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The main sociological perspectives on education fall agreeably into the functional, conflict theory and a symbolic interaction approaches (Ballantine .W & Hammack . M77). Functional hypothesis stresses the purpose that education serves in gratifying a community’s various wants. Conceivably the most imperative function of education is socialization. If kids need to learn the customs, morals, and skills they require to function in culture, then education is a crucial medium for such learning. Schools educate children the three R, on the other hand they also teach several of the society’s customs and morals. In the United States of America, these customs and morals includes respect for authority, loyalty (keep in mind the Pledge of Allegiance?), timekeeping, individuality, and competition. Concerning these last two morals, American students from a tender age participate as individuals over grades and other recompenses. Conflict theory does not contradict most of the functions approach. Nevertheless, it does give a number of them a different angle and talks about a number of ways in which education enable social inequality (Ballantine. W & Hammack. M 81). One instance entails the function of social placement. As the majority schools trail their students as early as in grade school, the students conceded by their instructors to be intelligent are placed in the quicker tracks (particularly in reading and mathematics), whereas the slower students are positioned in the slower trails; in high school, three ordinary tracks are the college trail, vocational trail, and general trail.
Social inequality is also enabled via the extensive use of standardized tests. Detractor say these tests persist to be ethnically biased, as they comprise of questions whose responses are most likely to be identified by white, middle-class scholars, whose backgrounds have given them a variety of experiences that
Cited: Ballantine .W & Hammack M. Dynamic of sociology and other theories: An integrated approach. London: Sage publication, 1999. Print.