"Upper tracks? Man, when do you think I see those kids? I never see them. Why should I? Some of them don't even go to class in the same building with me. If I ever walked into one of their rooms they'd throw me out before the teacher even came in. They'd say I'd only be holding them back from their learning." [Cottle, 1974, pp. 23-241

Every September, more than 5 million American children enter school for the first time, joining some 58 million more who are returning (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1989a, p. 124). While all of them may not have as dramatic an encounter with schools as Ollie Taylor did, almost no one in the United States grows up without going to school. In the United States the number and proportion of children attending school has increased dramatically. As Figure 15.1 shows, the percentage of young people (aged 14 to 17) attending high school leapt from 2 percent in 1870 to 95 percent in 1986. College attendance has increased almost as strikingly, from 2 percent in 1870 to 39 percent in 1986. More money is spent on education than on any other activity in the United States except health care, with the amount rising faster than the number of students in school. In 1988 the United States spent $3()8 billion (or about 7 percent of the gross national product) on all levels of public and private education. Clearly, Americans value education.
Education can be defined as the process, in school or beyond, of transmitting a society's knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors. Every society seeks to educate its young members, to prepare them for adult roles. Formal education is one way many societies prepare newcomers for membership, so education is one form of socialization. In small tribal societies, fathers taught sons how to fish or hunt; mothers taught daughters how to farm or make pottery. More specialized occupations, like medicine or blacksmithing, were learned from a parent or another member of the tribe. As tribal life became more complex, and especially with the growth of written language, communities began to appoint someone to teach reading and writing to a number of village children at the same time. Often such early formal education was started and supervised by religious leaders who wanted children to be able to read sacred writings. Thus began the first schools.
Especially in recent times, Americans have stressed formal education, called schooling by sociologists. In colonial American society, schooling was not compulsory. After 1875, states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut began to require primary education for everyone, in response to growing numbers of immigrants and a more mobile labor force. From 1918 to 1940, secondary education expanded and the compulsory school-leaving age was raised to the teens in most states.
In the last 30 years, higher education has grown enormously. Consider the case of Charles Smith. When he graduated from high school in 1960, only about 24 percent of his age group went to college. Today more than 34 percent of high school graduates enroll in college. Most people have more years of schooling than they did in Charles Smith's time, and more and more employers require at least some college education as a condition for employment. As a result, what happens in school takes on profound importance for a student's future, much more so than in Charlie's day. Today students not only receive an education but are also labeled and slotted within the educational system in a way that affects their future. For these reasons, the relation between education and society, the effects of schooling, what happens inside schools, and the part schools play in reducing or enhancing inequalities have important consequences for all of U.S.. We consider each of these issues in turn.



Figure 15.1 Changes in High School and College Attendance, 1870-1986. Between 1870 and 1986, the proportion of the U.S. population in high school and college increased substantially, with more than nine out of ten young people being in high school and two out of five young adults attending college. Source: Dearman and Plisko, 1979, p. 61; Trow, 1966; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1989a, pp. 27, 128, U.S. Department of Commerce News, 1986, p 1.


THE RELATION BETWEEN SCHOOLS AND SOCIETY

The Functions of Education
Why do societies support schools? Sociologists have identified a number of school functions: (1) cultural transmission and socialization of the young; (2) selection for adult positions; and (3) support for the discovery of knowledge, especially in higher education. Some people suggest additional latent functions of education, which will not be discussed here, such as keeping young people off the streets, providing an appropriate "marriage market" for mate selection, and serving as an agent of social reform (Goslin, 1965). Functionalist and conflict sociologists differ in the way they view these activities.

Cultural Transmission and Socialization



In every society schools seek to transmit culture and he socialize the young for their adult roles. In this Chinese nursery, children are learning songs of their culture as well as how to behave in a group situation.

Education is important for passing on the social and cultural heritage of one generation to the next. The knowledge, values, beliefs, and norms that adult members of society think young members should learn are transmitted partly through education. Schools try to perform this task by providing experiences that instill knowledge (of history, say), skills (such as reading), attitudes (school loyalty, for example), and values (like punctuality) in their students-in other words, through socialization. Functionalists stress that the knowledge and skills students acquire in this process are central for obtaining and performing adult occupational roles. Functionalists tend to assume, however, that education provides the same benefits and opportunities for everyone in society. Conflict sociologists suggest that certain groups benefit more than others, partly because different social classes, races, and sexes receive different socialization in schools. They also suggest that mental skills are not so important for occupational attainment and income as functionalists claim they are.

Functionalists view education as a means of integrating society through common cultural and political socialization-for example, many children learn the pledge of allegiance in elementary school. Conflict sociologists emphasize that education is a resource used by groups impeding for domination, legitimacy, power, income, or status within a society. Educational degrees may be used to exclude people from certain jobs, even when the content of the required education is unrelated to the job.

Selection and Allocation to Adult Positions

Complex societies that do not pass on adult positions by simple inheritance need a system for assigning people to various positions. Traditionally (and frequently still today), family background, race, religion, birth order, and sex determine the position an individual holds in society. In industrial societies, schools have the power to place individuals in the running for specific life positions. Schools are granted that power by state legislatures and government departments of education, which grant colleges and universities the right to award certain types of degrees. These degrees, in tune make people eligible to be considered for certain jobs and occupations. Meyer (1977) sees schools as obtaining special charters to "define people as graduates and as therefore possessing distinctive rights and capacities in society." Schools therefore affect life chances through the degrees they can award.

State governments grant certain colleges and universities the right to confer different types of degrees. These degrees, in turn enhance a personšs life chances. Such consequences help to explain the happiness of this mother and son at his graduation

Both functionalist and conflict sociologists agree that schools are becoming increasingly important in determining an individual's life chances. But they differ in their assessment of whether this process is fair and desirable. Functionalists argue that the growing complexity of society and the jobs in it underscore the importance of individuals occupying positions for which they are "well suited." So, to functionalists, individual ability and achievements are the most important criteria for allocating people to various curricula and occupations. Functionalists and conflict sociologists both note that schools do not always ignore the class, sex, or race of students, however.

Conflict sociologists challenge the underlying assumptions of the functionalist view. They doubt that most jobs are becoming more complex and technical; instead, they see many jobs as getting simpler. They note that test scores and school grades arc unrelated to job pcrformance, suggesting that such measures are poor indicators of"merit." Conflict sociologists see schools as allocating individuals to highly unequal positions in society and legitimizing that allocation on the basis of test scores or grades that may not be valid indicators of merit

Education as a Knowledge-Generating Institution

Schools also affect U.S. through the knowledge they produce. In keeping with their view of a homogeneous society, functionalists tend to see the knowledge produced in educational institutions as equally valuablc to all members of society. Conflict sociologists (such as Touraine, 1974) argue that the pursuit of knowledge in the United States has consistently been exploited by powerful elites in order to pursue the science and technology (for example, defense hardware) that benefits their position in society, often to the detriment of other groups. Touraine links this development to the student rebellions of the 196()s, when affluent students at some of the most selective universities in the nation began to challenge the role of the university in society.

The conflict perspective leads U.S. to ask who supports the production of certain kinds of knowledge rather than others, and who benefits from it? For example, who supports research on missile systems, and who benefits from it? What are the consequences of some rather than other knowledge for example, knowing how to treat cancer with chemicals once people have it, or knowing how to avoid getting cancer? We can ask such questions about the kinds of cancer research that arc supported or the issues that get defined as "social problems.''

Educational Expansion

Why has education expanded so dramatically in the United States? Functionalists argue that education expanded in response to the increasing complexity of the division of labor and the need for a more highly educated work force. Marxians such as Bowls and Gandhiist (1976) suggest that education expanded because of the need for capitalist owners to maintain control over an unruly labor force.

However, as Horn (1978) points out, a need, whether of society or of a group of capitalists, does not necessarily translate directly into social practice. He believes that education expanded in the United States because people believed education would be useful to them in their own lives and because groups were competing for status and prestige. Education was a useful symbolic resource in that competition. Horn's position is supplemented by Collins's comparative study of the expansion of education. Collins (1977) suggests that there are three different demands for education practical, status, and bureaucratic. These three have shaped the educational systems of various countries. The functionalist interpretation suggests that education in the United States grew to meet demands for practical or technical skills, but Collins says this was not the major reason people demanded more education. Much of modern education is not very practical, the number of years of school and grades earned are not related to work performance, and most people learn on the job much of what they need to know to do the job. Reading and writing are among the few practical skills that are taught in school. For these reasons, Collins argues that technical demands were not a major reason for expanding education.

Instead, Collins believes, American education expanded as a result of status-group competition. Education motivated by the desire for status group membership is notable in ceremonies dramatizing the unity of the educated group and its status compared to that of outsiders. The content of such education reflects cultural ideals, usually impractical ones. Status-group membership is defined primarily by leisure and consumption activities, not by productive work. A common culture is central for the creation of a status-group community. Collins (1979) cites the great emphasis on fraternities and sororities in U. S. colleges as evidence for status-group concerns in education. Historically, Collins indicates, education has been used more often to define status groups than for other purposes.

Other factors in addition to status-group competition seem to have contributed to the expansion of education. These include immigration (Ralph and Rubinson, 1980), increasing technical efficiency in the economy (Rubinson and Ralph, 1984), changes in the occupational structure, and the presence or absence of available work opportunities for young adults (Walters, 1984).

Finally, education that develops in the process of bureaucratization reflects efforts of elites to promote impersonal methods of control. The content of education is irrelevant, Collins (1979) suggests, but the central feature is the structure of grades, ranks, degrees, and formal credentials. This kind of education serves some of the control purposes suggested by Bowls and Gandhiist (1976). Mass education, at least, may be considered an effort to ensure labor and social discipline. But, says Collins, although modern education may discipline the lower social classes, the demand for labor discipline does not explain why some industrial societies have large mass education systems whereas others have small ones. The United States has a very large educational system, and the Soviet Union's and Japan's are quite large, but Britain, France, and Germany all have smaller systems of higher education. These are all highly industrialized societies. Why should some have massive educational systems whereas others do not?

Capitalists may have pushed for mass education in some societies, as the Marxian view suggests, but compulsory education developed in Prussia andJapan prior to industrialization. Collins (1977) suggests that the expansion of education arises from the existence of a bureaucratic state. The state imposes compulsory education on groups considered threats to state control. Those economic classes, sometimes including capitalists, may influence who the state defines as needing control. So, Collins (1977) concludes, mass compulsory education was created first to impose military and political discipline. Only later, perhaps, was it adopted to further industrial discipline.

In our system of higher education, elements of all three demands for education exist. We see some stress on practical skills, such as computer programming, laboratory, or business courses; we see strong residues of classical or humanistic education and ritualized ceremonies like fraternity hazing and graduation, which are the cultural aspects of attaining membership in certain status groups; and, finally, we see increasing specialization, stress on grades, ranks, degrees, and formal bureaucratically recognized credentials.

EFFECTS OF SCHOOLING ON INDIVIDUALS

People hope for different gains from education. Some seek to develop their minds and to learn more about their world, their culture, and themselves. Others hope to get an interesting or prestigious job. Some want to make a lot of money. Probably all these motives operate in each person to varying degrees. Are people's hopes in what education can do for them justified? Does education, especially higher education, make a difference?

Knowledge and Attitudes

Two major studies (Coleman et al., 1966;Jencks et al., 1972) concluded that schools have little effect on the knowledge students possess (as measured by scores on an achievement test) that can be statistically separated from the influence of the students' homes. In other words, students who score well on an academic achievement test appear to do so because they live in socially and economically advantaged families rather than because of the schools they attend. One result of this is that differences in academic achievement within the same school tend to be greater than the differences between schools.

Some people have interpreted these studies as saying that "schools make no difference in what students learn." One of the problems in proving that schools make a difference is finding children who do not go to school in a society where schooling is compulsory until the age of 14 or more. One relevant example occurred in Prince Edward County in Virginia in the 1960s. Rather than integrate the public schools, the community closed them. Private schools were opened for white children, but black children were unable to attend school for four years. As a result, they knew much less than children who began first grade on schedule (Green et al., 1964). The children who had never attended school did not know who George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln was, how many states there are in the United States, how to do simple arithmetic, or how to read. This situation suggests that children learn a great deal from even the poorest schools in the United States.

One researcher (Wiley, 1976) suggests that the actual amount of time in school is related to the amount learned. The more hours of schooling there are, the more pupils leant (as measured by standardized tests). Another study (Heyns, 1978) found that sixth- and seventh-grade students who went to summer school, used the library, and read a lot in the summer made greater gains in knowledge than pupils who did not have such educational exposures during the summer. The impact of schooling was particularly dramatic for disadvantaged and minority students. These studies strongly suggest that schools do influence the knowledge and skills that pupils gain.

Education also influences the general knowledge, habits, and attitudes of those who obtain it. Education is thought to prepare people for a lifetime of learning, and more educated people do indeed make greater use of printed media (newspapers, books, magazines). Better educated individuals have wider and deeper general knowledge than those who are less educated years after they finish school (Hymal1 and Wright, 1979; Hyman, Wright, and Reed, 1975) . These differences persist even when many possible confounding factors including sex, religion, social origins, and adult social position- are controlled. Education (especially college attendance) is related to adult interest in politics and public affairs, to keeping abreast of health news, and to taking adult education courses. Moreover, education makes people more skeptical of traditional institutions and is associated with more liberal political and social attitudes (Feldman and Newcomb, 1969; Ladd, 1978; Martire and Clark, 1982; Weil, 1985).

On the other hand, however, a comprehensive analysis of the intergroup beliefs, feelings, desire for personal contact, and policy orientations of men toward women, of whites toward blacks, and of the nonpoor toward the poor, failed to support the view that education is significantly related to more liberal attitudes (Jackman and Muha, 1984). Instead, they argue that educated people have simply developed more subtle forms of an ideology that supports their group's dominant position in society.

Although high schools make a substantial contribution to the creation of a better-informed citizenry, college graduates know even snore, read more, and have different attitudes and behaviors than non-graduates. people with more education are also more likely to participate in the political process Jennings, 1981). In general, education is related to a greater sense of well-being and higher self-esteem (Hyman, Wright, and Reed, 1975). Students' chances for SCLC-directed educational activities increase their capacity for self-direction in adulthood. They also help their chances for getting better jobs (Miller, Kahn, and Schooled, 1986).

Education is also the single most important factor in getting a job. As we saw earlier, theorists differ on why this is true, but they agree that for most people, at least some higher education is necessary for a professional or managerial position. Most Americans now work in large organizations (whether business, governments schools, or hospitals), and the larger and more nationally oriented these organizations are, the more they require high levels of education for white-collar, managerial, or administrative jobs (Collins, 1974). About half of all college graduates hold professional or technical positions. They work as scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, pilots, and accountants. About one in five college graduates have managerial or administrative Jobs.

The percentage of recent college graduates Entering professional and technical jobs is smaller than in the past, but the absolute number is larger. As Figure 13.4 shows, about 54 percent of the 8 million college graduates in 1986 entered professional and technical jobs, compared to 73 percent of the 4 million graduates who entered such jobs between l 962 and 1969. Thus today's college graduates arc less likely to obtain a professional or technical job than were their counterparts in the 1 ')60s. A larger proportion of college graduates is now entering occupations as managers and administrators, sales workers, clerical workers and operatives, service workers, and farm workers than was the case in the 1960s (Clogg and Shockey, 1984; Rumberger,1981; Sargent, 1984). This situation occurred because the number of college graduates grew faster than the number of professional and technical jobs (Freemal1, 1976) . A college education is no longer sufficient to get a good job, but it is all the more necessary (Smith, l986).

Job Performance

Although most social scientists concur that education is necessary to get many jobs, there is less agreement on whether it helps a person do that job well. No one denies that most jobs today require people to be able to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. At issue is the assumption that more education produces skills that are required to perform increasingly technical and complex jobs, such as those of nurses, air traffic controllers, or police officers. Research suggests that education is not related to job performance (Berg, 1970; Collins, 1974; Folger and Nam, 1967). Berg (1970), for example, studied factory workers, maintenance workers, department store clerks, technicians, secretaries, bank tellers, engineers, industrial research scientists, military personnel, and federal civil service employees and found that the more highly educated employees performed their jobs no better than less educated ones. Despite this evidence, schools are increasingly becoming the "gatekeepers" of adult positions. Whereas once people could go out and get a job "on their own," they now need a credential awarded by a school even to be considered (Faia, 1981). An educational credential is a degree or certificate used to determine a person's eligibility for a position. This gives the schools a much more powerful role in society.

Education and Income

Figure 15.2 Median Income of Men and Women 18 Years Old and Over, working Full Time and Year Round in 1986. The median income in 1986 of full-time men and women workers was related to their educational attainment, but men high school graduates still earned more than women college graduates. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1981a, p. 450.

Do educated people earn more than less educated ones? Broadly speaking, yes: the more education one has, the higher one's total lifetime earnings will be. The association between education and income needs further examination, however. There is a wide range of incomes for people at each level of education. Many earn less than the average and some earn more. Social factors other than education, notably race and sex, affect income. Figure 15.2 shows the income of men and women with different amounts of education who work full time. The returns on education for women are much lower than the returns for men. Females earn less than males at every level of education; indeed, on the average, female college graduates earn less than male high school graduates. The disparity is due partly to occupational segregation by sex and to interruptions in employment, but pay discrimination appears to play a role as well.

Young black males who are highly educated may earn as much as or more than their white male counterparts, according to some research (Freeman, 1977; Smith and Welch, 1978). Whether they continue to hold their own throughout their careers remains to be seen.

Other factors-such as type of employer, region, age, union me membership, and social class background-also affect how much one earns. In one analysis, Mincer (1974) concluded that level of education explained only about one-third of the variation in the earnings of white nonfarrll males. Even for this group, for whom education has the greatest association with income, two-thirds of the variation in earnings was due to other factors.

The economic benefits of college have been hotly debated in recent years. Some social scientists (Freeman, 1976) argue that the cost of college plus the income lost while studying will never be earned back by graduates. Others (Witmer, 1976) counter that college definitely is worth what it costs. In 1986, the relative earnings of college graduates were at a 25-year high. Most agree that the economic payoffs of college are keyed to the economy, with higher gains coming in good years and lower ones during recessions .

Education and Mobility

The relationship between education, jobs, and income varies by social class. Among the upper class (including owners of productive resources, high-level managers, and professionals), social origin is more important than education for achieving high position (as well as for inheriting wealth and gaining access to power). Class plays a large part in protecting the upper class from downward mobility and blocking the lower class from upward mobility (Figure 15.3). Education is used by the upper class to avoid downward mobility. Every effort is made to ensure high academic achievement and many years of school attendance. One way the upper class often does this is by sending its children to elite private schools (Cookson and Persell, 1985a) .



Figure 15.3 Schematic Portrayal of the Relationships Between Social Origins, Education, and Adult Occupation and Income.

For upper-class white males, social background is strongly related to the education they obtain. Their occupations and income depend to some degree upon their education but arc also influenced by their social connections and wealth. For middle-class white males, social origins are related to the education they obtain, and educational background explains more of the variation in their occupations and incomes than does social background. Lower-class white males attain less education, in general, than males of the middle or upper class. Even when they do obtain more education, however, they are less likely than their middle and upper-class contemporaries to enter high status and high-income occupations .

Among the white middle class (which includes professionals, managers, supervisors, and some highly skilled manual workers), the education of children is related to the social positions they achieve. That is, the more education they get, the more likely they are to achieve higher status and somewhat higher-paying jobs within the middle class (Balboa, 1981, Blau and Duncan, 1967; Jencks et al., 1972). They have limited chances of gaining upper-class positions, however. Thus, for white middle-class males, there is some evidence that education is related to better jobs and higher incomes. Among the lower class (including semiskilled and unskilled manual workers and the perennially unemployed), even a college education offers poor odds for achieving a prestigious occupation (Boudon, 1973; Tinto, 1978).

Sociologists suggest at least three models that show the relationship between education and social mobility in industrial societies. The sponsored mobility pattern, Turner (1960) says, occurs in Great Britain. There, children are selected at an early age for academic and university education, and few get chosen. (This may be even more true of Germany today, because Great Britain has abandoned the tests given to 11 -year-olds that determined their futures .) Children are selected early for elite status or are fated for a life of nonelite status. Turner contrasts this situation with that in the United States, where he sees a pattern of contest mobility. Here, selection is delayed and students go to school together for a long period of time. They are urged to compete with one another all along the way, in the hope that someday they may achieve a high position. A third model, presented by Rosenbaum (1976), identifies a process of tournament selection operating in American high schools. As in a sports playoff, you play a round and winners have the right to go on to the next round. If you lose, you are out of the running. Rosenbaum's view is based on actual practice in American society. In the tournament there is a continual process of selection, but selection works in only one direction out. You can be eliminated, but winning one round does not make you a permanent winner. Further research confirms that early academic success does not guarantee later success and that early academic failure strongly predicts later failure. It is also possible, however, for some people who are unsuccessful at one point to reenter the academic game at a later time (Temple and Polk, 1986).

Rosenbaum accurately describes the selection process in American society today. Competitors may be compared with the players on major baseball teams. They are preoccupied with their standings in the league, so much so that they may mistakenly think that theirs is the "only game in town." However, perhaps Unknown to them, there are sand-lot players (the lower class), most of whom will never be allowed into league competition. Only one or two of their members may make it into the major leagues. Behind the scenes are the upper-class individuals who own the teams but who do not compete themselves. Educational credentials may be likened to an invitation to try out for the teams in the league. Most lower-class members will not get those invitations. Most middle-class members will. Within this model, it is possible for some individuals to experience occupational mobility through education, although the individual does not move upward in class. For example, the son of a pharmacist may become a dentist, thus achieving occupational mobility, but both positions are "middle-class." Although individuals may move slightly up or down on the hierarchy of occupational prestige, the underlying class structure of society has not changed.2 This helps to explain why the expansion of educational opportunity has not noticeably reduced social inequality. Social inequality is based on occupational prestige, life-style, income, and wealth ownership, and the range of inequality in society is relatively unchanged by examples of individual mobility.

Functional and conflict sociologists agree that schools have powerful socialization and certification effects on individuals. They differ with respect to whether education promotes social opportunity via "merit" or serves to reproduce and legitimate existing inequalities in society. Part of their difference stems from functional sociologists' stress on individual mobility within the existing class structure. Conflict sociologists note that the relative positions of groups have not changed and urge the reduction of social and economic inequality within society. Recall from Chapter 9 that "class" refers to position in the system of production or to the control some positions exercise over others in the production process. "Occupation" refers to the technical division of labor in a society, and "occupational prestige" refers to the social respect given to various positions in society. Questions of occupation and occupational prestige do not tap the issues of wealth, ownership, and control. views raise questions about school organization and processes and their consequences.