Hidden Curriculum
Traits of behavior or attitudes that are learned at school but not included within the formal curriculum - for example, gender differences.
Cultural Capital
The advantages that well-to-do parents usually provide their children.
Tracking
Dividing students into groups that receive different instruction on the basis of assumed similarities in ability or attainment.
Achievement Gap
Disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race, ethnicity, ability, and socioeconomic status.
Intelligence
Level of intellectual ability, particularly as measured by IQ (intelligence quotient) tests.
IQ (intelligence quotient)
A score attained on test of symbolic or reasoning abilities.
Acting White" Thesis
The thesis taht black students do not aspire to or strive to get good grades because it is perceived as "acting white.
Abstract and Concrete Attitudes
Abstract attitudes are ideas that are consistent with mainstream societal views, while concrete attitudes are ideas that are based on actual experience.
Cultural Navigators
People who draw form both their home culture and mainstream culture to create an attitude that allows them to succeed.
Gender Gap
Differences between woman and men, especially as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes.
Stereotype Threat
Idea that when African American students believe they are being judged not as individuals but a member of a negatively stereotyped social group, the will do worse on tests.
Local Knowledge
Knowledge of a local community, possessed by individuals who spend long periods of their lives in it.
Mass Media
Forms of communication, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV, designed to reach mass audiences.
Communication
Transmission of info from one individual or group to another. Communication is the necessary basis of all social interaction. In face-to-face encounters, communication is carried on by the use of language and by bodily cues that individuals interpret. With the development of writing and electronic media such as radio, tv, and computers, communication becomes in some part detached from immediate face-to-face social relationships.
Public Sphere
Means by which people communicate in modern societies, the most prominent component of which is the mass media - movies, TV, radio, videos, magazines, and newspapers.
Global Village
Notion associated with Marshall McLuhan, who believed that the world has become like a small community as a result of the spread of electronic communication. For instance, people in many different parts of the world follow the same news events through TV programming.
Hyperreality
Idea associated with Jean Baudrillard, who argued that as a result of the spread of electronic communication, there is no longer a separate "reality" to which TV programs and other cultural products refer. Instead, what we take to be "reality" is structured by such communication itself. For instance, the items reported on the news are not just about a separate series of events, but actually define and construct what those events are.
Mediated Interaction
Interaction between individuals who are not physically in one another's presence - for example, a telephone conversation.
Mediate Quasi-Interaction
Interaction that is one-sided and partial - for example, a person watching a TV program.
World Information Order
Global system of communication operating through satellite links, radio and TV transmission, and telephone and computer links.
Cyberspace
Electronic networks of interaction between individuals at different computer terminals.
Information Poverty
The "information poor" are those people who have little or no access to information technology, such as computers.