Transcript File - Knowledge, Integrity and Excellence Through

Ethics and Foundations
WHAT IS AMERICAN CULTURE
What is American Culture?
 What is American culture?
What is “whiteness” in America?
 Is it real or an imagined identity?
 Are there advantages to being “white”? If so what are
they?
 Are there other “______ness” in the US?
Cultural Capital
 Pierre Bourdieu (1930-
2002)
 Distinction: a Social
Critique of the Judgment of
Taste
 Development of
methodologies, combined
theory and empirical data.
 Cultural sociology
Cultural Capital (1973)
 cultural capital acts as a social relation within a
system of exchange that includes the accumulated
cultural knowledge that confers power and status.
 forms of knowledge; skill; education; any
advantages a person has which give them a higher
status in society, including high expectations.
Parents provide children with cultural capital, the
attitudes and knowledge that makes the
educational system a comfortable familiar place in
which they can succeed easily.
Cultural Capital
 Field: any structure of social relations: family,
school, group of friends.
 Conflict arises out of the struggle of individuals and
groups’ attempts to establish what is valued and
comprises cultural capital.
 What is valued in one field may not be in another.
 Society, school, group of friends, family
Cultural Capital
 Habitus: dispositions that are inculcated in the
family but manifest themselves in different ways in
each individual.
 Changes as an individuals position in a field changes.
McDonaldization of Education
GEORGE RITZER (1995)
Rationalization
 the substitution of logically consistent rules for
traditional (or illogical) rules. One of the
fundamental aspects of McDonaldization is that
almost any task can (and should) be rationalized.
 Tasks are broken down into smaller and smaller
tasks to find the single most efficient method for
completing the task.
Efficiency
 The optimum method of completing a task. The
rational determination of the best mode of
production. Individuality is not allowed.
 "...choosing the optimum means to a given end (p.
36)".
 Efficiency is thrust upon us rather than choosing our
most efficient methods… irrationality.
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Salad bar
ATM
Drive through
Calculability
 Assessment of outcomes based on quantifiable rather
than subjective criteria. In other words, quantity
over quality.
 More is better: big, super size, double, triple
Predictability
 The production process is organized to guarantee
uniformity of product and standardized outcomes.
 No matter where you go in the world, you know what
you are going to get…
Control
 The substitution of more predictable non-human
labor for human labor, either through automation or
the deskilling of the work force.
unacceptable
Same sex
marriage
abortion
Female
genital
mutilation
homosexuality
Arranged
marriages
acceptable
Muslim
Religion
Alternative
prom
Illegal
immigrants
What is the goal of education?
 When and who decides when children are too far gone to be saved?
 Does self-fulfilling prophecy exist? Do students give into the stereotypes
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that surround them? Why do they accept a bleak future over success?
Who was right, Thomas Jefferson or Horace Mann…do people need to be
educated to be good citizens? Or does the answer lye somewhere in the
middle?
When did schools move from educating students on subjects to teaching
them about values, family, community, sex education, health, diets, and
exercise? When did schools start taking on some of the home
responsibilities?
Why are schools the first ones to be blamed when students’ fail when in fact
it should be the political system (government) blamed because those are
ultimately the people who are establishing the curriculum?
Is Horace Mann’s term “equality of opportunity” really equal? He argues
that by going to school, everyone can be given an equal opportunity to
compete for jobs. How can this happen if funding is not equal for all
schools? How can unequal funding create equal opportunities?