GROUP 1 - THREE SOCIAL THEORIES

Society is compared to the human body with different but interrelated parts performing different functions.

There is peace, stability, equilibrium in harmony in society if families do their part in bringing forth child, nurturing and socializing them.

If education or school effectively transmit knowledge,skills and values.

If economics takes care of food production,distribution of members of society.

Educational institution must teach adults new skills to relate to the tech-savvy young and the world to be more effective in the workplace.

• The Cybercrime Act of 2022 came about to address legal issues concerning online interactions and the internet in the Philippines.

Intellectual Purpose

– acquisition of cognitive skills, inquiry skills

1. Intellectual purpose

Political Purpose

2. Political purpose

– educate future citizens; promote patriotism; promote assimilation of immigrants; ensure order, public civility and conformity to laws

Economic Purpose

– prepare students for later work roles; select and train the labor force needed by society

3. Economic purpose

Social Purpose

4. Social purpose

• promote a sense of social and moral responsibility;

• serve as a site for the solution or resolution of social problems;

• supplement the efforts of other institutions of socialization

such as the family

and the church.

How Proponents of Conflict Theory Regard Education

- According to the conflict theory, education is not truly a social benefit or opportunity as seen by the functionalists. Rather, education is a powerful means of maintaining power structures and creating a docile work force for capitalism.

- The purpose of education is to maintain social inequality and to preserve the power of theory who dominate society and teach those in the working class to accept their position as a lower class worker of society.

- Conflict theorists call this the " Hidden Curriculum ".

• According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, people attach meanings to symbol and then they act according to their subjective interpretation these symbols.

• Verbal conversations, in which spoken words serve as the predominant symbols.

• During effective communication, there is a sender and receiver.

• In other terms, words are not static "things"; they require intention and interpretation .

• To ensure mutual understanding, the sender of the symbol and the receiver of symbol must give the same meaning to the symbol.

Three tenets of symbolic interactionist theory are:

1. An individual’s action depends on meaning

• We act based on the meaning we give to symbols.
• Symbols can be actions objects or words.
• If a student understands that teacher believes in his/her ability he/she tries his/her best prove that indeed he/she is able.

2. Different people may give different meanings to the same thing

• When teachers are strict, some students see it as an expression of care.
• Other may rebel because they perceive teacher’s behavior as limiting their moves and desires.

3. Meanings change as individuals interact with one another

• A negative meaning that you used to associate with hospital when you went to a hospital, which looked more as a hotel than the usual hospital you now is changed.
• After you have taught well, your first impression of teaching as boring is changed

to teaching is exciting.

implications to teaching:

The teaching implications sessions rely on participants sharing existing knowledge of good classroom practice.

Let us promote and create opportunities for genuine interaction between students and teachers.

• Interaction does not only mean dealing with warm bodies.

• Interaction includes reading, listening, viewing.

• Other people’s views and meanings are conveyed in what they have written, in speeches and lectures they have delivered.

Let us use positive symbols:

• Gestures

• Words

• Actions

• Appearance

• To express our trust

• Belief in our student’s abilities, an affirmation of their being

In fact, our belief in our students also has positive effect in us.

Weakness of Symbolic Interaction Theory

• Critics claim that symbolic interactionism neglects the macro level of social interpretation- the "big picture."

• Symbolic interactionism traces its origins to Max Weber's assertion that individuals act according to their interpretation of the meaning of their world.
• However, it was the American philosopher George H. Mead (1863-1931) who introduced this perspective to American sociology in the 1920s.

Max Weber (1864-1920)

George H. Mead (1863-1931)