Education

Many people think of education as a way to gain the credentials necessary to make it in the economy. But education has far more social functions than this. Ancient Greeks understood education as a public project designed to create informed and responsible citizens; this project was crucial to the original understanding of democracy. Today, throughout the world, education socializes young individuals into their societies; as children outgrow the closed circle of the family unit, they experience society in a larger sense first through schools. Schools, in turn, impart the factual and moral knowledge each individual is expected to have. Later in life, however, education can also offer the opportunity to question one's society and provides social settings in which people can develop highly individualized identities.

We may take education for granted, but it's one of the many areas of social life in which we find problems that need to be addressed. As you proceed through this topic, consider: have you experienced the problems of education? Do you know anyone who has? How can societies remedy the problems of education while still maintaining high standards for their citizens?

Health and Healthcare

Fundamental to sociology is the belief that society holds a much greater degree of influence in people's lives than is commonly recognized. The first full-length sociological study (by Emile Durkheim) was a demonstration that suicide rates depended on the cultural characteristics of the societies in which victims lived. Sociology allows us to see the social in the ostensibly private and un-social.

We think of health as a fundamentally biological matter - one having to do with the body, not society. But as it turns out, society heavily influences what happens to the body. Various cultural and structural factors - such as political values on the one hand, and economic inequality (in tandem with other forms of inequality) on the other - bear upon people's quality of life and their ability to access medical institutions. This lesson examines the sociology of health and the dimensions of health as a social problem.

Please watch the following video:

NowThis World. (2017, October 3). Which Countries Have The Best Healthcare? | NowThis World [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmL1jxQDuFk

Prompt: You have now learned a lot about the social institutions of labor, economy, education, and health care, and the social problems related to these institutions. Considering what you have learned, in what ways might capitalism be a better economic system than socialism? On the other hand, in what ways might socialism be a better economic system than capitalism?

Your answer must be written in the form of at least two (2) full paragraphs,