Cheryl Wood (Blog 2)

Throughout chapter 2 many theoretical perspectives dealing with the sociology of education were discussed. Throughout the years there have been various theories that have impacted the lives of many. Pages 20-22 go more in depth about Durkheim’s theory of society. Box 2.1 goes into depth about residential schools. Europeans truly believed it was their duty to assimilate First Nations children into the Canadian society. On page 22 it states, “Making Good Canadians of the Red Man.” Durkheim believed the role of education was to “instill society’s morals in the minds (and actions) of young people.” (Page 20).The Europeans truly believed they were doing the proper thing but in reality they were stripping the rights of the First Nation’s people and destroying their culture. Being educators we have to realize what happened in the past was not right and much damage has been done. We have to be aware of things such as this and be sure that history does not repeat its self as what happened was wrong.

Bronfenbrenner explains his ecological systems theory. This theory discusses “the nature of child development and how children are profoundly affected by various aspects of their environment.” (Page 43). He discusses five distinct elements that impact the development of children being the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem and the chronosystem. As teachers we have to be aware of the different things that may affect a child’s development. We have to realize that we all have different backgrounds and scenarios in which we grow up with and these may determine our development and the development of our students.

Discussion Question:

Is there a specific system that is bound to affect a child’s development more so than the others? What theory would be most relevant to students today?