Seeking School Clues

Most of our common social institutions do double-duty, triple-duty, or more; they serve many functions at once. While this makes functional sense, it also complicates the task of inferring their functions. School is a good example. Some oft-mentioned functions:

• babysit – keep kids safe via less adult effort

• match – help kids find compatible mates/friends

• practice – practice specific skills, habits

• 3 Rs – practice reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic

• be like us – adopt our styles of talk, dress, music, etc.

• learn to learn – practice practicing new skills

• remember – remember specific facts, claims

• dogma – remember approved social views

• norms – internalize behaviors, standards

• mark – show that students better than others

• sort – rank by ability, loyalty, personality, support

• legitimize – accept non-school rank via school rank

• submit – practice gracious obedience, ranking

• stiffen – strength self-control to follow norms

• harden – practice working long, hard, on cue

• soften – practice accepting new local norms, ranks

• entrench – keep the system going, grow it if possible

• impress – make a local society look good to outsiders

In the face of such complexity, I prefer to

1. Collect stylized facts, i.e., simple patterns of behavior that might be clues to help distinguish theories.

2. Instead of seeking ad hoc explanations for each clue, seek a simple package of assumptions that simultaneously explain as many clues as possible with as few assumptions as possible.

So I hereby declare my newfound interest in such clues.  What ya got?