School and Society

by Walter Feinberg, Jonas F. Soltis

This widely used text has been expanded to include the most important issues in contemporary schooling,


New end-of-chapter sections for Further Reading. New references added to the useful Additional Resources section. School and Society, Fifth Edition uses realistic case studies, dialogues, and open-ended questions designed to stimulate thinking about problems related to school and society, including curriculum reform, social justice, and competing forms of research. Written in a style that speaks directly to today's educator, this book tackles such crucial questions Do schools socialize students to become productive workers? - Does schooling reproduce social class and pass on ethnic and gender biases? - Can a teacher avoid passing on dominant social and cultural values? - What besides subjects do students really learn in schools?

School and Society is one of the five books in the highly regarded Teachers College Press THINKING ABOUT EDUCATION SERIES, now in its Fifth Edition. All of the books in this series are designed to help pre- and in-service teachers bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Praise for Previous Editions!

"I have been surprised and pleased by the relevance of this particular book to the lives and work of my beginning teachers."

Teaching Education

"(This series) does a masterful job of bringing together the basic issues and teaching methods that should frame social and philosophical foundations curricula."

Educational Theory

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1985

Reviews

[WizardKitten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for a doctoral level class on leadership and scholarship. Presents interesting ideas, but ultimately doesn't look forward much to the future or go very in depth with the present. It just left me wanting.

[Ella Hobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this entire book for one of my undergrad classes, but I found a lot of it pretty interesting and useful to my future teaching. The three ideas around education’s function (functionalism, conflict theory, and interpretivism) were new concepts to me, and this did a good job explaining them.

[Bahia · Rating 4 out of 5]

For what the purpose of this text is, this book was good. It is a decent overview of some fundamental sociological theories that inform educational research. The book is not particularly engaging, but it is also not boring. It gives good fundamentals and the context and history of these theories is solid.

[Alicia Tapia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An book that offered functionalist, Marxist, and interpretivist lenses through which to see the bond between schools and society as theoretical frameworks in a way a birdbrain like me could actually understand.

[Ms. Bridget · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally got through this book. It was difficult to understand, but I've always struggled with theory concepts and textbooks. I wish more explanations were connected to school topics instead of other analogies.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this book for class. For class purposes, it was informative and really made me think about education in a new way. If I were a teacher, I think this book may have had more worth for me.

[Rolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great intro text for doc programs. The chapters on functionalism and critical theory are excellent. I don't find the chapters on interpretivism quite as successful or compelling.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the text for my ED 672 course, The Social and Cultural Foundations of Education.