study guide Essay

Chapters 13, 15, 16, 17, 18

Affirmative Action: A set of policies that grant preferential treatment to a number of particular subgroups within the population- typically, women and historically disadvantaged racial minorities

Boy–Girl Achievement Gap: “girls catch up while boys from lower-class backgrounds lose ground.” It is not so much that girls are surpassing boys in educational achievement but they have started doing equally well at the same time that boys from lower class backgrounds have started doing worse.

Class Size: small classes (13-17) , regular sized classes ( 22-26) , schools with smaller classes significantly benefited their students compared to schools with larger classes.

Credentialism: An overemphasis on credential (e.g., college degrees) for signaling social status or qualifications for a job.

Inequalities in Schooling:
Minorities and lower class students are disproportionately placed in low tracks, are the subject of less favorable teacher expectations, and consistently score lower on sat.

Schools transmit values, beliefs, and attitudes that are important to society. Hidden curriculum serves to form a more cohesive society but has also been used to impose the values of the dominant culture on outsiders or minorities. Ethnocentric. Distorts reality.

Meritocracy: A society where status and mobility are based on individual attributes, ability, and achievement; a society that assigns social status, power, and economic rewards on achievement, not ascribed, personal attributes or favoritism.

Private Schools versus Public Schools: Private school students perform better academically than their peers at public school

Tracking: A way of dividing students into different classes by ability or future plans.
Civil religion: A set of sacred beliefs so commonly accepted by most people that it becomes part of a national culture. Activities we participate in without religious headings. Ex. Pledge of allegiance, singing the national anthem, marriage, or when someone dies Charismatic authority: The unequal, global distribution of income, so named for its shape. (Personal appeal)

Traditional authority: Authority based on appeals to the past or traditions

Legal-rational authority: A system of authority based on legal, impersonal rules; the rules rule (routinized and rationalized)

Power: The ability to carry out one’s own will despite resistance Secularism: A general movement away from religiosity and spiritual belief toward a rational, scientific orientation, a trend adopted by industrialized nation in the form of separation of church and state

Religion: A system of beliefs, traditions, and practices around sacred things, a set of shared “stories” that guide belief and action.

Sacred: Holy things meant for special use and kept separate from the profane; the sacred realm is unknowable and mystical, so it inspires us with feelings of awe and wonder

Profane: The things of mundane, everyday

Theism: Warship of 1 god or gods, as in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism

Ethicalism: The principles to lead a moral life, as in Buddhism and Taoism. (no god)

Animism: The belief that spirits roam the natural word, as in totemism. (wind or tree)

Theory: Marx (argued religion was used to keep workers hopeful), Weber (Protestantism was necessary for capitalism because it states that a person fulfilled the duty to God through hard work. making money was not frowned upon, although spending that money on pleasure and personal enjoyment was), and Durkheim

Pluralism: The presence and engaged coexistence of numerous distinct groups in one society

Sacred canopy: Peter Berger’s term to describe the entire set of religious norms, symbols, and beliefs that express the most important thing in life, namely, the feeling that life is worth living and that reality is meaningful and ordered, not just random chaos.

Reflexive spirituality: A contemporary religious movement that

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