Investigating What Macro-sociological Approaches and Micro-sociological Approaches Tells Us About Student Under-achievement in School

In addition, conflict theory is another method of viewing society, except this particular perspective is a microsociology method of analyzing society. Using conflict theory, means to take a closer look at the interactions between people within a society. In this case, Wal-Mart employees and factory workers will be studied.

Structural functionalism is a macro analysis view defined as “The way each part of society functions together to contribute to the whole.” In education, it focuses on how it serves the needs of society. Functionalists view education as a way to pass on knowledge and skills. While functionalists believe that schools sort students based upon their academic knowledge, Conflict theorists believe that students are sorted based on their social/financial class. Conflict theory is “The way inequalities contribute to social differences and perpetual differences in power.” Conflict theorists believe that students of lower status won’t have the same opportunities in school as students of a higher class. A student of a family with a

The most effective sociological perspective is seen to be the functionalist perspective. This is because it explains that education serves different functions in the society like socialization, social integration, social and cultural innovation and also social placement. Whereas the conflict theory states that education is meant as a way of promoting social inequality by differing in the funding and learning conditions in the various schools plus the impact of hidden curriculum. On the other hand the symbolic interactionalist perspective state that education tends to affect the gender roles and also the interaction between a teacher and a student affects how they learn due to some set expectations by teachers (Barkan 2012).

Society is in a perpetual state of conflict with bourgeois, or propertied class, exploiting the workers. Society is in a conflict, constantly changing, negative state. Conflict theory is the opposite of functionalism in that it sees conflict as being the personification of every single segment of society. This includes race, religion, gender, politics, and economy. Powerful people are wrestling with and exploiting the weaker and under-privileged and unequal groups usually have conflicting values that cause competition and conflict. This results in the constantly changing face of history.

This theoretical framework will help me to present and describe the theory, which explains why the research problem under study exists. According to sociologist there are two main views of inequalities within sociology. One view supports the functionalist theory and the other supports the conflict theory. I preferred to use both theories to help support my research. Ashley Crossman a sociologist says “Functionalist theorists believe that inequality is inevitable and desirable and plays an important function in society. In the other hand, conflict theory view inequality as resulting from groups with power dominating less powerful groups.”(Crossman, 2000). A functionalist theory perspective on education examines the society. Also, functionalist theories will emphasis on aspects such as schools, education, competition and equality of opportunity.

Think about putting a child through school. The child gets the education needed provided by the state, in return we pay for taxes to the state to keep the education funded. The significance of functionalism is it keeps everything balanced. When schools run out of money the budgets must shrink and activities would be cut to balance out the lack of funds. The last factor is conflict theory in which there is a competition for scarce resources (Three Major Perspectives in Sociology). Sociological perspective invites us to look for the connections between the behavior of individual people and the structures of the society in which they live (Henslin 17). The sociological perspective is a particular way of approaching a phenomenon common in sociology, by applying all three factors that have been discussed. It involves maintaining independence, not by stripping oneself of values, but by critically evaluating and testing ideas, and accepting what may be surprising or even displeasing based on the evidence. (Henslin 18). The sociological perspective often assumes that “official” explanations are incomplete or self-serving. It involves a conscious effort to go beyond the obvious and question what is accepted as true or common sense. This is important because common-sense assumptions are usually based on very limited observation. Moreover, the premises on which common-sense assumptions are based are seldom examined. 
The sociological perspective

The impact that the social problem of equity in education can be severe and affects not only certain minorities and the less affluent, but also the United States as a whole. From the conflict perspective, education is just like any other valuable resource, in that it is scarce and those with higher incomes have access to a higher quality of education. From the functionalist perspective, a schools failure to perform its functions stems from social disorganization within the community. Regardless of the perspective, when only a select group has access to a high quality education, it can leave entire segments of the population behind economically for generations, which only perpetuates the problem. This becomes a problem to society as a whole

Many Americans have this idea in their head that in order to be someone in this world you need a strong education, which will help you get a well paying job. However, many people believe that this idea of a “strong education” is actually destroying our kids. According to many philosophers they’re two crises that are endangering the American education system. One “crisis” being that school is taking away from a child’s individualism, the other being that the education system is falling behind. The two are very different and both have many strategies to solve them, which we have discussed during the semester.

Conflict theory is all about the structure side of the two elements of society chart. The structured side includes institutions, social groups, statuses, and roles. This theory is also a macro theory on the level of analysis. Conflict theory focuses on “the way inequalities contribute to social differences and perpetuate differences in power. In addition, conflict theory is also about competition, power, and social change.

In society today, structural functionalism can be defined as looking at society as a whole with all the small parts working together to make things run smoothly. For example, these smaller parts are known as institutions. These may include: inequality, education, religion, sports, politics etc. We as the people of tomorrow live in a very controversial society where there are a lot of factors that restricts us from these types of institutions that may very well have us depending on the government in the long run. One of the institutions that we are restricted from on a daily basis is, education. The educational system is viewed as an important factor to maintain social order and stability, and most of the

However, from a different perspective Social Conflict Approach, Karl Max defined the Social Conflict Approach as a framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and changes. Conflict theory usually emphasizes on negative, conflicted and ever-changing nature of society. Unlike functionalists who defended the status quo, avoid social change and believe people works together to effect social order, conflict theories challenge the status quo, encourage social change and believe rich and powerful people force social order on the weak and poor. Now the problem is how far do social conflict theories relate to the educational system? As illustrated by Marxist theorists Althusser, education socially

Bringing sociology to public schools would have the additional positive effect of reversing the growing culture of classism and its accompanying deficit theory. This theory, rooted in idealism, asserts that “poor people are poor because of their own moral and intellectual deficiencies (Collins, 1988)”. Theorists promote this theory by “drawing on well-established stereotypes” (Gorski) and ignoring the systemic conditions rigged to maintain the status quo. By controlling the conversation as an issue of deficient individuals rather than one of unequal access to basic human rights the cycle continues from generation to generation.

Conflict theory is “A major sociological perspective that sees society as a set of groups in constant competition over wealth, power, and prestige. (Larkin, 2015)” Conflict theory is a more view primarily stating

The main point the functionalist perspective on education is that society comprised of parts which encourage the framework in general and that adjustment in one a player in the public As a result, Functionalist theory on education shows that it assumes an indispensable part of people 's lives and society. For examples, when the society has a lot of educated people it will became more prosperous. On the other hand the society that has less educated people it will became illiterate.

Educational hegemony is essentially the systematic brainwashing of our nation’s students in an attempt to maintain current ideologies supported by our education system. In other words, ideologies are basically bull crap. There are five examples of ideologies our education system teaches; the first is individualism which is at the core of person-blaming, when society blames individuals for their own problems rather than system level issues. One example of person-blaming is when administrators blame the students for not having high test scores or not performing well. But it's not the students fault at all because teachers don't have time in the school year to teach everything that they are supposed to. The second ideology that is reinforced in our education system is the theory of laissez faire. This theory supports limited government regulations and rules basically no government interference with the market resulting in a free market. Laissez faire creates the illusion of equal opportunity which is nearly impossible in a capitalist society. The disillusioned believe that everybody has an equal opportunity for attaining a quality education leading to a good job. In a capitalist society in which educational institutions are looking to make money the theory of equal opportunity begins to dissolve. When it comes to admissions, monetary contributions are often more important than scholarship. This unfortunate reality is a