An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …
Milieu
Earlier, this blog offered four commonplaces of curriculum
development. These commonplaces are the
brainchild of William Schubert, and they include the subject matter, teachers,
learners or students, and milieu. It is
now time to address the milieu. It is
defined as the general social environment of the classroom and the school site. For the purposes of this account, the milieu
is seen as being affected by the following factors: the expectations of the school, the youth
culture found at the school site, and the socio-economic status base of the
school.
The literature on this
topic generally describes how important the social environment is in assisting
and assuring positive results in learning and in the socialization of young
people. For example, one finds the
following as typical:
Students of all ages need social support to experience
academic success, but adolescents are especially in need of direction. Because
so much of a student's day is spent at school, middle schoolers use this as a
venue in which to figure out who they are outside of their family
relationships. When students of any age avail themselves of positive peer
relationships in an academic setting, such as peer tutoring programs, they can
experience academic success.[2]
As for the listed factors above (expectation, culture, and socio-economic
status), Christopher Hurn, at least as long ago as 1993, places a great deal of
emphasis on them as he describes the sociological make-up of today’s schools in
America.[3]
Of course, discussion of
social factors in the United States, be it in schools or any other
institutions, must take into account the diversity of the nation’s social
settings:
Every
modern society, and the United States more than others, is a divided society,
with different conceptions of the ideal man or woman, the heroes that should be
emulated, and the values we should strive to realize in our lives. Furthermore, most of these differences are related
to the ethnic, class, religious, or regional differences between groups.[4]
If anything, in the ensuing years, this characterization has become more
so.[5] While this posting cannot be of particular
focus on every group and class, the points made will hopefully be sensitive to
the vast social array this diversity creates.
Specifically, this and
following postings will provide answers to the following questions:
·
How do
current expectations of schools affect the implementation of a parochial/traditional
federalist construct?
·
How does
the socio-economic status of a school affect the implementation of a
parochial/traditional federalist construct?
·
How does
the youth culture of a school affect the implementation of a
parochial/traditional federalist construct?
Expectations of Schools
Hurn argues that the
milieu of a school and classroom is affected by the expectations that the general
society has of that school.[6] In more recent research, for example, it provides
evidence that parental expectations, highly influenced by other cultural
factors, do affect how well students perform academically.[7] Perhaps the oldest of these recognized
expectations is that schools, or whatever educational institutions exist, are
responsible to transfer the cultural heritage of a particular society.
Generally, that
literature begins a description by offering a definition. That is for “socialization” being the process
of transmitting cultural knowledge, including myths, values, ideals, and skills. Schools have a role; they are responsible for
socializing the youth of a society to those elements of the culture
sufficiently important and complex that they require formal instruction and a
deliberate effort.
Industrial and post-industrial
societies make enormous efforts to transmit, through overt means such as formal
curricula, materials, textbooks, and the like, and through subtle means such as
through organization of schools, appearance of school buildings, arrangements
of chairs, organization of school schedules, staff behavior or lack of
behavior, etc. to meet this aim.
These latter methods, called the hidden
curriculum, are at times far more effective than the formal curriculum. Chiefly, and of long-lasting effect, they
assist in forming the assumptions students hold in their educational efforts
and later, the beliefs they bring into their employment experiences.[8]
Roughly beginning in the
1980s through today, people have increasingly questioned the effectiveness of
schools in preparing the younger generation for the demands of the economy. Through the years of the current century,
more than fifty percent of the American population is dissatisfied with how
their schools are preparing the youth for the realities of that economy.[9]
Of course, currently, these sentiments are
being affected by the COVID experience when many young people stayed home for
their schooling – which apparently has caused a newfound appreciation for what
schools usually do.[10] But this will probably pass as the pandemic
fades in the common memory.
In any event, official policy has so prized
education that these modern societies, as just alluded to, have invested
heavily in mass education and, for the most part, have made schooling
compulsory. So, a controversy has been
generated as schools were perceived as mediocre; they have been looked upon as
not being successful in imparting basic
literacy and math skills. While this
general judgment has softened, one can basically see that only about half the
population holds positive judgments as to their efficacy.
Here's a summary about how they feel:
Gallup’s annual update
of how Americans feel about the quality of primary and secondary education in
the U.S. finds the public relatively upbeat this year [2019]. For the first
time since 2004, a slim majority of U.S. adults, 51%, are satisfied with the
overall quality of education that students in kindergarten through grade 12
receive. This is up from 43% in 2018 and an average 45% since 2005.[11]
And a lot of that past dissatisfaction judged schools graduating
youngsters who had not mastered the fundamental skills that the parents
considered essential given the demands of a modern economy. Adding to this, many parents could not come
to terms with permitting students free choice among a vast array of undemanding
courses.
What seems significant to
the dialectic argument being presented in this blog is whether a
parochial/traditional federalist construct can be amenable to general
expectations held by all or some of the socio-economic classes or are
expectations of career or job preparation so strong as to drown out all other
concerns that parochial federalism addresses.
For more on the effect of socio-economic class,
it will be further developed in an upcoming posting. More specifically, this report on how schools
are doing in preparing youngsters for the needs of society will be continued in
the next posting. Yet, from what this
posting reports, one can detect concern as to whether schools are doing a sufficiently
good job, and there are good reasons for that uncertainty given the upheaval of
the pandemic, school shootings, a rapidly changing economy, and the effects
they have had on people’s perceptions of how well schools are doing.
[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022). The reader is reminded that the claims made
in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this
blogger. Instead, the posting is a
representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might
present. This is done to present a
dialectic position of that construct.
[2] Ashly Garris, “The Effects of School Environments on
Student Success,” Classroom (September 26, 2017), accessed June 8, 2022,
https://classroom.synonym.com/identify-positive-school-climate-18044.html .
[3] Christopher Hurn, The Limits and Possibilities of
Schooling: An Introduction to the Sociology
of Education (Boston, MA: Allyn and
Bacon, 1993).
[4]
Ibid., 6. This concern can be traced all
the way back to the origin of the nation where James Madison wrote of an “extended
republic” which in part referred to America’s diverse population – at that
time, mostly from the various Western European nations.
[5]
Eric Jensen, Nicholas Jones, Megan Rabe, Beverly Pratt, Lauren Medina, Kimberly
Orozo, and Lindsay Spell, “The Chance that Two People Chosen at Random Are of
Different Race or Ethnicity Groups Has Increased Since 2010,” United States
Census Bureau (August 12, 2021), accessed June 8, 2022, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html
.
[6] Hurn, The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling.
[7] Ian Robertson, Sociology: A Brief Introduction (New York, NY: Worth Publishing, Inc., 1987).
[8] For example, “The Hidden Curriculum and School
Ethos,” Revise Sociology (n.d.), accessed June 8, 2022, https://revisesociology.com/tag/hidden-curriculum/ .
[9]
Rebecca Riffkin, “America’s Satisfaction with Education System Increases,” Gallup
(August 28, 2014), accessed June 8, 2022, https://news.gallup.com/poll/175517/americans-satisfaction-education-system-increases.aspx.
[10]
Emilian Vagas and Rebecca Winthrop, “Beyond Reopening Schools: How Education Can Emerge Stronger than before
COVID-19,” Brookings (September 8, 2020), accessed June 8, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/research/beyond-reopening-schools-how-education-can-emerge-stronger-than-before-covid-19/
.
[11] Lydia Saad, “Americans’ Satisfaction with U.S.
Education at 15-Year High,” Gallup (August 29, 2019), accessed June 8, 2022, https://news.gallup.com/poll/266063/americans-satisfaction-education-year-high.aspx . Again, the
COVID effect might be influencing this uptick in satisfaction.
