sociology paper 1 - education

• Durkheim's views of education

  Durkheim suggested that education performed a range of positive functions for society
• Two functions of education according to Durkheim


  • Promotion of social solidarity
  • Teaching of specialist skills
• Social solidarity


  The social ties that bind us together
• How education promotes social solidarity

  1. Teaching students about their shared heritage

  2. Communal gatherings

  3. Creating social cohesion
• Durkheim was writing at a time of dramatic social change following the impact of the industrial revolution and the birth of the modern era
• Mechanical solidarity


  The more traditional form of social solidarity typical of the pre-industrial era
• Organic solidarity


  The new bonds formed as a result of the industrial revolution, such as through work, new religious movements, and new neighborhoods
• Durkheim proposed that the emerging state education systems promoted a sense of social solidarity in order to promote moral education
• Educational policies often look to promote social solidarity in schools and colleges
• Changes to the curriculum introduced by Michael Gove in 2013

  • Removing European and American history, and texts by non-British authors, from the curriculum
  • Introducing compulsory teaching of British values into schools
• Marxist perspective on the functions of education

  Functions promote the benefits for society, while Marxists suggest the benefits do not serve the masses but rather the ruling classes
• Durkheim proposed that one of the most important functions of education should be to provide the next generation with the skills they would need in the diverse workforce of the modern era
• How education teaches specialist skills

  1. Setting up the knowledge and skills required through the national curriculum

  2. Offering subject choices that prepare students for specific professions

  3. Providing vocational qualifications
• The creation of red brick universities in the UK around the turn of the 20th century focused on the new technical and scientific skills
• Initiatives to give additional funding to schools if students are completing level 3 maths qualifications


  • Initiatives for the training and recruitment of teachers in shortage subjects like chemistry, physics, and modern foreign languages
• Standardized tests like A-levels, GCSEs, and SATs are designed to test specific skills like application, analysis, and evaluation
• There is an increasing focus on teaching skills that will enable students to compete in the global marketplace
• Marxist critique of the teaching of specialist skills

  • Students are taught fragmented knowledge that enables them to perform specific roles, rather than seeing the connections between subjects
  • Students are often overqualified for some roles, creating a reserve army of labour and excessive competition in job markets, driving down wages
• High numbers of young people are unemployed or underemployed despite having qualifications
• Shortages in the UK in nursing, teaching, IT, and the sciences have led to increased immigration to fill these shortages, illustrating a failing of the education system to teach specialist skills adequately
• Feminists argue that the teaching of specialist skills has created hierarchies of employment, with girls being discouraged from traditionally masculine subjects
• Marketization of education


  The application of market principles to the education system
• Marketization of education


  • Promoting choice
  • Promoting competition
• Marketization of education has been dominant in the UK for the past 30 years
• Promoting choice in education means increasing the different types of providers that students can attend
• Promoting competition between providers is another important principle of marketization
• The application of market principles to education is seen as being centered upon the student as a consumer of goods and meeting their needs
• How marketization has been achieved

  1. Education reform act 1988 created open enrollment and national curriculum

  2. Introduction of formula funding for schools

  3. Introduction of league tables and Ofsted

  4. Introduction of city academies in 2000

  5. Introduction of specialist schools and faith schools

  6. Introduction of tuition fees for universities in 1998

  7. Academization of secondary schools

  8. Introduction of pupil premium

  9. Curriculum and assessment reforms

  10. Introduction of free schools
• Impacts of marketization


  • Wider choice of schools available
  • More private investment into education provision
  • Increase in university attendance, including from overseas
  • Increase in educational standards (GCSE and A-level passes)
• There are criticisms of marketization, such as the myth of increased parental choice, teaching to the test, and educational triage
• Habitus


  The tastes, attitudes and attributes of the individual body
• Field


  The social context in which an individual's habitus enters
• Cultural capital


  The value of an individual's cultural knowledge
• Individuals have different amounts of cultural capital depending on the field they enter
• Working-class students have less cultural capital than their middle and upper class peers in the field of education
• Symbolic violence


  The rejection of working-class students' habitus in the education system
• The language of education is written in an elaborated code that puts working-class students at a disadvantage
• The dress codes of education are based on middle-class tastes, which can lead to working-class students being removed from learning
• The cultural knowledge of the curriculum puts working-class students at a disadvantage as it is based on middle-class preferences
• Recent educational policies have aimed to promote the idea of cultural capital, which has been controversial as it differs from Bourdieu's definition