Education

• Durkheim's perspective on education

  • Creates social solidarity
  • Teaches skills necessary for work
• Parsons' perspective on education

  • Secondary socialisation
  • Teaching core values of society
• Transition from particularistic to universalistic values


  • Family to school
• Davis and Moore's perspective on education

  • Role allocation
  • Meritocracy
• Marxists argue that if education was truly meritocratic, there would be no private schools
• New Right


  See schools as businesses that should compete for consumers
• New Right influenced the Conservative government from 1979-1997, leading to league tables
• Marxist view of education

  • Passing on ruling class ideology
  • Reproducing capitalism
  • Legitimising inequalities
• Althusser's view of education

  • Ideological state apparatus
  • Reproducing class inequalities
  • Creating false consciousness
• Bowles and Gintis' correspondence principle


  • Similarities between workplace and school
  • Hidden curriculum
• Restricted code


  Working class speech, less clearly defined, takes longer to pick up new concepts
• Elaborated code


  Middle class speech, similar to teachers and textbooks, allows quicker understanding
• Pupil subcultures


  • Lacey's grammar school study
  • Willis' working class boys
  • Fuller's high-achieving black girls
• Labeling theory


  Labels become part of student's identity, creating self-fulfilling prophecy
• Labeling based on


  • Ethnicity
  • Gender
• Factors influencing achievement


  • Labeling
  • Self-fulfilling prophecy
  • Setting and streaming
  • Pupil subcultures
  • Class identity
• Cultural deprivation


  • Bernstein's codes
  • Parental education and involvement
  • Middle class vs working class subcultures
• Essentially girls have outperformed boys throughout education, although the gap has narrowed and widened at certain points
• Policies introduced to help girls achieve their potential


  • Helped girls feel more comfortable at school
  • Introduced more women into science and engineering to motivate girls and give them more opportunities
• Growing employment for women


  More female role models for girls in school to look up to and feel more ambitious about their future
• GCSE changes


  More coursework, which suits girls as they mature earlier and are more organised
• Teachers give more attention to boys


  As they are seen as more disruptive, while girls are seen as cooperative
• Positive label for girls


  Leads to a positive self-prophecy and girls working well independently with greater self-esteem
• Books and media now portray women as strong characters, not just housewives
• Girls are more likely to get into better schools

  As schools focus on league table positions and see girls as more likely to get good grades
• Factors that have helped combat the patriarchy and given girls more motivation

  • Feminist campaigning
  • Changes in the family (e.g. more women as breadwinners)
  • Increased women's employment and more women in managerial roles
• Boys see reading as a feminine activity and have a restricted linguistic code
• Education has been designed to be more 'girl-friendly', negatively impacting boys
• Lack of male primary teachers means boys lack male role models
• Laddish subcultures


  Boys forming subcultures to increase their masculinity, which reduces their achievement
• Crisis of masculinity and lack of jobs for boys

  Reduces boys' ambition and motivation in school
• Stereotypical subject choices


  • Girls choose languages and humanities, boys choose sciences and technology
  • Only 1% of construction apprenticeships are female
• Gender role socialisation


  Girls socialised to be gentle and protective, boys socialised to be independent and 'get dirty'
• Teachers construct 'ideal pupil' identities as white, middle-class, heterosexual high-achievers
• Teachers label and treat pupils differently based on ethnicity
• Pupil identities are constructed by teachers depending on the pupil's ethnicity
• Ideal pupil identity


  • White, middle-class, heterosexual, achieves good grades in the normal way (revising, taking exams, practicing)
• Identity of Asian pupils

  • Usually seen as asexual and conforming to what is expected of them
• Identity of black/working class pupils

  • Demonised as very sexual, having a lot of partners, distracted by relationships, unintelligent, culturally deprived
• Studies by Gillborn and Mirza found similar results when looking at the treatment of black and Asian A-level students