Pai and Adler1

from Chapter 2: Culture, Education, and Schooling

Young Pai and Susan A. Adler (3rd ed. 2001)


Transmission of Values
Historically, the primary function of the American school system has been seen as the
transmission of the core values of the society at large. The process of schooling is
closely tied to the linguistic codes, behavioral expectations, and value systems of the
mainstream middle and upper middle classes. For this reason, children from lower
socioeconomic classes are often seen negatively (Hum, 1993; Knapp & Woolverton,
1995, p. 559). There is an inextricable relationship between social class and how
schools operate and what they teach. More specifically, except in large urban magnet
schools and complex transitional school districts, the predominant social class of the
community shapes the social makeup of the student population. The community social
class also influences its expectations of the schools and students (Knapp & Woolverton,
1995, p. 593). In a very real sense, values are transmitted to children by social class
culture of the family and community and reinforced or modified by schools. Even so,
most school personnel, as well as the public, save some ethnic minorities, accept the
transmission of mainstream core values as the most important role of the school. But in
a society where rapid scientific and technological developments occur, there are equally
swift changes in the patterns of institutional and individual behaviors. Both the number
and the complexity of social and moral problems resulting from such changes outstrip
our ability to cope with them effectively. As an example, although our technology can
manufacture automobiles that can move 125 miles per hour, we have not yet found
effective means of controlling drunk driving or various types of environmental pollution
stemming from industrial wastes.
In addition, the impact of rapid technological changes on culture often leads to
serious discrepancies between the societys established core values and the actual
ways that people think and behave. Major institutions such as schools and churches
extol the inherent virtue of being honest at all times. But the young may value honesty
only in relation to what it can bring them, because their attitudes and values are
significantly influenced by the contents of mass media, which mirror economic and
industrial interests more than traditional core values. What all this suggests is that
cultures have functionally different ways of dealing with essentially similar human
problems, but not all cultures are equally functional. The degrees to which various
elements of a culture are consistent and integrated with each other vary from society to
society. In short, some cultures contain more contradictory norms than others, and more
such discrepancies seem to be found in highly technological societies.
Many aspects of American culture conflict with one another. For example, our
country is said to guarantee equal rights and opportunities to all; however, full civil rights
have yet to be granted to many people. Further, although long-range socioeconomic
planning is often regarded as un-American and socialistic, Americans seem to be
conflicted about whether governmental planning and intervention are necessary to
ensure wage, energy, and media controls. In addition, most members of the dominant
American culture believe that moral principles are absolute and unchangeable, but they
also insist that one has to be flexible in making value decisions, particularly in relation to
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business practices affecting other individuals. The educational consequence is that
unless we are aware of these and other inconsistencies and their influence on childrens
learning, we may transmit and cultivate self-defeating qualities. For example, the school
may intend to develop self-reliance, creativity, and democratic leadership, but students
may become docile and submissive if school activities and climate are inconsistent with
the intended objectives. Specifically, a course in social studies should not be taught in
an authoritarian manner, nor should school rules be merely repressive measures.
In this time of rapid technological development, it is easy for educators to
become preoccupied with the efficiency with which we can accomplish our goals and
measure the outcomes. More often than not, preoccupation with efficiency leads to
quantification of both the ends and the means of education. Notwithstanding the
importance of technology as a tool, educators need to be especially sensitive to and
critical of how our use of technology enhances or detracts from the quality of what we
hope to accomplish through education.

. . .


Education and Schooling as a Cultural Process
As was pointed out earlier, every culture attempts to perpetuate itself through deliberate
transmission of what is considered the most worthwhile knowledge, belief, skills,
behaviors, and attitudes. This deliberate transmission of culture is called education. In
nonliterate societies, the educative process is carried out in a more or less informal
manner. The young learn various skills, beliefs, and attitudes from their elders as well
as from their peers without having a specific time or place designated for this purpose.
This informal process sometimes involves certain formal ritualsfor example, puberty
rites. In nonliterate societies even folkways and mores serve as instructional media.
However, in a complex, literate, and technological society, most cultural transmission
takes place within the confines of specially arranged environments. There the young are
expected to learn certain amounts and kinds of knowledge and skills within a specified
period of time from those who are specialists in these areas. This formal and more
restrictive process of cultural transmission may be called schooling.
Education is a form of enculturation, the process of learning ones own culture.
When this process occurs formally in an institutional setting, it is called schooling. Thus,
the process of enculturation is much broader than education, because the former
includes both deliberate and nondeliberate learning, such as teaching and learning
through imitation, whereas the latter includes only deliberate teaching and learning
activities. Schooling is a much narrower concept than education, for it necessarily
involves specialists teaching within the institutions designed specifically for this purpose.
Education, although deliberate, need not take place in a formal institutional setting.
In spite of the differences among enculturation, education, and schooling, all
three should be viewed as a single process whereby an individual learns and
manipulates his or her own culture. Enculturation and education, at least in their
informal sense, are present in all cultures. Education is only one means of enculturation.
Similarly, schooling is one of many ways in which a person can become educated. All
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this suggests that although there is no society without enculturation and education,
some societies are without schooling.

Schooling As An Enculturative and Acculturative Process
Education in a socially and culturally diverse society such as the United States is not
only enculturative; it is also acculturative. That is, while many students in our schools
are learning their own culture (enculturation), minority children are attempting to grasp
a new and differentthat is, dominantculture (acculturation). In a true sense, the
ghetto child learning white, middle-class values from a white, middle-class teacher is
learning an alien culture. In a culturally diverse society, it is important for school
administrators, teachers, and counselors to realize that different behavioral, attitudinal,
and belief patterns of minority children stemming from their ethnic backgrounds should
not be viewed as either social or cognitive deficits. For example, teachers generally
expect students to speak up only after they have been duly recognized, and students
who express their thoughts and feelings spontaneously are frequently considered
disruptive or troublemakers. Yet many of our schoolchildren come from cultures in
which spontaneous expressions of their thoughts and feelings are encouraged. Other
young people have been taught to respond to a teachers reprimand by lowering their
heads in silence. This behavior is considered quite appropriate in relating to unhappy
adults in the youths culture, but it is generally viewed as a sign of nonresponsiveness
or even rebellion by our teachers. The point is not that minority children be allowed to
behave only according to the norms of their own culture; it is to suggest that unless
these children are taught about the differences between the dominant and their own
cultures and what standards of behavior are appropriate in school, they are likely to be
treated as problem cases requiring disciplinary or other special measures used for
children with emotional and behavioral disorders. In fact, to many minority children,
schooling in America represents a difficult and agonizing process of learning to function
in an alien (dominant) culture that either rejects their ethnic heritage or gives it a low
status.
Education as an acculturative process can also be viewed as the modification of
one culture through continuous contact with another. Antagonism often results when
one culture is dominant, and this antagonism becomes exacerbated by the dominant
cultures attempt to speed up the process. When the dominant group sees minority
group characteristics as deficits, the antagonisms are aggravated. Harry F. Walcott
(1994) believes that the teacher might deal more effectively with conflict and in
capitalizing on his instructional efforts if he were to recognize and to analyze his role as
enemy rather than by attempting to ignore or deny the conflict (pp. 280-283). He goes
on to illustrate that in the enemy relationship, specific demands are made of enemy
prisoners. But these demands are not based on common values about fair play, human
rights, or the dignity of office. The relationship is based on fundamental differences
rather than on the recognition of similarities. This perspective of thinking about teachers
and their culturally different pupils as enemies may invite teachers to examine the kinds
of differences cherished by enemies just as they have in the past addressed
themselves, at least ritually, to what they and their pupils share in common. Another
helpful approach may be to have both teachers and culturally different students treat
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each other as visitors from extraterrestrial worlds. In this way, they cannot understand
each other without asking each other the why questions.
To recognize that the process of schooling in America is both enculturative and
acculturative is to accept that many of the young in our schools are there to learn the
dominant but alien culture. This implies that many learning and behavioral difficulties
may come from the differences between the norms the school considers desirable and
those that minority children view as appropriate. The culturally different young people in
our society must learn to function according to the dominant as well as their own cultural
norms, depending on their purpose and the circumstances in which they find
themselves. At the same time, educators need to understand that human actions do not
have inherent meanings and significance. Understanding that various cultures assign
different meanings to the same action can help educators interpret seemingly strange or
disruptive behaviors from appropriate cultural perspectives and, consequently, minimize
learning and behavioral difficulties. It is when educators believe that all children in our
schools are there to learn their own culture that the patterns that deviate from the
dominant norms are treated as deficits to be eliminated.

Learning or Teaching?
According to Margaret Mead (1963), one of the important effects of the mingling of
different races, religions, and levels of cultural complexity on our concept of education is
the shift from the need for an individual to learn something which everyone agrees he
would wish to know, to the will of some individual to teach something which it is not
agreed that anyone has any desire to know (pp. 310-311). Melville Herskovits (1968)
agrees that in nonliterate societies much more emphasis is placed on learning than on
teaching. But he attributes this shift to the fact that in simpler societies the skills and
techniques the young learn have practical application. What is learned is used in
everyday life; hence, the motivation to learn comes from the immediate utility of the
techniques to be acquired. On the other hand, in highly technological and culturally
complex societies, individuals cannot hope to learn just everything needed in that
society. Quite the contrary, intense specialization is necessary to make a living. In a
modern society, we cannot rely on our own personal resources to learn what is required
even in our own area of specialization. Nor is it reasonable to expect young learners to
know what skills are needed to become a specialist in a desired area (e.g., a
psychiatrist). It has become almost mandatory that we rely on experienced and
recognized specialists to give us accurate and comprehensive information about what
ought to be learned in a given field. Experts must tell others what they ought to learn.
Modern societies are so complex that even among experts we do not always find
agreement about what ought to be taught.
While teaching is a social practice aimed at causing learning (Atran & Sperber,
1992, p. 41), it does not always or necessarily lead to learning. On the contrary, there
are other, nonteaching, activities (e.g., rituals) that contribute to learning. For example,
children often learn the norms of their culture through observing and imitating their
parents or other adults. It is for this reason that learning should not be thought of as
equivalent to being taught (p. 41). However, in the context of education wherein
learning needs to be systematic and cumulative, teaching and learning should be seen
as having close and dynamic relationships. There is no simple answer to the question of
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why modern education has shifted its emphasis from learning to teaching. But an
important lesson lies in the slogan learning is more important than teaching. When our
attention is focused on learning, we are likely to become more concerned about
providing conditions under which learning can occur. Because conditions for learning
are varied, we may grow more flexible in whatever we do to facilitate learning. On the
other hand, when a greater emphasis is placed on teaching, we are more likely to
become preoccupied with what the teacher must do. Teaching, then, should not be
viewed as a set of acts or routines rather than a process of facilitating learning
conditions. Indeed, teaching and learning are not mutually exclusive ideas, nor can we
say that one is more important than the other in any absolute sense. Further, it is
doubtful that, as Mead (1963) argues, it is the shift from learning to teaching that
moved us from spontaneity to coercion, from freedom to power . . . and the
development of techniques of power, dry pedagogy, regimentation, indoctrination,
manipulation, and propaganda (p. 320).
Finally, society uses education for many more purposes than the transmission of
culture. In some societies, both formal and informal education serve as agents of
genuine change. By providing greater educational opportunities to wider and wider
segments of the population, liberating social and economic as well as political changes
can be created to eliminate illiteracy and poverty and to restore human freedom and
dignity. On the other hand, education can also be used by those who possess wealth
and power to perpetuate the status quo. Domination over minority groups of all kinds is
often achieved through proselytizing the oppressed to believe that they do indeed
belong to the positions and classes that they occupy. In such societies, educational
opportunities are so restricted that the likelihood of any significant social, economic, or
political change occurring would certainly be remote. This has long been the way
colonies have been maintained.



Pai, Young, and Susan A. Adler. Cultural Foundations of Education. 3rd ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2001.