Professor Claudia Buchmann
337 Sociology/Psychology Building
Phone: 660-5630 or 660-5614
Email: cbuch@soc.duke.edu 		Spring 2000
Class: MW 3:55-5:10 p.m
100 West Duke Building
Office Hours: Friday 11:00-12:00 and by appt.

 

 

Getting Ahead: Education and Inequality in Contemporary Societies

This seminar critically examines common views about educational institutions and the role of formal education in contemporary societies. Every day we make assumptions about why some students succeed in school while others fail. We have beliefs about the relationship between education and the "progress" of society as a whole, the benefits of schooling for individuals, and the qualities that make "good" schools. To investigate these assumptions we will explore numerous theories of the functions of schooling and the relationship between education and inequality. We will compare the United States' educational system to the Japanese system. What factors about the United States educational system make it unique? How can our schools help the U.S. become more competitive in the global economy? Other topics will include gender, class and ethnic differences in access to education and current controversial issues in the American educational system, such as school funding, school choice, and tracking in our schools.

In addition to weekly seminar meetings, this course has a "service-learning" component. Students will spend time each week at Watts Elementary School as tutors and classroom assistants. These experiences will add a real-world perspective to the theories and issues we cover in the readings and will help orient our class discussions about education and inequality. Readings will include a number of books, book chapters, academic articles, and research reports. Students will be evaluated on their participation in seminar discussions, their participation in "service-learning" (which includes 4 reflection papers), a midterm, and a research paper.


Required Reading

There are two required books and several required readings for this course. The books may be purchased at the Duke University Bookstore. They are:

Lewis, Catherine C. 1995. Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Lewis in syllabus].

Hurn, Christopher. 1993. The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling: An Introduction to the Sociology of Education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. [Hurn in syllabus].

Articles and Book chapters are on Electronic-reserve which is accessed from the Library home page on the web. These readings are listed by the authors' names in the syllabus. Generally you should bring books or readings with you to class.

Coleman, James. 1968. "The Concept of Equality of Educational Opportunity." Harvard Educational Review 38:7-22.

Powell, Arthur J., Eleanor Farrar and David K. Cohen. 1985. The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Marketplace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Kozol, Jonathan. "Other People's Children: North Lawndale and the South Side of Chicago." Pp. 40-82 in Savage Inequalities. New York: Crown Publishing.

Walters, Jonathan. 1993. "School Funding: Should Affluent Districts be Forced to Aid Poorer Neighbors?" Congressional Quarterly 3: 747-759.

Lareau, Annette. 1987. "Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships: The Importance of Cultural Capital." Sociology of Education 60:73-85.

Eder, Donna. 1981. "Ability Grouping as Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A Micro-Analysis of Teacher-Student Interaction." Sociology of Education. 54: 151-162.

Hallinan, Maureen T. 1994. "Tracking: from Theory to Practice," and Oakes, Jeannie. "More than Misapplied Technology: A Normative and Political Response to Hallinan on Tracking." Sociology of Education 67:27-46.

Renzetti, Claire M. and Daniel J. Curran. 1992. "Schools and Gender," Pp. 75-100 in Women, Men, and Society. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Sadker, Myra and David Sadker. 1994. Chapter 5, "High School: In Search of Herself." In Failing at Fairness: How America's Schools Shortchange Girls. N.Y.: Maxwell MacMillan.

Schwartz, Tony. 1999. "The SAT Numbers Game." New York Times Magazine, January 10, 1999.

Thorne, Barrie. 1993. "Boys and Girls Together...But Mostly Apart." Pp. 29-61 in Gender Play
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Allen, Walter R. and Joseph O. Jewell. "African American Education Since an American Dilemma." Daedalus 124:77-100.

Fordham, Signithia and Ogbu, John. 1986. "Black Students' School Success: Coping with the Burden of 'Acting White'." The Urban Review 18:176-206.


Course Requirements:

Class Participation: This class will be taught in a true seminar format. I will do some lecturing, but most of each class session will be devoted to a discussion of the assigned reading material. Everyone is expected to contribute to these discussions and 10 % of your final grade will be based on your contributions during class. You should avoid missing class, but if you must be absent, please try to notify me by email beforehand.

Note: All written assignments you turn in must be typed

Mid-term: The midterm will be distributed at the end of class on Wed, March 1st and is due at the beginning of class on Monday March 6th. You may use your class notes, readings, journal entries (yours and others) during the exam, but your answers on the exam are to be entirely your own.

Research Paper: You will write an 8-10 page final paper that explores more deeply one of the topics we cover in the course. I will provide more extensive reading lists for each of these topics. While these lists should give you a good starting point, you may also do additional reading and research for this project. Due dates for parts of this project are highlighted in bold on the schedule. Once you have selected your topic, you will form small "writing groups." A first draft of your paper will be due on March 22. At this time you will distribute copies of this draft to your writing group and hand in one copy of the draft. Two weeks later, on April 5, thorough comments on each of the other group member's drafts are due (one copy to author, one to hand in). Technical comments (i.e., grammar, punctuation) may be written on the drafts themselves; but the substantive and stylistic comments must be typed on separate pages and number-coded in the text. Your goal is to help the authors improve their papers through comments and suggestions.

This draft process serves two purposes. As a writer, you have the opportunity to have numerous people read and respond to your writing, which can help you improve your written communication skills. As an "editor" you learn editing skills. Editing is much easier to do with other people's written work, so practicing editing in this way can help you learn how to edit and improve your own writing. Once you receive comments from your writing group you will have a chance to revise your papers before they are due on April 26. This paper is worth 35 percent of your final course grade which is divided as follows: 25 percent for the paper itself, (I will consider your revisions based on comments to your first draft in establishing this grade) and 10 percent for the quality of your responses to other drafts.

Service Learning Component: In addition to the rigorous academic component, this class has an experiential or "service-learning" aspect. This involves spending two hours each week at George Watts Elementary School as a volunteer. Watts Elementary School is a K-5 school (kindergarten through fifth grade) within walking distance of East Campus at 700 Watts Street. The children at Watts represent a wide range of social and economic backgrounds with 90 percent of students eligible for the free and reduced lunch program. You will volunteer as classroom assistants, lunchroom and playground helpers and one-on-one tutors. More information will be given at our orientation at the school at the end of January. As you become involved in community service you will realize that often one of the most difficult aspects of this work is making the necessary arrangements. A large part of having a successful service-learning experience is being organized and persistent. Most of you will encounter problems or frustrations and working through these problems is an important part of the learning experience. You will need to be proactive and engaged in your fieldwork. If you find yourself sitting in the back of a classroom week after listening to a teacher talk, you need to meet with me to arrange a more active and engaging assignment. You will be asked to keep and turn in a record of the time that you spend at the school.

This course is part of the Duke LEAPS program (which stands for Learning through Experience, Action, Partnership and Service). You will have an opportunity to reflect on your service experiences and link them to the topics and theories we discuss in class in numerous ways. You will meet with LEAPS facilitators for reflections sessions throughout the semester. Two student members of LEAPS: Ilana Morgan and Sarah Roberson will serve as coordinators and facilitators of these group discussions which will be held at a convenient location East Campus at times to be determined. In these sessions you will discuss the issues, questions, and concerns generated by your experiences at the school. In the week prior to each of these sessions you will write a paper which reflects your thoughts and experiences and links them to the issues we cover in class. These papers will provide focus for the reflections sessions. In our seminar we will also discuss the service experience and reflect on how it relates to research and theory on educational inequality.

All of these requirements comprise the final grade as follows:
Class Participation
Midterm
Comments on others Drafts
Final Paper
Service Learning Component
 10 %
25 %
10 %
30 %
25%
  (Includes service at Watts, participation in reflection sessions, and 4 reflection papers)
 

As should be obvious, SOC 49 will not be a traditional course. You are going to be actively involved in many different challenges. At times, things might not be as clear as you would like, or might not go as smoothly as they should. Patience, flexibility and self-discipline are needed and I will be happy to talk with you about any concerns you may have. If you are not sure whether you are prepared to make the time and energy commitment to this class, you should consider taking another course. However, I think that the time we spend volunteering will ultimately be very rewarding and that we will learn much from our shared experiences, readings and discussions this semester.

TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE

Date Topic Readings Assignment
W Jan 12 Introduction to course    
W Jan 19 What is educational inequality? Coleman  
  Schools and Society: The United States and Japan Compared
  
M Jan 24 Secondary Schooling in the U.S. Hurn pp. 13-38
Powell ch. 1 (The Shopping Mall High School)
W Jan 26 Secondary Schooling in the U.S. Powell ch. 3 (Specialty Shops)
M Jan 31 U.S. continued Powell ch. 4 and conclusion (The Unspecial)
W Feb 2 Schooling in Japan Lewis Intro, ch. 1, ch.3  
M Feb 7 Japan continued Lewis ch. 4, ch. 5  
W Feb 9 Japan continued Lewis ch. 6, ch. 7  
M Feb 14 Heart of the Nation Lewis ch. 8, ch. 9 Paper Topic due
W Feb 16 Library Research and Writing Strategies    
M Feb 21 Theories of Educational Inequality Hurn ch. 2, ch. 4  
W Feb 23 Theories of Education and Film: Presidential Address    
  Differences Between and Within Schools    
M Feb 28 School Funding Debate Kozol, Walters  
W Mar 1 Film: Children in America's Schools   Progress Report due And MIDTERM distributed
M Mar 6 Do Schools Reinforce Inequality? Hurn ch. 6 Take Home Midterm due
At beginning of class
W Mar 10 The SAT and College Admissions Schwartz  
M, W Mar 13-15 No Class: Spring Break    
M Mar 20 Tracking Eder
Hallinan and Oakes		  
W Mar 22 Tracking   First Draft due
  Class, Race and Gender Inequalities in Education  
M Mar 27 Cultural Capital and Parental Involvement Lareau
Hurn 152-155 		 
W Mar 29 Parental Involvement Reading To be announced
M Apr 3 Gender Renzetti and Curran  
W Apr 5 Gender Sadker and Sadker
Thorne 		Paper Comments due
M Apr 10 Reflection Session    
W Apr 12 Race and Ethnicity Allen and Jewell  
M Apr 17 Race and Ethnicity Fordham and Ogbu  
W Apr 19 Race and Ethnicity Steele  
M Apr 24 TBA    
W Apr 26 Conclusion and Wrap-Up   Final Papers Due