Education Assignment Guide

Edward Everett wrote, “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.”   

First, let’s talk a little bit about what “social structure” means. Social Structure in a nutshell, is how we interact and live among each other.  It includes a complex web of institutions, socializing agents, interpersonal communication and so forth.  In the US, part of our social structure is education. Education serves many functions.  It helps us to learn, adapt and “fit” within our world.  In many ways, it can also be our link to some of our agents of secondary socialization (friends, peers etc.).  This week, we’ll write on home schooling and what some of the pros and cons of this are.

For your paper, try the following:

I. First Paragraph:  Introduction Paragraph (Define homeschooling . Give an overview of what you’ll talk about in your paper)

II. Second Paragraph: Write a paragraph on what you think about home school.  What are the pros and cons? This would be a good place to include the social theories (Symbolic Interactionism, Functionalism and Conflict Theory).

III. Third Paragraph: Write on if you feel that this could be more popular than public/parochial schools. 

 IV: Fourth Paragraph: Explore if you would home school your own children or family members.

V. Conclusion:  Summarize your thoughts.

(Remember to expand these out to meet the length requirements.)

Using the Perspectives:

Applying the three perspectives can be easy.  Try to view the problem from each perspective by asking the sort of questions a theorist would ask if they were a functionalist, conflict theorist, or symbolic interactionist. In this assignment, you could ask:

1.      What is the function of education? What role does public education play in who we become? (Functionalism)

2.      What conflicts arise over home schooling? Are there parental control issue in play? (Conflict Theory)

3.      What does education mean to us? How do we value education in the US?  What “rights of passage” are part of the high school experience? (Symbolic Interactionism)

If you need some help on the perspectives or are interested in additional information on this weeks topics, try these links:

http://www.mysociologist.com/sociology-101/education-lecture/

http://www.mysociologist.com/sociology-101/inequality-in-education/

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