THE NEW SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR REDIRECTING RESEARCH AND PEDAGOGY IN COLLEGIATE BASIC SKILLS

The problem explored in this study was based upon the contention that existing approaches to collegiate basic skills (CBS) research and pedagogy have been one-sided, have taken for granted the latent meanings embedded in the symbolic communications between teachers and students. This kind of one-sidedness may in part account for the continuing academic failure among CBS enrollees.The new sociology of education (NSOE) begins with the assumption that academic failure among low-income students stems from latent meanings embedded in the symbolic communications between teachers and students, rather than from the students' deprived cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the corrective proposed by this study is that one significant way of ameliorating the problem of academic failure might be to redirect CBS research and pedagogy from the perspectives of the NSOE. One of the most significant claims inherent in the NSOE is that pedagogy and research must be changed to a praxis orientation. Future educational researchers and pedagogists must strive to approach their respective tasks so that what they do in the research lab community or in the classroom will make a difference in reality, and will make a difference in the lives of students who come from low-income backgrounds. In short, the NSOE, if adopted by CBS researchers and teachers in the future, might well enable them to help low-income CBS enrollees to become academic winners, rather than perennial losers.Most of the existing research in CBS education tends to assume that the cause of academic failure stems from pre-college experiences: students' low-income family backgrounds and their failure to have mastered basic academic skills at the secondary level. In short, the prevailing assumption among CBS researchers and teachers is that the cause of academic failure is external to CBS programs. No effort has yet been made to consider whether inschool or intraprogram factors might account for why CBS low-income minority students perform poorly academically.