13 Chapter 13: Education – Cultural Transmission of Knowledge

Chapter Overview: 

The formal system in which society passes on its knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to the next is called education. The hidden curriculum refers to lessons taught in schools that are unrelated to academic learning. Every country has some education system, but they are not all equal. A teacher’s expectations of a student’s performance are called the teacher expectancy effect. Academic achievement is measured in many ways. Grades are the primary method to measure academic achievement. Grade inflation has become a problem in recent years. Bureaucratization and cost are common problems in higher education. Human capital is a person’s combination of skills, knowledge, traits, and personal attributes. Credentialism is an emphasis on educational degrees in assessing skills and knowledge for employment.

Learning Objectives:

• Define the hidden curriculum and the teacher expectancy effect.
• Identify and explain educational discrepancies based on social factors.
• Compare and contrast academic achievement through grades.
• Explain how bureaucratization and cost are problems in higher education.
• Compare and contrast how the sociological theories examine education.
• TBD