Deck 20: Education

Question 1

Which of the following is a latent function of schooling?

A) ensuring some common culture
B) teaching about the U.S. way of life
C) providing child-care
D) teaching job skills

Answer 1

C

Question 2

In the United States, the focus of education has always been:

A) what is philosophical.
B) what is practical and job-related.
C) what is theoretical.
D) All of the above.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

In the world as a whole, about what share of children reach the secondary grades in school?

A) almost all
B) two-thirds
C) half
D) one-fourth

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Getting into college in Japan, compared to the United States, is more a matter of:

A) athletic ability.
B) performance on achievement tests.
C) family ties.
D) being rich.

Question 5

The major reason that schooling is limited in lower-income nations is that:

A) there is a lack of teachers.
B) religion forbids formal schooling.
C) most children become soldiers.
D) many poor children must work for income.

Question 6

A social-conflict analysis suggests that schooling in the United States developed in the late nineteenth century because that was the time that:

A) factory owners needed an obedient and disciplined workforce.
B) immigrants had to learn English in order to work in factories.
C) the country had to teach immigrants that its way of life was right and good.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 7

If you were to enter a school in ancient Greece or China, the students you would find there would be mainly:

A) women.
B) soldiers.
C) the rich.
D) foreigners.

Question 8

Jonathan Kozol criticizes the U.S. educational system for:

A) focusing too much on students' future careers.
B) making too little use of achievement tests.
C) unequal funding that makes some schools far better than others.
D) paying some teachers more than they are worth.

Question 9

Which of the following statements applies the symbolic-interaction approach to schooling?

A) If teachers think some category of students is superior, those same students may end up doing superior work.
B) Teachers convey specialized knowledge that children are not likely to learn at home.
C) Some categories of students are tracked into better classes than others.
D) Schools are intended for learning, but they also are places where many people meet their eventual partners.

Question 10

Education is the social institution by which society provides people with important knowledge, including:

A) job skills.
B) basic facts and information.
C) cultural norms and values.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 11

In the United States today, about what percentage of the adult population has a high school diploma?

A) 46 percent
B) 66 percent
C) 87 percent
D) 96 percent

Question 12

An example of the cultural capital advantage of well-to-do students in U.S. schooling is parents who:

A) spend more time reading to their children.
B) value schooling and encourage their children.
C) encourage the development of imagination in their children.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 13

The fact that, historically, schooling has been mostly for elites is evident in the fact that the word "school" has the same root as the Greek word for:

A) "learning."
B) "wisdom."
C) "leisure."
D) "elder."

Question 14

On which of the following continents do we find the most countries with high rates of illiteracy?

A) Africa
B) Europe
C) South America
D) North America

Question 15

In low-income nations, most education is a matter of:

A) formal schooling and then college.
B) what parents and other community members teach their children.
C) what children can teach themselves.
D) teaching by religious leaders.

Question 16

In the United States today, what percentage of people over the age of twenty-five have earned a four-year college degree?

A) 30 percent
B) 48 percent
C) 68 percent
D) 88 percent

Question 17

At what point in our history had a majority of adults in the United States earned a high-school diploma?

A) the early 1800s
B) about 1880
C) the early 1900s
D) the mid-1960s

Question 18

In Great Britain, regardless of their scores on achievement examinations, the children of well-to-do families:

A) generally do not go to college.
B) must go to state universities like everyone else.
C) typically go to high-prestige private universities, including Oxford or Cambridge.
D) go to trade schools, but only if they are males.

Question 19

The functions of schooling include:

A) socializing the young.
B) creating new culture.
C) helping to integrate a diverse society.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 20

One result of tracking in schools is that:

A) the brightest students get the worst teachers.
B) students do not get to study what they are interested in.
C) the students who get the best schooling are usually those who are more privileged to begin with.
D) students from disadvantaged backgrounds end up in higher tracks where they cannot do the work.

Question 21

Community colleges are an important part of higher education in the United States because they:

A) enroll almost 40 percent of college students.
B) greatly expand the opportunity to attend college.
C) enroll half of African American and Hispanic undergraduates.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 22

One indication that there is a problem of grade inflation is the fact that almost half of all grades given to today's high school students are:

A) A's.
B) B's.
C) C's.
D) D's.

Question 23

Magnet schools encourage:

A) students to specialize in specific areas of study.
B) school busing for cultural diversity.
C) students to take control of their own learning.
D) students to complete their education in fewer years.

Question 24

As income goes up among U.S. families, we find that:

A) there is no difference in the share of children who attend college.
B) the share of children going to college goes down.
C) the share of children going to college goes up.
D) more women, but fewer men, go to college.

Question 25

Which of the following categories of the U.S. population has the highest dropout rate?

A) Asian Americans
B) African Americans
C) Hispanics
D) non-Hispanic whites

Question 26

In the United States today,:

A) there is a surplus of teachers.
B) there are enough teachers.
C) there is a shortage of teachers.
D) private schools lack enough teachers.

Question 27

Which of the following correctly states the effect of additional schooling on average personal income?

A) Earning a high school diploma and a college degree does not change average personal income
B) Earning a high school diploma does not affect personal income, but earning a college degree raises personal income.
C) Earning a high school diploma raises personal income, but earning a college degree does not affect personal income.
D) Earning a high school diploma and earning a college degree both raise personal income.

Question 28

To improve U.S. schooling, A Nation at Risk recommended:

A) requiring all students to study more math, English, social studies, science, and computer science.
B) improving teacher training.
C) raising teachers' salaries.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 29

For the United States as a whole, about what percentage of people between ages sixteen and twenty-four drop out before completing high school?

A) 1 percent
B) 8.7 percent
C) 27 percent
D) 43 percent

Question 30

Assume that you support the school choice movement. What are you likely to say is the reason that U.S. public schools perform poorly?

A) Schools have no competition.
B) Some schools lack adequate funding.
C) The nation has a high poverty rate.
D) Too many parents are not involved in the schools.

Question 31

People over the age of twenty-five now account for about what percentage of all people in U.S. degree-granting programs?

A) 2 percent
B) 39 percent
C) 41 percent
D) 51 percent

Question 32

This chapter's "Seeing Sociology in the News" story explains that community colleges provide:

A) few opportunities to minorities.
B) admission only to young people.
C) learning and career opportunities for a large share of the U.S. population.
D) good schooling, but at a higher cost than other colleges.

Question 33

The problem of functional illiteracy means that:

A) many young people leave school without having learned basic skills.
B) many older people have forgotten the lessons they learned in school.
C) a significant share of U.S. children never attend school.
D) many teachers in U.S. schools do not know how to teach.

Question 34

A general lesson of sociological research is that:

A) U.S. schools are steadily getting better.
B) we cannot expect schools by themselves to improve the quality of education.
C) most public schools perform well most private schools do not.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 35

Public schools have been losing teachers in recent years because of:

A) job-related frustration.
B) low pay.
C) the retirement of many older teachers.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 36

According to Theodore Sizer, rigid bureaucracy harms schooling by:

A) imposing uniformity on culturally diverse schools.
B) emphasizing test scores and other numerical ratings.
C) expecting all students to progress at the same rate.
D) All of the above are correct.

Question 37

Research suggests that the level of functional illiteracy in the United States may be about what share of U.S. children?

A) about one in four
B) about one in twenty
C) about one in fifty
D) about one in one hundred

Question 38

Comparing the rates at which children learned in school and in their home environments, researchers have found that the main cause of the achievement gap between rich and poor children is:

A) differences in schools.
B) differences in home environments.
C) differences in personal ability.
D) differences in personal health.

Question 39

Which of the following concepts refers to the practice of including people with disabilities in regular educational classes and programs?

A) tracking
B) mainstreaming
C) chartering
D) the magnet school policy

Question 40

Charter schools are:

A) private schools that typically enroll high-income students.
B) public schools that have the freedom to try new programs and policies.
C) private schools that have a religious curriculum.
D) public schools that are run by private companies.

Question 41

In Japan, a larger share of students graduate from high school than in the United States.

Question 42

Historically, the poorest people in every society have been the most likely to go to school, so that they could learn what they needed to know to earn a living.

Question 43

What is taught in schools around the world reflects local cultures.

Question 44

Wealthy British families send their children to "public schools" that are the same as private boarding schools in the United States.

Question 45

The extent of schooling in a society is closely tied to its level of economic development.

Question 46

In the United States, schooling is an important path to upward social mobility.

Question 47

Schooling in the United States has always favored theoretical learning over practical learning.

Question 48

In low-income nations today, the vast majority of young people reach secondary school.

Question 49

Providing schooling is one way our society increases equality of opportunity.

Question 50

Education is the social institution providing members of a society with important knowledge.

Question 51

In 2005, men accounted for what share of all U.S. undergraduate college students?

A) 73 percent
B) 63 percent
C) 53 percent
D) 43 percent

Question 52

One latent function of schooling is establishing social relationships and networks.

Question 53

Social-conflict theory supports the policy of tracking to give all students instruction geared to their abilities.

Question 54

About half of U.S. adults are now college graduates.

Question 55

In India, fewer boys than girls reach secondary school.

Question 56

Most private schools in the United States are "prep schools" that typically enroll children of well-to-do families.

Question 57

Following a social-conflict approach, schooling in the United States helps to eliminate social inequality.

Question 58

The Japanese place greater importance on achievement test scores than we do in the United States in selecting students to attend colleges and universities.

Question 59

Because the United States is so rich, almost 90 percent of students attend private schools.

Question 60

If school officials consider some children to be gifted, teachers may treat them accordingly and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 61

James Coleman concluded that the only factor needed to improve schooling was increased school funding.

Question 62

African Americans have a lower rate of competing high school than Hispanic Americans.

Question 63

Families with high incomes are much more likely to send their children to college than families with low incomes.

Question 64

There has been significant grade inflation during the last several decades.

Question 65

From a social-conflict perspective, schooling in the United States transforms social privilege into personal merit.

Question 66

Research shows that, in the typical college classroom, most students are active participants who speak up.

Question 67

The dropout rate is higher for young people from rich families, who have many opportunities to succeed without going to school.

Question 68

On average, completing a college degree adds about $50,000 to a person's lifetime earnings.

Question 69

The concept "functionally illiteracy" refers to people who leave school before graduating.

Question 70

Theodore Sizer maintains that, in order to do their job, U.S. schools need to be large and bureaucratic.

Question 71

Regardless of the level of a school's funding, some students benefit from more "cultural capital" than others.

Question 72

Supporters of the school-choice movement argue that competition is a good way to motivate the public school system to improve education.

Question 73

Today's community colleges provide opportunities for not only young people but also elder people seeking new careers as well as personal enrichment.

Question 74

Community colleges enroll 37 percent of all undergraduates in the United States.

Question 75

Most people who do not complete their schooling have parents who also did not receive much schooling.

Question 76

Rather than creating violence, in most cases violence spills into schools from the surrounding society.

Question 77

Children in the United States spend only about 13 percent of their waking hours in school.

Question 78

In the United States, African Americans are less likely than Hispanics to drop out of high school.

Question 79

Dropping out of school greatly reduces a person's chance to earn a good income.

Question 80

Jonathan Kozol characterizes the differences in funding between rich and poor communities as the "savage inequality" of U.S. education.