Education

• The sociology of education examines how social institutions, social processes, and social structures influence educational outcomes.
• Functionalists agree that education serves a positive function in society, but they differ in the exact role that they believe education plays.
• Durkheim's key functions of education include creating social solidarity and teaching specialist skills.
• Parsons' theory of education focuses on socialisation, meritocracy, and the role of the education system as an important agency of socialisation.
• Davis and Moore's theory of education suggests that the function of education is to sift and sort pupils into the roles best suited to them.
• Wolf's analysis of vocational education found that there were very few high quality apprenticeships which prepare students for higher education or good jobs.
• Marxists are critical of the idea that education helps create a sense of social solidarity by instilling shared norms and values.
• Neoliberals and the New Right argue that the state-run education system is not adequate to prepare young people for work.
• Conflict theorists (feminists and Marxists) criticise the rose-tinted view of education that functionalists take, focusing too heavily on the positives, ignoring the issues with the system.
• Neoliberalism and the New Right Perspective: Some people are naturally more talented than others, education is a meritocratic system, education serves the economy by preparing young people for work, education should socialise pupils into shared values and instil a national identity.
• The key difference between the New Right and Functionalist Approach to Education is that the New Right do not believe the current education system is achieving these things because it is state-run.
• The New Right argue that the state imposes a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to education, ignoring locals needs.
• Their solution to this is to create a market economy, where the state should reduce its control over schools, and schools should be privatised, turning parents/pupils into consumers, and using competition to drive up standards.
• Social class can have a powerful influence on how well a pupil at school performs.
• Children from middle class families on average perform better than pupils from working class families.
• Middle class families are more likely to be able to afford private education for their children, but this doesn't account for class differences in achievement within state education.
• Radical feminists argue that the education system is still fundamentally patriarchal and continues to oppress women, for example, by not taking verbal abuse and sexual harassment against girls in education seriously enough.
• Capitalism continues to exist because each new generation of workers is forced to undertake low-paid, alienating work to survive.
• Difference feminists argue that not all girls have the same experience of education, for example, minority ethnic girls or girls in the LGBTQ+ community are often victims of specific stereotyping.
• Policy has been introduced to reduce gender inequality, such as the National Curriculum, Sex Discrimination Act, and GIST.
• According to Marx, capitalism is based on the ownership of production by a wealthy minority.
• Other sociologists argue that what the economy requires is large numbers of workers who are prepared to work for low pay and to obey the orders of their superiors in the production process.
• Liberal feminists acknowledge significant strides towards equality in education, such as abolishing the 11+ and tripartite system, and the National Curriculum means girls and boys must study all core subjects up to a certain age.
• Education is becoming increasingly female dominated, including teachers and managers, leaving boys with few positive role models.
• Other sociologists argue that the education system has become fragmented and transmits a diverse range of ideas and values.
• Many sociologists argue that today's technologically complex economy needs to recruit young people with talent, and to give them the skills and motivation to perform the most important and difficult jobs.
• This makes capitalism potentially unstable, as it depends on the proletariat not seeking to overthrow this unequal system.
• Feminists argue that education transmits patriarchal ideology, and that this benefits men.
• Education transmits ideas and values, according to sociologists, but they disagree about the nature of these ideas and values and who benefits from this process.
• Increasing female success in education and male under-performance makes it difficult to argue that men have control and are the dominant force in this sector.
• Marxist Feminists argue that education disadvantages working-class girls in particular, for example, working-class girls are more likely to suffer from 'period poverty' (not being able to afford sanitary products needed during menstruation), meaning they are more likely to miss school and therefore get lower grades.
• When explaining this difference in achievement in state education, sociologists tend to look at internal factors (those within schools/the education system) and external factors (those outside the education system).
• Material Deprivation refers to the lack of material resources/necessities.
• Non-class inequality, such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, are equally as important as class.
• Willis' account of the 'lads' and their counter culture romanticises working class boys as 'heroes' despite their antisocial behaviour and sexism.
• The Ideological State Apparatus includes the media, religion, education.
• Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) maintains capitalism by controlling peoples ideas/beliefs/values.
• Willis studied 'the lads' (12 working class boys transitioning from school to work) and found that working class pupils resist attempts made the school to indoctrinate them into capitalist ideology.
• Education, as part of the Ideological State Apparatus, carries out two key functions in relation to capitalism: reproducing class inequality and legitimising class inequality.
• The Repressive State Apparatus includes police, army, courts.