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EDUCATION 240-3

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SOCIAL ISSUES IN EDUCATION

Spring, 1987

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Instructor:

Faculty ?

'TDa

UJ&JIJr

Tuesdays & Thursdays ?

Location: Lecture AQ 3149

1:30- 2:20

(plus one hour of tutorial per week)

Objectives:

1.

To provide a broad base of information about education and schooling with specific focus on

B.C. and Canada.

2.

To study current debates about the aims, practices and effects of the public school system.

3.

To supply background knowledge in the foundational areas of sociology, history, philosophy and

psychology as these provide the basis for informed critical reflection on the structure and

function of educational institutions.

Procedure

Lectures will generally be on Tuesday. Weekly readings will also be assigned on Tuesday. Thursdays will

usually consist of half-hour films, followed by a short lecture or discussion, or occasionally, a guest

speaker. Seminars are for clarifying lectures and readings, and students will be expected to attend and to

participate in discussion.

Topics:

- historical overview of education in B.C.

- the structure of the B.C. educational system

- the curriculum

- Images of Education: What the papers say

- how the schools construct the "normal" family

- educational "quality": Literacy crisis and falling standards

- human capital and the measurement paradigm: Turning Quality into quality

- how can schools reproduce society

- the testing and streaming of students and their teachers

- contestation and resistance

- race-class-sex: a look at the reproduction of inequality in Canadian schools

-

from yippie to yuppie in two generations: educational institutions and the

temptations of the marketplace

Required Texts:

June Purvis and Margaret Hales. Achievement and Inequality in Education(ed) Routledge & Kegan Paul,

1983.

As well, a xeroxed collection of readings will be provided to students at cost.

Course Requirements:

Students will be expected to complete all assigned readings and to attend all seminars. Assessment will

be based on five short assignments; of 20% each. One of these will be a mid-term test, written in class.

Students will be permitted to rewrite anyone of four written assignments, but not to re-take the mid term

test. There will be no final exam in this course.