15 ms·

> If your statement is correct, then there should be a large number of sociologists in education who believe that socioeconomic status is at best a weak predict

by wisty 11y ago

> If your statement is correct, then there should be a large number of sociologists in education who believe that socioeconomic status is at best a weak predictor. Where are these sociologists? You're talking about an observation, not a model or even a qualitative explanation. People have always known that the Sun "moves around" the Earth. That's an observation, and was never in dispute. The model has changed, though. Doctors have always known that ulcers exist. Their model of the cause changed in the light of new evidence. Did the Coleman Report do much to change the views of sociologists? I'm guessing they always knew that "rich kids do better at school". Do they think that's due to genetics, teacher behavior, better schools, parents reading to kids? Do they suggest the same interventions, to fix the inequality?

dalke 11y ago
> You're talking about an observation, not a model or even a qualitative explanation. It's certainly a model, based on correlating many observations. The report is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/89990298/Coleman-Report-Equality-of-Educational-Opportunity-1966 http://www.scribd.com/doc/89990298/Coleman-Report-Equality-o... and the technical explanation at p571 looks very much like the model building I'm familiar with in drug design. Quoting from http://pages.jh.edu/~jhumag/0400web/18.html http://pages.jh.edu/~jhumag/0400web/18.html : > Using data from over 600,000 students and teachers across the country, the researchers found that academic achievement was less related to the quality of a student's school, and more related to the social composition of the school, the student's sense of control of his environment and future, the verbal skills of teachers, and the student's family background. That report (p. iv) deliberately did not suggest changes to social policy. However, it was used to guide changes. Quoting now from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-ColemanReport.html http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-ColemanReport.html > First, it showed that variations in school quality (as indexed by the usual measures such as per pupil expenditure, size of school library, and so on) showed little association with levels of educational attainment, when students of comparable social backgrounds were compared across schools. (Differences in students' family backgrounds, by comparison, showed a substantial association with achievement.) Second, a student's educational attainment was not only related to his or her own family background, but also (less strongly) to the backgrounds of the other students in the school. These findings had clear implications for social engineering: opportunities could best be equalized via strategies of desegregation of schools (for example by busing). They challenged a major plank of Lyndon Johnson's vision for the Great Society; namely, that increased spending on education could rectify social deficits. To answer your question "Did the Coleman Report do much to change the views of sociologists" - yes. Your earlier statements suggested that you knew something about sociology and it's historical mistakes and developments. Your questions now, which are easily answered and are seemingly a standard part of sociology (Coleman's work is on the Wikipedia page for Sociology), suggest otherwise. Going back to my question, what is the equivalent in sociology to proposing that a perpetual motion machine can work? I gave an example - that a human culture can remain unchanged over 500,000 years. Are there sociologists who believe this to be true? Could I, though force of argument, convince a large number of sociologists that this is true? I believe that is the basis of your opposition. I do not believe so. There is neither biological nor archeological evidence to suggest this is the case. If you do not like that one, what is your equivalent?
- wisty 11y ago
  If the Coleman report was so influential, why aren't protestors demanding busing? I'd hazard a guess that most protestors are either sociology students, or in close contact with sociology students (or graduates). Another big study was the one that found Direct Instruction (a slightly faddish, but still fairly conservative / traditional model - "tell 'em, show 'em, make 'em do it themselves") was the best fad evaluated, by a significant margin. But for some reason, education seems to favor a model in which teachers try to mimic the heroic Robin Williams in the Dead Poet's Society. Education reforms are dominated by a few main threads, most of which are rubbish (if you look at the evidence) - the managerial Econ101 (www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/09.html) type model (reward teachers for good test scores - politicians generally like this one), technology (the obvious driver being the people who want to sell the solutions), and an eclectic collection of "teach students how to think" hogwash (yeah, nice idea, but it's all just mother-love statements) pushed by academia. I guess I should back off a little from my assertion. Yes, sociologists do ditch bad theories, eventually. But there's a lot of random noise, and the time it takes them to adjust their theories means that the slight signal from good studies tends to be downed out by noise. Yes, I really think you could convince people that culture is unchanged for 500,000 years. But you'd need a good sales pitch. Here's the skeleton: * Culture has remained unchanged for 500,000 years. * If this is true, then it's a moral imperative that people believe this. Finding a decent excuse for the first part is easy enough. Wave your hands a bit, redefine culture, and find a few examples of things that haven't changed too much. The second bit is harder, because your proposal is a little boring. A good lie is like a perpetual motion machine - it can keep itself going. I suppose you could argue that exceptionalism - the myth that our culture is fundamentally different, is the cause of a great many travesties. So, all cultures are fundamentally the same, bar some insignificant surface differences. One of the few big differences (and it's been this way for 500,000 years) between them has been whether they considered themselves special or not (and the cultures which considered themselves special all did horrible things). The next step is trying to tar-pit people with some kind of paradox - is it OK to consider your culture special, on the basis that it's one of the cultures that doesn't consider itself to be special? But just be a little sneaky with this bit - you don't want people to catch on.
  - 11y ago

by wisty 11y ago

dalke 11y ago

> You're talking about an observation, not a model or even a qualitative explanation. It's certainly a model, based on correlating many observations. The report is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/89990298/Coleman-Report-Equality-of-Educational-Opportunity-1966 http://www.scribd.com/doc/89990298/Coleman-Report-Equality-o... and the technical explanation at p571 looks very much like the model building I'm familiar with in drug design. Quoting from http://pages.jh.edu/~jhumag/0400web/18.html http://pages.jh.edu/~jhumag/0400web/18.html : > Using data from over 600,000 students and teachers across the country, the researchers found that academic achievement was less related to the quality of a student's school, and more related to the social composition of the school, the student's sense of control of his environment and future, the verbal skills of teachers, and the student's family background. That report (p. iv) deliberately did not suggest changes to social policy. However, it was used to guide changes. Quoting now from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-ColemanReport.html http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-ColemanReport.html > First, it showed that variations in school quality (as indexed by the usual measures such as per pupil expenditure, size of school library, and so on) showed little association with levels of educational attainment, when students of comparable social backgrounds were compared across schools. (Differences in students' family backgrounds, by comparison, showed a substantial association with achievement.) Second, a student's educational attainment was not only related to his or her own family background, but also (less strongly) to the backgrounds of the other students in the school. These findings had clear implications for social engineering: opportunities could best be equalized via strategies of desegregation of schools (for example by busing). They challenged a major plank of Lyndon Johnson's vision for the Great Society; namely, that increased spending on education could rectify social deficits. To answer your question "Did the Coleman Report do much to change the views of sociologists" - yes. Your earlier statements suggested that you knew something about sociology and it's historical mistakes and developments. Your questions now, which are easily answered and are seemingly a standard part of sociology (Coleman's work is on the Wikipedia page for Sociology), suggest otherwise. Going back to my question, what is the equivalent in sociology to proposing that a perpetual motion machine can work? I gave an example - that a human culture can remain unchanged over 500,000 years. Are there sociologists who believe this to be true? Could I, though force of argument, convince a large number of sociologists that this is true? I believe that is the basis of your opposition. I do not believe so. There is neither biological nor archeological evidence to suggest this is the case. If you do not like that one, what is your equivalent?

wisty 11y ago
If the Coleman report was so influential, why aren't protestors demanding busing? I'd hazard a guess that most protestors are either sociology students, or in close contact with sociology students (or graduates). Another big study was the one that found Direct Instruction (a slightly faddish, but still fairly conservative / traditional model - "tell 'em, show 'em, make 'em do it themselves") was the best fad evaluated, by a significant margin. But for some reason, education seems to favor a model in which teachers try to mimic the heroic Robin Williams in the Dead Poet's Society. Education reforms are dominated by a few main threads, most of which are rubbish (if you look at the evidence) - the managerial Econ101 (www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/09.html) type model (reward teachers for good test scores - politicians generally like this one), technology (the obvious driver being the people who want to sell the solutions), and an eclectic collection of "teach students how to think" hogwash (yeah, nice idea, but it's all just mother-love statements) pushed by academia. I guess I should back off a little from my assertion. Yes, sociologists do ditch bad theories, eventually. But there's a lot of random noise, and the time it takes them to adjust their theories means that the slight signal from good studies tends to be downed out by noise. Yes, I really think you could convince people that culture is unchanged for 500,000 years. But you'd need a good sales pitch. Here's the skeleton: * Culture has remained unchanged for 500,000 years. * If this is true, then it's a moral imperative that people believe this. Finding a decent excuse for the first part is easy enough. Wave your hands a bit, redefine culture, and find a few examples of things that haven't changed too much. The second bit is harder, because your proposal is a little boring. A good lie is like a perpetual motion machine - it can keep itself going. I suppose you could argue that exceptionalism - the myth that our culture is fundamentally different, is the cause of a great many travesties. So, all cultures are fundamentally the same, bar some insignificant surface differences. One of the few big differences (and it's been this way for 500,000 years) between them has been whether they considered themselves special or not (and the cultures which considered themselves special all did horrible things). The next step is trying to tar-pit people with some kind of paradox - is it OK to consider your culture special, on the basis that it's one of the cultures that doesn't consider itself to be special? But just be a little sneaky with this bit - you don't want people to catch on.
- 11y ago