Assignment Code: MES-014/TMA/2023

Course Code: MES-014

Assignment Name: Societal Context of Education

Year: 2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

a) Explain the concept and forms of Social Mobility. Discuss the factors affecting Social Mobility with suitable examples. (500 Words)

Ans) Social mobility is the movement between higher and lower classes, either up or down, or, more specifically, the movement from one relatively lower position to the next higher one. Time is an important part of this phenomenon. Lipset and Bendix say that "social mobility" is the way that people move from one position in society to another. So, social mobility means that people or groups can move up or down in a society's order of importance.

Forms of Social Mobility

Vertical Mobility: Social class rises vertically. Vertical motion determines social sinking or ascending. Lower strata might join or replace ascending groups. Dual descent. First, reduce population without weakening or killing higher groups. Second degrades society. Vertical mobility occurs when scheduled castes obtain knowledge, skills, and rituals from higher-status castes, change their caste names, home culture, and employment, and keep their place. "Lagging emulation" under reference groupings describes this hierarchy and occupancy movement. Strata rise.

Horizontal Mobility: Horizontal mobility is when a person or social object moves from one group on the same level to another group on the same level. Most of the time, horizontal shifting happens without anyone noticing. If we look at jobs, moving from one job, factory, or job of the same kind to another of the same kind would be called horizontal mobility. Horizontal mobility is shown by the fact that people can change their citizenship or move from one state to another. That doesn't mean changing citizenship, but it is called shifting citizenship.

Spatial Mobility: Spatial mobility, also called intergenerational mobility, can happen when people move from rural to urban areas or when family members get better jobs, which can lead to a change in culture. Some people who study change and mobility have looked at the mobility of financial groups and organisations. This is also true of research on mobility. Social mobility is a part of social change. In transitional societies, the main things that lead to social mobility are modern education, industrialization, city growth, factory growth, bureaucracy, and changes in jobs.

Factors Affecting Social Mobility

The Supply of Vacant Status: The number of statuses in a given stratum is not always or even usually constant. For example, there needs to be a lot more upward mobility because the number of professional, official, marginal, and white-collar jobs is growing while the number of unskilled jobs is going down. The relative social status of these positions stays the same at times. Demographic factors also operate to facilitate mobility when the higher classes do not reproduce themselves and hence create a demographic vacuum.

The Interchange of Rank: Any movement in a social system that isn't produced by a change in positions and actors must be an exchange. In a simple model, every move up must be followed by a move down. How many lower-class people can mix with higher-class people will affect exchange mobility. The less a culture values family background as a motive to marry, the more people can move up or down in status by marrying. Educational success is open to anyone. This makes job advancement easier.

Modern Education: M. N. Srinivas calls this Sanskritization and westernisation of higher castes. Sanskritization is when lower castes adopt higher caste habits, culture, and nomenclature to rise socially. Many lower castes have emulated higher caste behaviour to ascend in Hindu society, which is impossible. Western ideals can also improve social mobility, especially in urban and industrial areas. Western motivation, behaviour, formal ties, individualism, monetised social status, and technology are popular. Urban commercial, industrial, and government jobs attract status-seekers.

Migration: Migration to cities affects social status. People desire modern II industrial employment while traditional ones disappear. These boost social prestige. Higher-paying jobs require greater schooling. Money is essential, but education dictates lifestyle. Modern societies have changed because of this. Moving up or down the social ladder may influence people's manners and behaviour.

b) Explain the importance of teacher as an instructional input. Discuss his/her role in planning, transaction and evaluation of curriculum. (500 Words)

Ans)

Importance of Teacher as an Instructional Input

Teaching conjure images of classroom teachers. Teacher is essentially classroom teacher. Schools teach ordered knowledge. Teacher instructs here. We assume teachers can teach when we use them as instructional inputs. The teacher has more knowledge and experience than the students. According to M.S. Gore, instructional methods assume that the teacher is ahead of the student in knowledge and can guide them. This adds distance and authority to the teacher-student interaction. When only the teacher knows, this distance and authority exists. If knowledge is accessible beyond the classroom, the teacher's word loses its finality.

Anyone may learn today. It means teachers no longer own all information. Thus, instructors are knowledge sources. Teachers teach. We know that controlled instruction produces predetermined learning results. Thus, instruction-based learning differs from informal, incidental, or disorganised environmental interaction. The teacher plans the learning outcome. The teacher plans learning activities to attain the desired objective.

Teacher’s concerns include:

1. Putting together the learning goals.

2. Putting together learning experiences so that the learning goals can be met.

3. deciding if the goals of the lesson have been met.

The teacher establishes goals and creates teaching-learning-evaluation strategies at input. The teacher guides process-level learning. The teacher expects teaching objectives now. At output, the instructor checks learning results for instructional objectives. The instructor plans learning experiences around cognitive, emotional, and psychomotor growth. Student progress determines learning objectives and outcomes. Teachers receive learning outcomes feedback. This aids the teacher twice. First, teachers assess student learning. The input helps teachers consider innovative teaching strategies for effective learning.

Role of Teacher in Planning, Transaction and Evaluation of Curriculum

Curriculum Planning: Teachers and students debate the National Curriculum Framework draught. However, schoolteachers are rarely involved in such confrontations. Like textbook writing. Teachers do not write textbooks or curriculum. The curriculum and syllabi are most Indian teachers' textbooks. Textbooks and syllabi restrict teachers. How can a teacher enhance classroom learning? Teachers must contextualise content. This lets the teacher incorporate local knowledge, experience, and wisdom into the subject and organise the learning experience in the student's social context. Teachers should build on textbooks. Bureaucratic schools follow textbooks. 2005 NCERT Curriculum Framework. Earlier documents disagree. The 2005 NCF emphasises local content. Evaluation in social science and humanities, especially language, should alter since teaching points promote debate and discussion.

Curriculum Transaction: Teachers had no say in what they taught under governmental authority. However, instructors still have the autonomy to critically evaluate and dispute the imposed curriculum and textbooks and perform the role of a social pressure group. Under organised schooling, teachers had to redefine curriculum transaction. The syllabus and textbooks determined content and length. This hindered lesson pacing. The syllabus and textbooks tell teachers how, when, and what to do. This suggested outside pressures influenced the teacher. Pedagogical decisions eluded the teacher. The state may fail to affect curriculum and transaction. The state often pressures schools and teachers to perform. Teachers resist extreme ideological indoctrination. Limited teacher choice. Teachers control curriculum despite agency oversight. Teaching style is as crucial as curriculum. Teachers actively teach. The teacher teaches "meaning production," reality construction, and critical vernacular to address daily problems.

Evaluation: Pre-colonial teachers terminated studentships. New school exams were organised. Teacher lost control over "what," "when," and "how" to evaluate. regardless of learning speed. Teachers usually assess two goals. Assessments. In "Teacher as instructional input," teachers set instructional goals. Educational goals are assessed. Tests and assessments improve teaching. Schools have two finals. These two exams use no teacher-made tests. Outside authorities set exams. Additional teacher-made tests are assessed. Teachers evaluate. Instructional objectives and the teaching-learning process decide "what" and "how" to evaluate. Thus, appropriate methodologies must evaluate the teaching-learning process and instructional objectives. Teacher and student performance are assessed.

c) Explain the concept of alternative education. Critically analyse the philosophical and sociological perspectives of practices of alternative education. (500 Words)

Ans) Carl Rogers called alternatives "person-centred approaches to education". Authors call it unorthodox, non-conventional, non-standardized, authentic, holistic, and progressive education. In the U.S., alternative education means schools for "at-risk" adolescents or underachievers who do not qualify for special education. It is significantly wider. Pregnant/parenting, truant, suspended/expelled, returned dropouts, and delinquent students may benefit from alternative education. It's crucial to know that alternative education is for all kids from infancy to maturity who can't learn at the same pace and in the same method as others.

Alternative education emerged from educational innovations driven by strong scholarly, philosophical, or student/teacher discontent with mainstream education. Thus, alternative education ideas differ greatly from standard education.  Alternative, independent, and home-based schools were founded on diverse beliefs. These schools have different beliefs and teaching methods than public or private schools.

Despite their past failures in the "conventional" educational system, alternative schools believe that all students are valuable and require direction to discover and develop their strengths. Alternative schools, sometimes known as micro schools or remedial schools, are public or private schools with a particular curriculum, especially elementary or secondary schools with a more flexible curriculum than standard schools. Alternative schools prioritise small classes, close student-teacher relationships, and community.

Philosophical Perspective

Rousseau introduced alternative education. Rousseau wrote in Emile that education should balance baby growth and social life. He suggested an innovative approach to help young children develop because they learn and reason differently from adults. He criticised rote memorization, harsh discipline, and nourished the spirit.

Swiss humanitarian Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi used Rousseau's ideals in his orphanage boarding schools to promote holistic education. American Bronson Alcott opposed mechanising learning. True, compassionate relationships, freedom of inquiry, and the human need for meaning and purpose should underpin all pedagogy, he believed. Friedrich Froebel in Germany and Montessori and Waldorf in the US aided the major alternative education movements. Maria Montessori called the child a "spiritual embryoy"—a mysteriously self-fonning being whose needs must not be obstructed by adults' self-interest. Montessori lets kids work at their own pace, independently or in groups, developing extraordinary focus and self-direction.

The Waldorf approach nurtures the child's intuition, imagination, and spirituality because he saw human life as a spiritual journey of personal souls. "An art of waking what is genuinely present within the human being" is true education, according to Steiner. Education promotes healthy social relationships and eliminates competition.

Between 1840 and 1910, Progressive Education grew, and Dewey wrote his educational masterpiece. Progressive meant putting the person at the centre of society. Dewey believed that students' abilities and information should be thoroughly interwoven into their lives as people, citizens, and human beings, not just taught as lifeless facts. He believed purposeful engagement was the best way to learn. He suggested that schools become experimental communities where children might learn about society's demands and occupations by working on constructive group projects.

Sociological Perspective

Individualist, anarchist, and libertarian social critics including John Caldwell Holt, Paul Goodman, Frederick Mayer, and Ivan lllich have examined education. Conventional schooling stifles democracy by moulding young. Paulo Freire, Herbert Kohl, and Jonathan Kozol also criticise.

Paulo Freire's 1970 Pedagogy of the Oppressed attacked education's financial model. He added educators believe kids meekly obey. Banking education separates teachers and oppressed. He believed this finance plan inhibited student curiosity, innovation, and initiative. Paulo Freire believed conscientization must free children from ignorance. He also introduced conscientization to numb individuals.

Education frees minds to discuss alternatives. Ivan lllich advocated "Deschooling" society because he believed obligatory schooling was a kind of social control that caused more failures and dropouts than accomplishments. An effective education system needs 24/7 access to all resources to communicate information. Educational networks can spread his expertise. To deschool society, "non-formal" and "free" education must transform. Millions of families in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain began "home-schooling" or "unschooling" in the 1970s, inspired by Ivan Illich and John Holt.