Comprehensive Exam
October 2004
DAY 1
1.
The recent No Child Left Behind Act mandates closing the race and
socioeconomic gaps in academic achievement and raising the achievement of all
students. Choose three of the following six scholars and discuss the theoretical
perspective that each would use to critique the policy and goals. Discuss what would
each scholar predict about the efficacy of the policy. Make sure that you address each
author’s view of either (a) what would be required for its successful implementation or
(b) why successful implementation would be impossible.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Max Weber
Emile Durkheim
Randall Collins
Pierre Bourdieu
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis
James Coleman
2. Please select one of the following questions:
A.
Theories of social capital and cultural capital have been used to explain why
children with more involved parents are more successful in school. Discuss the
strengths and weaknesses of each of these perspectives for (a) understanding the
phenomenon and (b) increasing the achievement of economically disadvantaged
students.
B.
Substantial attention has been paid to gender differences in educational
opportunities during the last several decades. However, the concern has prompted
controversy. Briefly summarize the controversy and the evidence to support each side
of the debate. Discuss what theoretical frameworks are most informative for analyzing
the debate?
3. Please select one of the following questions:
A.
The school is both an educational institution and a social context. Explain what
this statement means? Why is it important to consider both aspects of the school when
studying schools or students? How are these two aspects of the school related to each
other.
B.
What is meant by the concept of “school community”? Who is included in this
community? What is the significance of this concept for children, parents, and the
school as well as for educational policy? Why is this concept central to the social
capital literature?
Comprehensive Exam
October 2004
DAY 2
1.
Please select one of the following questions:
A.
Why is it important to take a life course perspective on the relationship of
education to health? What is the role of education in the life course? How does
education completed by early adulthood have health effects decades later?
B.
Human ecology and the life course perspective are both theoretical paradigms
aimed at understanding human development that have special relavance to educational
research. What are the basic tenets of each and how can they be leveraged to
understand the following two issues: race/ethic or class stratification in education and
the connection between education and health.
2.
Please select one of the following questions:
A.
What is resource substitution? How is it related to structural amplification? How
does it relate to the effect of education on health?
B.
What are the links between education and health? What are the economic,
interpersonal, and behavioral mediators, and how do they link education to health?
How does education modify the effects of other statuses or conditions on health?
3.
Please select one of the following questions:
A.
Considerable attention has been paid to curricular reform during the last decade
and a half. Describe the “math wars” and the “reading wars” and the evidence that
supports each side. How, if at all, has sociological theory informed the debate? How
can the research on curriculum inform the work of sociologists of education?
B.
School desegregation was intended to increase educational opportunities for
students of color. What are mechanisms within schools that operate to create or prevent
those opportunities? Please place each mechanism within a theoretical context and
discuss the empirical evidence that motivates and supports or refutes each mechanism.