Topic:  Education, Stratification, and Inequality

This course is a graduate-level survey of some of the major issues
related to education and social inequality.  We will devote our
primary attention to basic scholarship on each of several important
topics, and we will also consider important policy issues concerning
education and social (in)equality.  The issues considered are
relevant for most advanced societies, although much of the
scholarship we will discuss concerns the United States.

A tentative list of the topics we will cover includes:
	
The Fit Between Education and Society
Why Education Matters:  Credentials or Human Capital?
Explaining the Growth of Mass Education:  Why are So Many People in
School?
Family Background, Education, and Occupation:  Status Attainment
Education and Mobility:  World-Wide Patterns
Education and Class Reproduction
Education and Class Resistance
Race and Ethnicity
Gender Inequality
The Extremes:  Central-City Schools and Elite
Schools as Resilient Institutions:  The Efficacy of Attempts at
Systemic School Reform
Tracking and School Organization
Educational Culture Wars and Social Movements:  The Example of
School Choice

The class meets once a week, and will be taught primarily as a
discussion.  I will do some lecturing, but most of each class
session will be devoted to a discussion of the articles or books
assigned for that week.  You are expected to read the assigned
material prior to the class meeting, and to come to class prepared
to discuss the material.  Course requirements include class
participation; preparation of short written comments on each week’s
readings prior to class; short presentations on two of the topics
during the semester; and a final paper.