Unit II: The School and Society

Society

          A society is a group of organized individuals who share almost common characteristics living harmoniously despite they differ in many respects. So society plays a vital role in our life. Society is a functional operative unit that prioritizes on common interest and goal subordination individual. In fact a group of people can be called a society if it possesses the following characteristics.

a.     Society is abstract

b.     Society is a mosaic

c.      Society consists multity in unity

d.     Society is interdependent

e.      Society lies on conflict and cooperation

Definitions of society

"Society is relatively a large aggregate of individuals having a common culture habits, attitudes, values and feelings of unity."        - CV Good

"A society may be defined as a total community or a part of community whose members have become socially conscious of their made of life and are united by a common set of aims and values." - Ottaway"   

"A society is a number of people held together because they are working along common lives, in a common spirit, and with reference to common aims, the common needs and aims demand a growing interchange of thousands and growing unit of sympathetic feeling." - John Dewey

School

A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students(or "pupils") under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students' progress through a series of schools. The names for these schools vary by country but generally include primary school for young children and secondary school for teenagers who have completed primary education. An institution where higher education is taught, is commonly called a university college or university, but these higher education institutions are usually not compulsory.

Definitions of School

"School is a special environment, where a certain quality of life and certain types of activities and occupations are provided with the object of securing the child's development along desirable lines."    – John Dewey

"Schools are institutions devised by civilized man for the purpose of aiding in the preparation of the young for well-adjusted and efficient members of society."       - JS Ross

"The school may be regarded as a social invention to serve society for the specialized teaching of young ones."          -Ottaway

2.1    School as a sub-system of society

          A school is a replica of a society which is an important constituent of the society. It is a part of society that helps to constitute the society as a whole.

          To look education separating from the society is like expecting a fish to be alive outside water. Human being is a social animal. What water is to fish, so is society to human being. Society gets constructed by human beings. And, without education no individual can be a complete one. So, if a society is constructed by individuals, and if without education an individual becomes incomplete, how can a society be society without education in real sense? School is a formal institution that aims at producing necessary human resources. It is a place where an individual learns the thing that he needs in society, and it is also the medium through which one generation hands over culture, norms and values of the society to the successive generation. So, a school is a formal construction where an individual gets socialization.

          A society is structured by a variety of structural elements. A system functions because of such structural elements. Hence a society is a system. And a school functions as a structural element or sub-system. Any system functions with the help of their sub-systems. For example, nation is a system where a society is its sub-system, so is school of the society. A school supposed to teach an individual that behavior which he needs to live in a society. Moreover, school and society are similar in the sense that society is a collection of different individuals with their culture, races, religion, and language and so on. Likewise, school is a mosaic of different persons with their different individual differences, interests, needs, necessities, aspirations and representatives from the society. That is why school is a small form of the society.