A Critique of Wayland J. Hayes' “The Place of Sociology in Education”

T HE Southern Sociological Society's Commission on the Teaching of Sociology has produced a timely report on its investigation of the teaching of sociology. This three-year undertaking b1as had as its principal foci the objectives, materials, nethods, and measurement of the results of sociological instruction in southern colleges and universities. Admittedly, this is a laudable undertaking and basic to the whole problem of continuing improvement in this now critically important area of instruction. The comments in this critique are limited to consideration of the section of theCommission's report dealing with the objectives of sociological instruction. Other critiques will deal with subsequent sections of the report. The Commission is certain to find wide support of its thesis that the recognition of valid educational objectives, together with a forthright organization of education and instruction in terms of them, are long overdue. The Commission proposes that the aims of education be made clear by continually pressing the question, "What knowledge is of most worth-for whom-and for what?" As a partial answer to this persistent question, the Commission proposes knowledge of the nature of groups, of the processes of group living, and of institutionalized behavior as being a tool which must be in the hands of those who are to influence the quality of group living, institutional change, and personal adjustment for the better. The soundness of these objectives and their basic import to the welfare of our social life are obvious and, as the Commission pointed out, their quick accomplishment is an urgent need-if not necessity-if our democratic way of life is to be preserved. The experiences of many educators who have sought to improve education through a reexamination of its objectives have led to the conclusion that the mere formulation of a statement of objectives, no matter how thoughtfully done, has little effect upon subsequent instruction save that done by those who took an active part in formulating the objectives. Cognizance of this experience, perhaps, led the Commission to adopt a procedure which involved a large number of sociology teachers in formulating the educational objectives proposed for sociology. The extent of active collaboration (beyond routine respondence to questionnaires) actually secured by the Commission will, in all probability, determine the amount of influence its restatement of educational objectives will have upon the teaching that is done through sociology. Inherent in the objectives of sociological instruction proposed by the Commission are long range goals and purposes to the realization of which, it is argued, instruction in sociology should contribute. Apparently, the Commission reasons that good instruction in sociology will result in students transferring the use of certain understandings and concepts in student life over into use in adult life. Psychologists have discovered that such transfer is likely to occur only if these long range goals and purposes are intimately associated with the more immediate goals of the student. It is, therefore, to be hoped that the Commission has included in its procedures a penetrating analysis of students' needs, This matter is of such importance that, in the opinion of this reviewer, such an analysis should precede the Commission's study of sociological objectives and content. Such an analysis would seem a necessary prerequisite to content study and to a study of present instructional practices if the pitfall of "omnibus content, disjointed organization, unreality, unintegrated purpose, social irresponsibility, and general inertia which make much of education... ." as stated by the Commission, is to be avoided. Subsequent sections of the report may show that the Commission has taken this factor into proper account. The Commission's statement of the objectives of sociological instruction could be given added meaning to teachers if the generalized statements of objectives and purposes were supplemented by concrete suggestions concerning their implementation. Some previous statements of purposes and objectives have proven ineffective because, although agreeing with the statement intellectually, the run-of-the-mine teacher apparently saw no way that these objectives implied the