., 2020. Policies and practices that foster education for all: Implications for economically poor nations. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education.

Sever, M., 2012. A critical look at the theories of sociology of education. Journal of Human Sciences, 9(1), pp.671-650.