Comprehensive Exam
Sociology of Education (Race & Ethnicity Specialty)
Spring 2012
Please answer three of the four questions listed below:
1. Recent work has informed us that race, ethnicity, and culture are not synonymous. How
informative are these distinctions in understanding the educational outcomes of immigrant
children in K-12 schooling?
2. For many decades, sociological research on race/ethnicity and education was highly
dichotomized—it concerned White/African American disparities and the educational and
social processes underlying them. The increasing race/ethnic diversity in the U.S. resulting
from immigration is changing the way sociologists study and discuss race/ethnicity and
race/ethnic disparities. What new things have the growing attention to immigration—and, in
particular, to Latino/as and Asian Americans—taught us about race/ethnicity and education?
In what ways do the “old models” apply, and in what ways do they not?
3. The oppositional culture model was proposed by Ogbu as a means of explaining race/ethnic
disparities in academic performance. It has been controversial and, as a result, has been
studied extensively. What is the controversy all about, and what have sociologists done to
weigh in on this controversy? Today, in 2012, what is the “state of the field” on this
conceptual model, and where do you think it is going? Does the debate about oppositional
culture have parallels to other kinds of cultural arguments concerning race/ethnicity?
4. Many have long contended that African American and European American children live in two
distinctly different realities; therefore, their educational experiences differ. To what extent are
these racial/ethnic realities socioeconomic realities? Discuss which dimension of stratification
(race/ethnicity or social class) is more important in determining educational outcomes. It is
reasonable to suggest that these two forms of stratification may interact (e.g., that social class
effects may vary by race and race effects may be different according to social class), but
please be specific in your discussion of such interactions.