2.3.1 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY SCOPE

scope of Educational Sociology

• The Family
• The peer group
• School Culture
• Television and Digital Media
• Gender Roles
• Youth Problems

1. The Family:

Changes in family composition may lie detrimentally influencing children's behavior and performance in school. Although the situation is complicated, increases in single- parent families and in the number of working mothers appear to be having a negative effect on many students.

2. The peer group:

The peer culture becomes more important as children proceed through school, but it has an important influence on education at all levels of schooling. Educators should be aware of the potentially positive effects of participation in extracurricular activities.

3. School Culture:

The school culture (that is "regularities" in school practice) appears to stress passive,, rote learning in many elementary and secondary schools, particularly in working- class schools and mixed-class schools with relatively large numbers of low-achieving students. This happens in part because schools, as institutions, must maintain orderly environments; because many students prefer passive learning; because teachers generally cannot adequately attend to the learning needs of all students; and because society requires that students learn to function within institutions.

4. Television and Digital Media:

Television probably increases aggressiveness and violent behavior among certain children and youths, and it may tend to detract from achievement, particularly in reading. Some analysts have also begun studying the social and cultural effects of digital technologies.

5. Gender Roles:

Girls traditionally have not been encouraged to seek education that prepares them for full participation in the larger society, and both girls and boys have experienced gender-role pressures in the school. Even so educational and occupational opportunities for women have been improving rapidly/Although gender differences in school achievement have been declining, certain differences in ability may persist in verbal skills (favoring females) and advanced mathematics (favoring males).

6. Youth Problems:

Youth has become a separate stage of life marked by immersion in various subcultures. Teenage drug use and drinking, suicide, delinquency, and violence raise serious concerns about the development of adolescents and youth both inside and outside the school.