Anthony Giddens • Sociology 6th edition

Student Resources

Chapter 19 — Education

1. What is education?
   a) the process of delivering relevant skills and knowledge
   b) a knowledge and understanding of society’s high culture
   c) a social institution promoting the acquisition of skills and knowledge
   d) the skills and knowledge required for employment in a relevant field
2. Which one of the following is not part of Bowles and Gintis’s (1976) Marxist thesis on schooling under capitalism?
   a) head teachers often encourage working class children to be ambitious
   b) the structures of school life correspond to the structures of working life
   c) education is a great divider, not a leveller
   d) schools provide the right kind of future workers for capitalist employers
3. Who called for the radical ‘deschooling of society’?
   a) Daniel Goleman
   b) Ivan Illich
   c) Paul Willis
   d) Angela McRobbie
4. Paul Willis’s (1977) study of working-class boys’ school subcultures is a theory of what:
   a) cultural reproduction
   b) educational divisions
   c) gendered schooling
   d) shifting masculinities
5. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital exists in three forms. Which one of the following is not one of the three?
   a) an objectified state
   b) an institutionalised form
   c) a symbolic form
   d) an embodied state
6. Many sociologists argue that older theories of inherited intelligence and IQ tests have been discredited. What concept did Gilborn and Youdell (2001) find had replaced that of IQ in many UK schools?
   a) skill
   b) talent
   c) capacity
   d) ability
7. In 2004-5, children from which ethnic group in England had the highest permanent exclusion rate from school?
   a) White Irish
   b) Black Caribbean
   c) White and Black Caribbean
   d) Pakistani
8. What happened to global primary school enrolment between 1999 and 2004?
   a) increased to 55%
   b) increased to 86%
   c) increased to 68%
   d) decreased to 63%
9. What is distinctive about higher education in the USA?
   a) the state spends more of GDP on HE than anywhere else
   b) there are more HE institutions than any other country
   c) a majority of HE institutions are in the private sector
   d) a larger proportion of HE students are non-standard entrants
10. Education is undergoing a transformation in which the boundary between schooling and the outside world is breaking down, allowing for workplace education, education beyond the confines of the classroom and at many different times. How is this broad change usually described?
    a) lifelong learning
    b) extended education
    c) e-learning
    d) de-schooling
11. What is an education system in which children achieve their status based on their own worth called?
    a) comprehensive
    b) meritocratic
    c) selective
    d) elitist
12. Before the 1944 Education Act what sort of school did the vast majority of British children attended?
    a) elementary
    b) primary
    c) grammar
    d) vocational
13. To what sort of equality did the 1944 Education Act included a commitment?
    a) outcome
    b) provision
    c) opportunity
    d) resources
14. When was the National Curriculum introduced?
    a) 1871
    b) 1959
    c) 1988
    d) 1997
15. According to Gerwitz et al., parents who exercise choice over which school their children attend have high levels of cultural capital. In which category are they most likely to be found?
    a) privileged/skilled choosers
    b) semi-skilled choosers
    c) disconnected choosers
    d) uninterested choosers
16. Which group of learners does the university of the third age serve?
    a) teenagers
    b) travellers
    c) workers
    d) pensioners
17. According to Illich, which one of the following is NOT transmitted through the hidden curriculum?
    a) curiosity
    b) passivity
    c) conformity
    d) hierarchy
18. In studying inequalities in education, which skills did Bernstein concentrate upon?
    a) reading
    b) numeracy
    c) emotion
    d) speech
19. What is the process by which schools help to perpetuate social and economic inequalities across the generations called?
    a) cultural reproduction
    b) passive consumption
    c) conceptual abstraction
    d) formal communication
20. Which accounts of the worth of education stress that it 'enables individuals to think freely and rationally, which makes social progress and innovation possible'?
    a) postmodern
    b) modernist
    c) traditional
    d) vocational
21. Which subject is more popular with young women than young men? (measured by 2001/2, entries at GCE A level or equivalent for young people in England and Wales)
    a) physics
    b) business studies
    c) biological sciences
    d) physical education
22. Which subject is more popular with young men than young women? (measured by 2001/2, entries at GCE A level or equivalent for young people in England and Wales)
    a) social studies
    b) modern languages
    c) history
    d) economics
23. Which group of students have schools, as a result of league tables, increasingly concentrated their efforts upon?
    a) those predicted to gain 5 GCSEs at grades A-C
    b) those with special educational needs
    c) those from ethnic minority groups
    d) those predicted to go on to university
24. Which is the UK's largest university?
    a) University of Cambridge
    b) The Open University
    c) London Metropolitan University
    d) University of Manchester

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