Theories' Application to Education institution (Essay Sample)

Theories' application to Education institution
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Theories' application to Education institution
To develop a theory, sociologists research events socially held to study interactions, events, and patterns. A theory helps a sociologist explain various phenomena of social interactions, also known as paradigms, and in creating a hypothesis. As far as scope is concerned, theories vary depending on the issues’ scale that they seek to explain. Paradigms are frameworks in theories and philosophy utilized to formulate generalizations and experiments conducted in their support. These paradigms are conflict theory, functionalism, and symbolic interactionism. The said paradigms best apply to the Technical University of Kenya as the institution clarifies a genuine portion of society.
Education Institutions
Education institutions play a critical role in imparting people knowledge. Due to the nature of the setting, students come together, which leads to a social mingle among them. Undoubtedly, such an educational setting comprises people from different backgrounds and beliefs. Consequently, there never lacks issues as people seek to get along in their educational journey. Apart from the formal education imparted to them, these people portray other character traits as they come together (Abenir et al., 2020). This concept gives an ideal setting to illuminate functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.
Functionalism
Functionalism theory perceives society as a structure comprising of parts meant to meet the social and biological needs of the people in that society. This theory perceives similarities between a societal setting and a human body (Alexander & Colomy, 2019, p. 379). Just as different parts of the human body work together in keeping the body functional, different parts of society work together for society to stay functional (Tyler, 2020). In other words, functionalism argues that a particular society is more than the sum of the parts creating it. Each phenomenon works for the stability of the unit society (Abenir et al., 2020). Functionalism focuses on the consensus and order present in the society, concentrating on stability and shared public values (Rusu, 2020, p. 148). System's disorganization, like deviant behavior, therefore, forces a change since the components of the society ought to adjust in seeking stability of the whole unit. Any dysfunction of a single affects the whole system.
Application of functionalism to education
For instance, in many societies, a government provides education for the children and students from a family that pays taxes for the schools to be operational. The family depends on the same education for a positive bringing-up of the children to later have jobs to raise their family (Alexander & Colomy, 2019, p. 382. This phenomenon is what it means by social placement, where people are prepared and given upward social mobility to gain credentials broadening their prospects later in life. The children become taxpayers to support the state’s affairs, inclusive of education (Tyler, 2020). This aspect shows that the education system plays a pivotal role in transforming children into socially getting along with other colleagues and becoming responsible adults. Education institution is among the first places students learn to compete (Tyler, 2020). They compete in exams, games, to mention but a few. However, this seems to have a hand in individualism.
From a functionalist perspective, if everything falls into place, the collective parts of the society end up producing stability, order, and productivity. If the citizens choose not to pay tax, for instance, the society has to seek stability by doing whatever possible since it is its responsibility to provide education for children. Education also sorts students (Abenir et al., 2020). They are classified based on their academic potential. The system places the brightest students in accelerated settings in a process known as tracking of which functionalists are against since its positive effects do not justify the negative ones (Tyler, 2020). Maybe this plays as a balancing factor. However, whichever setting one undergoes, they all seek to transform students into people who will take part in the smooth running of the country's stable economic nature in the future.
Conflict theory
Resources are always scarce, while people who want them are many. People, consequently, end up competing for them. That competition leads to perpetual conflict. Therefore, those who manage to achieve the resources attain a status that dominates since they have power. Rusu (2020) expresses that conflict theory argues that people with wealth and power use them to suppress power. Everyone then seeks to maximize their wealth and power to relieve themselves from this suppression. This aspect is why conflicts exist in almost every society, dividing people along economic class lines as the status maintains inequality.
Application of conflict theory to educational institutions
Educational institutions like the Technical University of Kenya consist of people from diverse areas and backgrounds, as earlier mentioned. The differences may include racial, ethnicity, and class aspects (Abenir et al., 2020). Although activists have made efforts against racial discrimination, it does not mean it is not there. Although one can have individual talent or work hard in school activities, this does not guarantee success. There are larger social forces that may come in to produce unequal results that end up favoring the powerful along with inequality, thereby maintaining the status quo (Tyler, 2020). Education, as a result, seeks to maintain the existing structures of power and create a docile underclass. Those with power would be referred to as "winners" who use their power to influence, thus maintaining their caliber. Although schools provide equality, it is unfortunate that perpetuates and reinforces social inequalities emanating from differences in race, class, ethnicity, and gender. For instance, IQ testing may test for cultural intelligence other than the actual intelligence (Tyler, 2020). Asking about instruments belong to an orchestra would require one who has a cultural knowledge of the same.
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionism perceives people's social world as formed through repetitive acts as people socially interact every day. Through these people's mundane acts, concerning social groups form symbolic and shared meanings. This theory analyzes a particular society by addressing the subjective meaning individuals enforce on objects, behaviors, and events (Abenir et al., 2020). Stryker (2017) asserts that it is normal for sociologists to prioritize subjective meanings since they believe that people behave based on their beliefs and not what is objectively true. An exemplary example is where youth smoke. Indubitably, the young generation is informed and educated. They know the dangers smoking poses to them. However, they choose to smoke, believing that it cannot harm them (Stryker, 2017, p. 18). Moreover, they argue that smoking