Schooling for society - schools play important role in socializing students

American Demographics, March, 1998 by Josh Galper

For the U.S. and much of Europe, the power of schools to socialize students is more important to the public than all academic subjects except mathematics, according to a new study by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Pelavin Research Institute. Respondents in 12 industrialized nations were asked to rate the importance of various educational subjects, character qualities, and work-related skills.

Country by country, the average importance of all academic subjects was between 7 percent (the Netherlands) and 18 percent (Finland and the U.K.) less than the average importance of a school's role in socialization. In the U.S., all academic subjects rated 71 percent in importance, compared with 85 percent for socialization skills.

Mathematics is the one subject to rank most important in all countries over socialization skills (except for the Netherlands). The U.S. showed the highest public perception of importance, with 96 percent saying that the math is essential or very important. The 12-country average was 84 percent.

English/native language studies also ranked high, with a 12-country average of 87 percent (U.S.: 92 percent). The arts and technical studies ranked consistently lowest among all countries, bottoming out in France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, which rated the arts as least important, at 31 percent.

The sciences rank strongly only among a few nations. In the U.S., a ranking of 84 percent importance was significantly above the next country, Portugal, with 75 percent. Denmark was lowest, at 46 percent.

The importance of a school's ability to teach selected social skills maintained consistently high ratings across all countries, including how to get a job (85 percent) and self-confidence (88 percent). U.S. respondents placed the most emphasis on being able to get a job (94 percent).

For more information, see Public Attitudes Toward Secondary Education: The United States in International Context, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 97-595); telephone (800) 424-1616.