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Chapter 11 looks at the contemporary world of education. We can see that schools carry out latent and manifest functions for society. Conflict theory argues that education has a stratification function, reproducing class differences and making people accustomed to an alienating workplace environment. Feminist approaches have identified how schools have historically treated boys and girls differently, and how we see different educational and occupational outcomes for men and women. Functionalists recognize the role education has played in producing human capital, and in socializing people into the roles of citizenship and worker. Symbolic interactionists focus on education as a method of signalling one's social position, via the acquisition of cultural capital.
There are two notable and related trends in post-secondary education, that of credentialism and that of the commodification of education. Post-secondary institutions increasingly treat knowledge and education as commodities, things to be bought and sold and judged in terms of economic value. This affects how education and teaching are judged as successful or unsuccessful. It also is connected to funding challenges these schools face. On average, per-student provincial funding has gone down, leading post-secondary institutions to turn to other sources of revenue and other forms of cost-savings, which shape the experience students have, and the priorities on campus.
We see increasing rates of women and Indigenous people increasing their educational attainment, though there remain differences and underrepresentation, and there are specific issues for Indigenous populations who have been marginalized due to prejudice and social networks.
Schools are not universal playing fields. They may stream students in accordance with perceived abilities, which can tailor education to students' needs but can also lead to hierarchies and stigmatization. Furthermore, not all schools are accessible - some are unavailable or are structured around religious, ethnic, or gender identities. Schools also intersect with health and social problems, in terms of anxieties related to competition and school success. Schools are also a source of conflict and victimization, in the issue of bullying.
New technologies in education provide opportunities, as found in online courses, which contain the promise of accessibility and flexibility but pose new challenges as they diverge from the conditions of in-person teaching and learning.