Introduction

This chapter introduces several theories concerning the sociology of education. Because this text explores education from a sociological perspective, it is essential that we consider how theory contributes to our understanding of education as a part of society. Sociological theories help us to assemble diverse views about society and then construct or constitute a more comprehensive understanding of what is happening and why. Each theoretical perspective represents a particular way of understanding the social world. It is like seeing the world through a specific set of glasses (see Figure 2.1). The way we see the world clearly influences how we interpret the social processes that are occurring within it. In this chapter, theories are presented chronologically as they have developed over time.

Many theories are given consideration in this chapter. No one theory is “right”—you will see that every theory has its own strengths and weaknesses. All theories focus on different aspects of human society; some focus on class, others on race, others on gender. There is much overlap, and while many theorists talk about class, for example, you will find that they think of it in markedly different ways. And the prominence of particular theoretical perspectives follows definite trends. Some of these theories were very popular in the discipline at one point (e.g., structural functionalism) but are barely considered now. However, it is important to understand the origins of all theories of educational sociology in use today. Understanding the era of a theory—that is, the historical circumstances under which it emerged—often also helps to understand the emphasis given to different aspects of social life.

Each theory is presented with a brief overview followed by examples from recent research, including Canadian research where possible. This chapter is meant to be a synopsis of the various theories used by sociologists of education; it is in no way an exhaustive overview of all theories within the discipline.

Terminology

When you are learning about sociological theories, you may run across numerous words that you have not encountered before. Various theories are peppered with strange terminology. Theorists have adopted the use of specialized words to capture concepts that often have very complex meanings. Below, many such instances of these terms are discussed: cultural capital, habitus, racialization, and primary effects, just to name a few. Many of these terms are specific to one particular body of theories or a particular theorist.

Some terms, however, are used throughout the discussion of theory rather frequently. These terms are macrosocial theory, microsocial theory, agency, and structure.

Agency and Structure

What is more important in explaining social life—individuals or the social structures around them? This is the question at the heart of the debate between agency and structure. Agency refers to the individual’s ability to act and make independent choices, while structure refers to aspects of the social landscape that appear to limit or influence the choices made by individuals. So, which one takes primacy—individual autonomy or socialization? Of course, this question is not easily resolved and it is central to theoretical approaches in sociology. Some theorists emphasize the importance of individual experience, therefore favouring agency. Those theorists who favour agency are associated with microsociological explanations of social phenomena. Other theorists view society as a large functional organism. These are macrosociologists, who see the social world as a series of structures with varying degrees of harmony.

The agency–structure debate in social theory isn’t simply about which is more important; it also considers what it is that ties the individual to society. Society is more than a collection of individuals—there is something larger at work that makes those individuals a “society.” The Marxists (i.e., macro theorists) emphasize how social structures determine social life and maintain that individual actions can be reinterpreted as the outcomes of structural forces. In other words, it may seem that individuals made decisions to act in certain ways (e.g., get a specific job or take a specific course) and these theorists would argue that the larger forces of society and structure constrain an individual’s choices in such a way that these are the only decisions that can be made. Phenomenologists are microsociological theorists who focus on the subjective meanings of social life and how these meanings are responsible for creating individuals’ social worlds. Much research in social theory has focused on how to reconcile the structure and agency debate by exploring how individuals are connected to society. Some reconciliations are offered by Berger and Luckmann (1969), Giddens (1984), Ritzer (2000), and Bourdieu (1986). Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus as a bridge between structure and agency will be discussed later in this chapter. Similarly, Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) discussion of the various ways and levels at which the child interacts with the environment will also be a considered as way of bridging the gap between agency and structure.

Ontology and Epistemology

Also underlying theoretical perspectives are other assumptions about the social world. There are two very important assumptions to consider when thinking about theories in the sociology of education—ontology and epistemology.

The theoretical perspectives considered in this text all have “taken-for-granted” ontological and epistemological orientations in their worldviews. Figure 2.2 graphically illustrates how ontology, epistemology, agency, structure, and the levels of social theory tend to correspond to each other on a spectrum. Microsocial theorists, for example, tend to emphasize agency over structure, point to the importance of understanding subjective reality, and use interpretive methods (in-depth qualitative interviews) when undertaking their studies. On the opposite end of the spectrum are macrosocial theorists, who focus on structure and believe in an objective reality that is to be learned about through positivist methods.

When learning about theories, it is important to think about what the theorist is assuming about social life. Theorists approach their subject with specific orientations to the primacy of agency or structure, micro/macro sociological concerns, and specific beliefs about the nature of reality and how it should be studied. There are stark distinctions among theoretical approaches and recognizing the assumptions made by theorists in this way can help you understand the major differences in the “schools of thought” explored in the rest of the chapter.

Feminist Approaches

Feminist theory within the sociology of education is concerned with how gender produces differences in education, whether it concerns access to education, treatment in the classroom, achievement, or learning processes. Feminist theory and feminism in general has undergone tremendous shifts since its beginning in the late nineteenth century compared to how it is popularly understood in academic research today. There are three general “waves” that are associated with feminism (Gaskell 2009). First wave feminism is associated with the women’s rights and suffrage movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The concern of feminists of this generation was to achieve equal rights to men.

Second wave feminism, which occurred in the 1960s and extended into the early 1990s, focused on women’s equality, financial independence, women’s access to work, and sexual harassment. An important theoretical orientation that developed during this time period was standpoint theory, which is associated with the work of prominent Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith. Among her contributions to sociology, Smith is known for feminist standpoint theory, which calls for a sociology from the standpoint of women. Standpoint theory focuses on the settings, social relations, and activities of women that are their own lived realities. Unlike other feminist approaches that emphasize how sex roles shape the domination of women, standpoint theory focuses on how knowledge plays a central role in social domination of women and how a dearth of women’s voices in the construction of this knowledge contributes to oppression. In Mothering for Schooling, Griffith and Smith (2005) used a similar approach to show how mothers’ work in getting children ready for school, volunteering at schools, and helping with homework is necessary for the school system to function, but it also serves to hinder women in working for income. The authors show how this gendered labour is closely tied to the success or failure of children at school and how the school system depends on this invisible and uncompensated labour.

Having emerged in the early 1990s, third wave feminism is what is most commonly (but not exclusively) associated with feminist approaches in research today. Also known as critical feminism, third wave feminism is largely a response to the White middle-class focus of second wave feminism. Not only concerned with gender, third wave feminist scholarship also focuses on the intersection of race and class in producing inequality.

Often dubbed postmodern feminism, the critical feminist scholarship of third wave feminism frequently scrutinizes the meaning surrounding gender and how power relations play themselves out in subtle ways. The work included under critical feminist or postmodern studies in the sociology of education is incredibly varied. There is no single theory or theorist that can be associated with this perspective. Other feminist scholars (Dillabough and Acker 2008; McNay 2000) have adapted the work of major theorists, such as Bourdieu, so that they are more overtly focused on issues of gender. Many self-identified postmodern feminists draw on the work of Michel Foucault, a theorist associated with discourse analysis (and poststructuralism). Discourse refers to the way that a certain topic is talked about—the words, images, and emotions that are used when talking about something. Postmodern feminists who use a Foucauldian approach would be interested in examining how language is used to maintain gendered power relationships. Many critical feminist scholars draw upon the work of several theorists to fine-tune their particular theoretical orientation. Box 2.7 provides some examples of some recent Canadian critical feminist scholarship in the sociology of education.

Critical Race Theory

As suggested by the name, critical race theories put race at the centre of analysis, particularly when analyzing educational disadvantage. Critical race theory (CRT) has its roots in legal scholarship from the United States. Examination of the racialized nature of the law has been extended to examine how race is embedded in various aspects of social life, including education (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Tate 1997). Critical race theorists assert that inequalities experienced in education cannot be explained solely by theories of class or gender—that it is also race and the experience of being racialized that contributes to stratification of many aspects of social life, including education. In general, critical race theorists do not assert that race is the only thing that matters, but that race intersects with many other important factors that determine life chances, like class and gender. Like their predecessors studying law, critical race theorists examining education emerged from studying African Americans and school achievement. Acknowledging that gender and race do account for many differences observed in educational attainment, it still remained a fact that middle class African-Americans had significantly lower academic achievement than White Americans (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995).

Discourses and Cultural Hegemony

Critical race theory is not simply about overt racism. Scholars and educators—and most people in general—like to view themselves as non-racist. Critical race theorists examine the often very subtle ways that racism plays itself out in various social structures. In fact, they point to how racism has become “normal” in society (Ladson-Billings 1998). Their mandate is not simply to highlight race as a topic of study, but also to point to how traditional methods, texts, and paradigms, combined with race and class, contribute to discourses which impact upon communities of colour (Solorzano, Ceja, and Yosso 2000). There are dominant discourses in Canadian society which, critical race theorists argue, favour White culture. A very simple example is to look at how the topic of “family” is discussed in classrooms. A curriculum that is based upon North American “White” culture may assume that “family” means two parents (a male and a female) and their children. When teachers are discussing “the family,” this may be what they are assuming everyone understands and experiences in their home life. If, however, a child comes from a different background where “family” constitutes an extended family or even an entire community, he or she would be subject to a dominant discourse that does not reflect his or her lived reality. See Box 2.8 for an additional example of how discursive practices influence curriculum.

The idea of cultural power also relates back to Italian sociologist Antonio Gramsci, who popularized the term hegemony (Gramsci, Hoare, and Smith 1971). While Gramsci himself was associated with Marxism, aspects of his writings on power relationships have been useful for critical race theorists and feminist scholars alike. Cultural hegemony refers to popular beliefs and values in a culture that reflect the ideology of powerful members of society. In turn, these values are used to legitimate existing social structures and relationships. It is a form of power used by one group over another, largely by consensus. The widely accepted definition of the family described above would fit into this category of cultural hegemony in Canada. Cultural hegemony also exists, to a much larger extent, in the dominance of “Whiteness” and White values in much of Canadian society. Pidgeon (2008) has written about how the typical Canadian definition of “success” in post-secondary education refers to finishing a program and making financial gains as a result. Success, however, for Indigenous students means something much more complex. According to Pidgeon, “success in university for many Indigenous nations means more than matriculating through prescribed curriculum to graduation. The benefits of university-trained Indigenous peoples extend beyond financial outcomes. Higher education is valued for capacity building within Indigenous nations toward their goals of self-government and self-determination. Higher education is also connected to empowerment of self and community, decolonization and self-determination” (2008:340). The author argues that counter-hegemonic discourses around the notion of success must be entertained by university officials to improve Indigenous student retention.

Racialization

Racialization is the process by which various groups are differentially organized in the social order (Dei 2009). These groups exist within hierarchies of power that value the identity and characteristics of one group over all others. According to CRT, “Whiteness” and the culture surrounding Whites is prioritized in our culture, and various social institutions, including those responsible for education, embrace those values (whether they acknowledge it or not) which place racialized individuals at an inherent disadvantage. White privilege is embedded in a discursive practice that legitimizes hierarchies that are based on race (Schick and St. Denis 2005). An important task for teachers, students, administrators, and researchers is to question how the privilege associated with Whiteness keeps existing power positions in place. See Box 2.9 for additional discussion of Whiteness.

If White culture is understood as the “norm,” and the practices and beliefs from this culture are embedded in the curriculum of our places of education, students from non-White backgrounds will be at a disadvantage in variety of ways. First, their own cultural knowledge and practices are, by default, considered illegitimate at worst, or “weird” or “exotic” at best. Second, they are made to adapt to White culture in order to succeed. In the words of Ladson-Billings (1998:18), they are made to follow a curriculum based upon a “White supremacist master script.” Third, teaching strategies developed from the Euro-Canadian culture may fail with racialized students, thus labelling such students as “high risk.”

Millington, Vertinsky, Boyle, and Wilson (2008) used a critical race approach in their examination of Chinese-Canadian masculinities and physical education (PE) curriculum in Vancouver, British Columbia. The authors examined how, historically, Chinese boys are stereotyped as “unmanly” by White boys, as they are characterized as studious and passive. The authors note how this specific definition of masculinity prevailed in a Vancouver high school. This White, middle-class definition of masculinity was realized through the rewarding of physically aggressive performances in PE class by these males and by their physical and verbal intimidation of the Chinese-Canadian males. The researchers noted how the types of games played in the PE curriculum—like football and dodgeball—rewarded this kind of behaviour, while marginalizing the Chinese-Canadian boys. Furthermore, the teachers did not see these unfolding dynamics as acts of racism, although they had a key role in facilitating such hegemonic masculinities.

In contrast, Levine-Rasky (2008) uses CRT in an analysis of a neighbourhood school referred to as Pinecrest, within a large Canadian city. From the 1960s to the late 1980s, the school that served a particular area was comprised of a relatively homogenous student body which reflected the makeup of the neighbourhood—Jewish from a high socioeconomic background. Starting in the 1990s, a neighbouring community that was made up largely of new immigrants was beginning to grow. As a result, children from the neighbouring community started attending Pinecrest, eventually resulting in a stark shift in the demographic of the school. Levine-Rasky spoke to parents in the neighbourhood, many of whom themselves attended Pinecrest as children, to see if they sent their own children there. Nearly half of their own children who were entitled to attend Pinecrest (due to the catchment area) did not. The author explored the reasons these parents had for sending their children elsewhere and found that many of these parents were engaged in maintaining their “Whiteness” and “middle-classness.” Rather than being overtly racist or ethnocentric, the parents often indicated their reservations stemmed from their belief that immigrant children may somehow disrupt he educational process by requiring disproportionate attention or having parents who did not understand the value of education.

An important extension of critical race theory is anti-racist pedagogy, which refers to classroom techniques and curricular approaches that address racialization. This will be covered in Chapter 5.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German intellectual and revolutionary known for his creation and endorsement of socialism and communism. Marx was a prolific writer, and among his many books were The Communist Manifesto and three volumes of Das Kapital. Writing during the industrial revolution in Europe (a point in history which markedly changed how goods were produced and thereby how people earned a living), Marx believed that all social relations were rooted in economic relations, particularly the mode of production, which refers to the way of producing goods and services. In capitalist systems, the mode of production is such that it places workers and owners in direct opposition to one another. Both groups have differing interests: the workers, for example, want to command the highest wage, while the owners, in order to drive the greatest profit, want to pay the lowest possible wage. This relation of production under capitalism, or the social relations that stem from capitalism, means that workers are always subservient and dependent on owners.

Marx viewed society as divided into distinct classes. At the most basic level, there were owners (the bourgeoisie) and workers (the proletariat). He argued that the only way to achieve a just society was for the proletariat to achieve class consciousness—to collectively become self-aware of their class group and the possibilities for them to act in their own rational self-interest.

The idea of class is at the very core of Marx and Marxist scholarship. While Marx was a prolific writer, he wrote relatively little on education. However, he did emphasize that class relations spilled into all aspects of social life, therefore the role of education in society—capitalist society—would be a topic of much relevance under a Marxist framework. In particular, the educational system of a society exists to maintain and reproduce the economic systems of society. Institutions in society, including education, were the outcome of activities and ideas that were created through the specific material conditions and circumstances surrounding them.

Credentialism

Status groups often limit membership based on credentials. Credentialism is a major theme in Weberian (and neo-Weberian) discussions of the sociology of education. Credentialism refers to the requirement of obtaining specific qualifications for membership to particular groups. More specifically, the actual skills obtained through these credentials are often not explicitly associated with the job’s task. Many entry-level office jobs or jobs in the civil service require new recruits to have a university degree, although the skills required in these jobs may have nothing to do with the degree that individuals have. This is an instance of credentialism. People with many years of practical experience in a given field but who have no degree may be denied jobs or promotions because they have no formal credentials.

Randall Collins is probably the best-known sociologist of education working in a neo-Weberian framework. Like neo-Marxism, neo-Weberian approaches refer to modifications to Weber’s theories that have occurred in the twentieth century forward, but still retain many of the core elements of Weber’s writings. In 1979 he published The Credential Society, a book that continues to be influential in the study of credentialism. He coined the term credential inflation to refer to the decreased value of the expected advantage associated with educational qualifications over time. You may be familiar with the popular notion that a bachelor’s degree is now equivalent to what a high school diploma “used to” be. This is an example of credential inflation—that expected returns to a university degree now are what the high school diploma used to be “worth” a generation ago. See Box 2.3 for examples of studies in the sociology of education drawing on Weberian and neo-Weberian perspectives.

Cultural Reproduction Theory

Cultural reproduction theory is most closely associated with the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002). Bourdieu is one of many theorists associated with what is known as poststructuralism. Poststructuralism is a reaction to structural functionalism, which favours the importance of social structures in explanation of social life over individual action. Poststructuralism is associated mostly with the writings of a fairly diverse set of French philosophers (including Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault) whose only substantial area of agreement was that structuralism was flawed. There is no tidy definition that encompasses all the major theorists associated with poststructuralism—their areas of writing were all very disparate.

Like many social theorists, Bourdieu wrote on a host of topics. Bourdieu was markedly influenced by Marxism, as he believed that social position (class) greatly determined the life chances of people. But he disagreed with the Marxist notion of class and argued that social stratification processes emerged from a variety of difference sources, such as the forms of capital. Bordieu’s writings that pertain specifically to education (1977, 1984, 1986) will be focused on here and deal with the role of cultural reproduction in the education system. Like many theories, it is necessary to understand various terms the theorists in question used.

The Forms of Capital

Many social theorists talk about “capital.” The term capital is borrowed from the discipline of economics and is used to describe tangible assets. The idea of capital is typically associated with money and assets that are easily converted to money. Social theorists have borrowed the term capital and used it to refer to other assets that people possess, such as their social skills and cultural knowledge.

Bourdieu is perhaps most well-known in the field of education for his contributions in the area of cultural capital. It is not easy to define cultural capital, as Bourdieu himself defined the term in several different ways throughout the course of his writings. But the characteristic that his various definitions shared is that cultural capital refers to high status cultural knowledge possessed by individuals. High status cultural knowledge is acquired by experience and familiarity with high culture activities, such as going to the opera, ballet, or theatre as well as the appreciation of art, literature, and classical musical, and theatre attendance. It is theorized that familiarity with these forms of leisure allows individuals to give off signals that give them advantage in high status circles. Bourdieu argued that children with cultural capital were appraised more favourably by their teachers than children who did not possess this form of capital, even though this form of capital did not necessarily impact on how well the child was doing in school. Familiarity with high culture may give a child more sophisticated language skills, for example, which may result in the teacher rating that child more positively.

Cultural capital is one vehicle through which culture is reproduced. By cultural reproduction, it is meant that the high status classes reward individuals who exhibit the traits and possess the knowledge of the upper class, therefore maintaining their power. Having cultural capital gives individuals access to exclusive social circles that those who do not possess cultural capital cannot penetrate. The honing of (or investment in) this capital occurs over the life course. In the case of upper class families, children are groomed to have certain cultural knowledge and mannerisms from a very young age. Children exposed to high culture will adopt the language and knowledge associated with participation in these leisure pursuits, and as a result of this, may give cues to teachers that will result in their preferential treatment in the classroom (Bourdieu 1977). These signals are very similar to what Bernstein (1971) referred to as “language codes.” This is essentially Bourdieu’s argument about how inequality persists in schools, despite efforts to base academic achievement solely on merit and ability. 

As well, cultural capital functions by a principle of cumulative advantage (for those who possess it) or cumulative disadvantage (for those who do not have any). While there are types of tastes and styles associated with all social classes or subgroups, only those that are able to potentially further economic and/or social resources are considered cultural capital.

In addition to cultural capital, Bourdieu (1986) identified (at least) two other broad types of capital. The first is economic capital, which refers to characteristics that are quickly and relatively easily converted into money. Educational attainment, job skills, and job experience are included in this type of capital as their transformation into money is a well-understood process. The second type of capital is social capital, which Bourdieu conceptualized as micro-based in networks and individual relationships that potentially led to access to resources.

These forms of capital do not exist in isolation from one another, but are closely linked. Each form of capital is convertible into another form. Economic capital is at the root of all capitals such that economic reward can be derived from both social and cultural capital. For example, signals of cultural knowledge (such as the ability to speak in an “educated manner”) are rewarded in the classroom, which is easily converted into a type of economic capital—educational attainment.

As Bourdieu was a poststructuralist, his theoretical positionings were somewhat in response to structuralism. Bourdieu was not content to advocate a theory according to which individuals were either bound by social structures or where individual agency was prioritized. His solution to the structure/agency problem was the habitus. The habitus can be understood as embodied social structure—that piece of social structure that we all carry around in our heads, and which largely regulates our actions. The habitus guides our behaviours, our dispositions, and our tastes. It originates from our lived experience of class and the social structures in which we have become familiarized and socialized. Our decisions may be our own decisions, but they are greatly guided and restricted by the social structure that exists within each of us (see Figure 2.3).

Field is another major concept used by Bourdieu. Field refers to social settings in which individuals and their stocks of capital are located. Fields are important because it is only within these contexts that we can understand how the rules of the field interact with individuals’ “capitals” and their habitus to produce specific outcomes. 

The school setting is an example of a field (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002). Students bring their social, cultural, and economic capital and their habitus to this field, and the power relations within this field (teachers, principals) interact with them to bring about certain outcomes. Getting good grades is valued in the educational field, but a student’s cultural capital may impact on his or her grades because teachers have been found to reward students who possess cultural capital more favourably than students who do not (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002). See Box 2.5 for how Canadian researchers have used Bourdieu’s framework in education research.

Social Capital Approaches

While Bourdieu discusses multiple forms of capital, other theorists have focused solely on the important role that social capital plays in the educational outcomes of young

Another theorist associated with social capital is Robert Putnam (b. 1941). To Putnam, “social capital refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (2000:19). In this view, social capital is more a characteristic of societies than individuals (Portes 1998). Putnam emphasized membership to voluntary organizations as key indicators of social capital in communities, with the steady decline since the 1960s as proof that social capital is on the decline in the United States.

Putnam identified two different types of social capital: bonding capital and bridging capital. Bonding capital is considered “exclusive” in the sense that it occurs within established groups in order to reinforce group solidarity, whereas bridging capital is “inclusive” in that it is used for information diffusion and linkage to other groups. Bonding capital is useful for reinforcing group solidarity and identity, while bridging capital is useful for diffusion of information and network expansion (Putnam 2000:22–23).

While Putnam regarded social capital as a characteristic that is contingent upon the social and economic specificities of individual societies, Field (2003) notes that Putnam has been criticized for failing to clearly account for the processes underlying the creation and maintenance of social capital in communities. Like Coleman, Putnam’s understanding of social capital is rather celebratory of “the good old days,” with little consideration of the potentially negative aspects of social capital. Both Coleman and Putnam regard social capital as a remedy for various social problems in American cities. See Box 2.6 for an example of how social capital theory has been used to study university education in Canada.

Micro/Meso/Macro Aspects of Social Capital

Social capital, as described above, is unique in that it is one of the few concepts associated with sociology of education that is explicitly discussed in terms of its micro, meso, and macro aspects (see Figure 2.4). Bourdieu discusses social capital as a characteristic that people have—their connections and networks. This is a micro-social approach to social capital. Putnam, on the other hand, speaks of social capital as it being a property of societies—a very macrosocial approach. He also suggests the idea of bridging capital, which connects groups to each other—which is a mesosocial idea. Coleman, in contrast, speaks of social capital that emerges out of individual actions (e.g., the micro acts of parents) that serves to create close-knit communities (a macro effect). To Coleman (1987), the ability of individual effects to serve the public group was evidence of a micro–macro linkage.

Social Mobility Approaches

Social mobility approaches within the sociology of education examine how social class positions influence the educational achievement and attainment of individuals. Social mobility refers to the ability of individuals to move from one social class to another. Much previous research has shown that social class background matters for educational achievement and attainment—this is not news. But how researchers approach this process does indeed vary considerably. Below, the approaches of Raymond Boudon and John Goldthorpe are considered.

French sociologist Raymond Boudon (b. 1934) identified what he called primary and secondary effects of class differentials on educational attainment (Boudon 1973). Primary effects are differences between classes and educational attainment that relate directly to academic performance. In other words, children from working-class families doing worse on standardized tests than their peers in the higher social classes would be considered a primary effect. Primary effects are dependent on characteristics of the family of origin, such as wealth, material conditions, and socialization.

Secondary effects, however, refer to the difference between the classes and educational attainment that relate to educational choices irrespective of educational performance. In a very simplistic example, a secondary effect would be if two individuals who were doing equally well at school were from opposite social classes and the working-class student decided to pursue an apprenticeship in the trades and the middle- or upper-class student decided to go to university. Unlike primary effects, secondary effects are entirely dependent upon choices made by individuals and their families. In a similar vein, many researchers have found that even when children from the working class perform at the same levels as middle- and upper-class children, they tend to have less ambitious educational goals (Jackson, Erikson, Goldthorpe, and Yaish 2007).

One assumption underlying the idea of secondary effects in Boudon’s theory is that children from the lower social classes have limited ambitions because they are socialized that way. Boudon (1981) argued that middle-class families had to encourage their own children to aspire to higher levels in order to simply maintain their status. Working-class children, however, may not be pushed as hard because the requirements to maintain the same social class is necessarily lower than for the middle classes. Researchers from around the world have asked how relevant primary and secondary effects are on the academic achievement of children. Nash (2005) found that in Canada, the secondary effects were found among high school students, showing that students who had high aspirations were likely to have higher grades and come from higher social origins. Nash also found, however, that these secondary effects on school achievement were relatively minor compared to overall primary effects.

Dutch researchers (Kloosterman, Ruiter, de Graaf, and Kraaykamp 2009) have also explored how primary and secondary effects impact on the transition to post-secondary education (i.e., beyond high school). They also explored whether secondary effects had diminished over time, given the emphasis placed on the importance of post-secondary credentials in Dutch culture. The authors found that in Dutch society, the importance of primary effects in determining educational inequality had grown between 1965 and 1999.

Similarly, Swedish (Erikson 2007) and British (Jackson et al. 2007) research has also found that the impact of primary effects on the transition to post-secondary education has significantly increased over time. In the Netherlands and Sweden, the lessened effect of secondary effects (and increase of primary effects) from the late 1960s to the 1990s were at a similar level, while in Britain the effect of primary characteristics was much greater. Overall, this suggests that cross-nationally, individual social backgrounds are at the root of educational inequality and that aspirations play a lesser, yet still important, role.

Bronfenbrenner and Ecological Systems Theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) was the founder of ecological systems theory. As an educational psychologist, Bronfenbrenner made numerous contributions to American education policy during his life. Most significantly, he was co-founder of the Head Start program in the United States. Head Start began in 1965 as a set of educational, nutritional, health, and parental involvement intervention programs aimed at low-income children in the United States.³ These programs stem from Bronfenbrenner’s theory about the nature of child development and how children are profoundly affected by various aspects of their environment. His ecological systems theory asserts that child outcomes are the results of the many reciprocal effects between the child and his or her environment. For example, how children are treated by parents and by their peers has a strong influence on their development. Children who are mistreated by their parents and bullied by their peers will have less favourable developmental outcomes than those who are raised in a positive and nurturing environment and get along well with other children.

The environment in which the child is raised has profound impacts on their outcomes as human beings in society. This is not limited, however, to just interactions with parents, peers, teachers, and family members. Bronfenbrenner theorized that a child’s environment had five distinct elements which interacted together and all had the potential to impact on a child’s development: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem. The micro, macro, and mesosystems relate very closely to the way microlevel, mesolevel, and macrolevel were defined earlier in this chapter. Microsystems refer to the immediate setting in which the individual lives and his or her individual experiences with family members, caregivers, friends, teachers, and others. The biological makeup of the child (including temperament) is also included in the microsystem. The mesosystem refers to how various microsystems connect to one another; so for example, mesosystems are concerned with how children’s interactions with their parents may carry over into how they interact with their teachers. The exosystem level contains people and places with which the child may not be directly involved yet still be impacted by. A child may not have any direct interaction with a parent’s workplace, but the outcomes of the interactions that occur there will have an impact on him or her. Parental job stress or job loss will definitely impact the child in terms of the parent’s disposition in the home (in the case of job stress) or the economic resources he or she can provide (in the case of job loss). Macrosystems concern the larger environment in which children live—urban or rural, developed or underdeveloped, democratic or non-democratic, multicultural or not, for example. The final system, the chronosystem, relates to the socio-historical changes and major events that influence the world. For example, the chronosystem is vastly different for people during a time of war than during a time of peace. The way that particular ethnicities are regarded during specific historical times is also a chronosystem feature. For example, the way that Indigenous People have been treated historically in Canada is part of the larger chronosystem of how they experience social life. How Muslims are regarded in post–September 11 North America is also part of the chronosystem.

As you can see, elements of all these systems work together to shape the development of children, and many of them are beyond the control of the parent. This theory recognizes that while parents have an important role in shaping the lives of their children, there are bigger, external forces over which they have no control, but which similarly impact on their child’s development. Figure 2.5 illustrates how these systems all relate to each other and different characteristics that comprise each system.

In this chapter, several theoretical perspectives have been described, all of which have application to the study of the sociology of education. The chapter began by introducing theoretical terminology that is embedded within many theoretical perspectives: macro-social theory, microsocial theory, mesosocial theory, middle range theory, agency/structure, and ontology and epistemology. The first theoretical perspective that was discussed was structural functionalism, which is associated with the work of Émile Durkheim, and later, Talcott Parsons. The critical perspective of Karl Marx, which emphasizes the idea of social class and conflict between classes, and those who were influenced by Marxist theory (neo-Marxists) were then discussed, as was the linkage between Marxism and critical pedagogy. The next classical theorist considered was Max Weber, as well as the neo-Weberians, who emphasized the idea of credentialism within the sociology of education.

Meyer’s institutional theory was next introduced, which juxtaposes the democratic entitlement to education with the “loose coupling” that such education actually serves in the job market. The microsocial approaches of symbolic interaction and phenomenology were then briefly addressed. Next, theories focused on the reproduction of culture were considered. Social capital was also introduced, and it was shown that social capital can be understood as macro-, meso-, and microtheoretical theoretical concept. Theorists that regard education as a major component of social mobility were then discussed, with emphasis placed on the notion of “primary” and “secondary” effects.

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory understood the process of child development (and hence the role of education) as being influenced from several spheres (i.e., systems) that interacted with each other to contribute to children’s life chances. The chapter ended with newer contributions from feminist and critical race theorists, who prioritize gender and race in their understanding of educational processes and practices in Canada.

When considering a particular topic area in the sociology of education, one should think about the particular theoretical perspective(s) that would be appropriate to explore it. Some will be more fitting than others. An interest in how students experience racism in the classroom, for example, is probably best addressed through the use of critical race theory while structural functionalism probably will not be helpful here. Questions around how society reproduces itself through subtle means can be approached from the perspective of the cultural and social reproduction theories that have been presented—but institutional theory or symbolic interaction probably will not be much help. A researcher must also consider his or her own beliefs about the nature of reality. What is given priority, agency or structure? What bridges the two? In terms of ontology, is meaning all essentially subjective, or is it that scientists have the task of uncovering objective facts? These are not at all easy issues to resolve and have engaged philosophers and social theorists for centuries. But all these preconceptions influence what social theories will make their way into sociology of education research.