Educational Studies Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The one that is not a form of naturalism is scientific.

Textbooks of educational philosophy describe three forms of naturalism. Physical (materialistic) naturalism explains everything, including man, through the laws of physical nature. Mechanical naturalism treats the universe and man as a machine working by fixed laws. Biological naturalism, drawing on Darwin and Lamarck, sees man as an organism shaped by evolution, instincts and adaptation; it is the form that most influenced education, through Rousseau and Spencer.

Naturalism relies on the methods of science, but 'scientific' is not one of its recognised forms, which makes it the odd one out.

Answer: C

They are the existentialists.

Existentialism, from Kierkegaard to Sartre and Buber, holds that existence precedes essence: man is a free, choosing subject who creates himself through his decisions and is responsible for them. Treating a person as an object, a case, a number or a product of forces, denies that freedom, so existentialists condemn every attempt to objectify man; Buber's I-Thou relation is the educational expression of this.

Realists study man as part of an objective world that exists independently of mind. Idealists stress mind and universal spirit rather than the individual's free existence, and pragmatists judge ideas and persons by their practical consequences. None makes the refusal of objectification its central claim.

Answer: D

According to Sri Aurobindo, the sublime truth is realised through Yogabhyas (the practice of yoga).

Aurobindo's integral yoga aims at the transformation of the whole being, physical, vital, mental and spiritual, so that man rises towards the supramental consciousness. Education for him has to develop all these planes of the personality, and the practice of yoga is the means by which the higher truth is realised, not merely understood.

Strict discipline was not his method; he stressed freedom and the principle that nothing can be taught. Holistic vision and insight thinking describe aspects of the outlook his yoga produces, but the way to realisation he named is yoga itself.

Answer: A

Gandhiji's curriculum is not related to the core-curriculum.

Gandhi's scheme of Basic Education (Nai Talim), adopted at the Wardha conference of 1937, made a productive craft such as spinning, weaving or agriculture the centre of the curriculum (craft-centred). Children learnt by doing (activity-centred), and every subject, language, arithmetic, social studies, science, was taught in correlation with the craft, the natural environment and the social environment (correlated curriculum).

The core curriculum, a set of common compulsory subjects around which electives are arranged, comes from the American progressive tradition and is not a feature of Gandhi's plan.

Answer: D

On the paper's key, social change means social progress.

Sociologists use 'social change' for any alteration in the structure and relations of a society, and separate it from 'progress', which is change judged to be an improvement. The keyed option therefore equates the two, which a strict sociological reading would not; I could not find a source that defines social change as progress, so this rests on the key and on elimination.

The other options are narrower or different things: social mobility is the movement of individuals or groups between positions in the social hierarchy, change in education system and change in government are single instances of change in one institution, not the meaning of the term.

Answer: B

The key takes equal educational opportunity as a principle derived from the sociology of education.

The sociology of education studies education as a social institution and how class, caste, gender and region affect who gets schooling and with what result; equality of opportunity is a central principle of that analysis. Educational sociology, the other option close to it, is the older, applied branch that uses sociological findings to solve problems of school practice.

The two names are often used loosely for each other, and I could not find a source that assigns this principle to one of them alone, so the choice rests on the key. Economics of education deals with costs, returns and financing, and history of education with the past development of institutions; neither is where the principle of equal opportunity is derived from.

Answer: A

Stratification is based on power, property and prestige.

Max Weber's analysis of social stratification identified three dimensions: class (economic position, that is, property and income), status (social honour or prestige) and party (power). Sociology of education textbooks summarise this as the three Ps, and use it to explain how unequal positions in society are ranked and passed on.

Culture, caste and class mixes a basis of ranking (class) with features of particular societies. Education, earning and empowerment and motivation, mobility and material are not the recognised bases of stratification, although education and earning are among the indicators of a person's position.

Answer: D

The movement from one social class to another is social mobility.

Social mobility, a concept developed by Pitirim Sorokin, is the movement of individuals or groups between positions in the system of stratification. It is vertical when the move is up or down, for example a farmer's son becoming a doctor, and horizontal when it is between positions of similar rank. Education is one of its main channels.

Social status is the position itself, not the movement between positions. Social control is the way society regulates behaviour, and social change is change in the structure of society as a whole rather than the movement of individuals within it.

Answer: D

The community influences all of the above.

The school is part of the community and serves it. The community's needs, values and occupations shape the school's educational objectives; its culture, language and local resources enter the curriculum; and its expectations, parents' involvement and facilities affect the school's day-to-day practices, such as festivals, timings and teaching methods. In return the school is expected to serve and improve the community.

Choosing only one of the three would ignore the other two channels of influence, so the complete answer is all of the above.

Answer: D

The book was written by Paulo Freire.

Education for Critical Consciousness (1973 in English) brings together Freire's essays on literacy work with peasants in Brazil and Chile. Its central idea is conscientization: learners become aware of the social conditions that oppress them and act to change them, through dialogue rather than 'banking' education, the theme also of his Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), arguing for women's education. Nel Noddings is known for the ethics of care in education. Swami Vivekananda defined education as the manifestation of the perfection already in man. None of them wrote this book.