Sociology education

• Emile Durkheim (1903): 'Social Solidarity and Specialist Skills'
• Emile Durkheim's view on education

  The major function of education is the transmission of society's norms and values, creating value consensus and social solidarity
• Society must unite individuals

  Establish social solidarity
• Social solidarity involves

  Individuals' commitment to society, bringing a sense of belonging and prioritizing the social unit over the individual
• Teaching history at school helps transmit societal norms and values by providing a link between an individual and society
• Education provides the individual with a unique experience


  That they cannot get from the family or peer group
• Durkheim believed school rules should be strictly enforced with punishment discipline


  Individuals would want to avoid punishment and understand that their behavior could damage society as a whole
• Education is essential in industrialised society

  Based on the interdependence of specialized skills, contributing to the division of labor
• Durkheim assumes that the norms and values promoted in schools are those of society as a whole rather than powerful groups
• Most contemporary changes in education seem to encourage individual competition rather than maintaining the collective
• Talcott Parsons (1961): 'Meritocracy'
• Talcott Parsons' view on education


  School acts as a bridge between the family and society, preparing children for their adult role
• Children are judged by universalistic standards in education


  As certain rules apply to everyone and expected behaviors are uniform
• In schools and wider society

  A person's status is largely achieved and not ascribed
• In schools and wider society

  Operate on meritocratic principles where everyone is given the same opportunities and achievement is based on individual's own merit - the harder you work, the more you achieve
• For Parsons, schools are a society in miniature


  Preparing us to move from the family into wider society
• Ways in which school can be seen as a "society in miniature"

  • Playground friends
  • Bathorly respect teacher
  • Multicultural
• Parsons argued that the school is a place where young people are taught the basic values of society
• Parsons believes that schools foster the value of achievement itself
• Advanced industrialized society requires a highly motivated, achievement-orientated workforce
• Parsons believes that those who do not succeed will see the system as being fair as they will have had the same opportunities as those who do succeed
• Davis and Moore (1945) support Parsons, arguing schools play a key part in the selection of individuals for their future role in society or role allocation
• Davis and Moore argue that education plays a key role in ensuring that young people go into roles necessary for society through testing and evaluating students, matching their talents, skills, and capacities to the jobs for which individuals are best suited
• Davis and Moore argue that inequality is necessary to ensure that the most important roles in society are filled by the most talented people
• Davis and Moore argue that the most talented people compete for their position in society and society can then select the most talented individuals to fit these positions (i.e. meritocracy)
• Alfred Schutz (1971) developed the theory of human capital, suggesting that high levels of spending on education and training are justified as these expand people's knowledge and skills, which is important for a successful economy
• Functionalists see the development of human capital through the expansion of schooling and higher education as necessary to provide a properly trained, qualified, and flexible labor force who will accept their positions in society
• Ways social background can create inequalities in education success


  • Access to resources - tutors, equipment, uniform
  • Home life troubles
  • Social class
  • Area you live/grew up in
  • Learning difficulties
  • Family generation making education less valued
• Marxists believe that education is based on class division and capitalist exploitation
• Karl Marx (1867) described capitalism as a two-class system
• The Marxist Perspective on Education
• Functionalists see society and education as based on value consensus
• Karl Marx described capitalism as a two-class system


  1867
• Capitalist class or bourgeoisie


  The minority class who are the employers, own the means of production, and make profits by exploiting the labor of the majority working class or the proletariat
• The working class are forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists since they own no means of production of their own. Work under capitalism is poorly paid, alienating, unsatisfying, and something over which workers have no real control
• This creates the potential for class conflict

  Marx believed that ultimately the proletariat would unite to overthrow the capitalist system to create a classless, equal society
• Despite the potential for revolution, capitalism continues because the bourgeoisie also control the state including education


  Marxists are critical of state-controlled education since its function is to prevent revolution and maintain capitalism
• Marxists agree with functionalists that education has an economic function
• Louis Althusser (1971): 'Transmission of Capitalist Values'
• According to Althusser, the education system acts as an ideological state apparatus maintaining the rule of the bourgeoisie by controlling pupils' ideas, values, and beliefs