Functionalist p2

• Marxists argue

  Children are socialised into being obedient workers to support capitalism
• Education


  • Provides a bridge between particularistic and universalistic values
  • Particularistic values are taught at home and are specific to different families
  • Universalistic values mean the same values for everyone, like rules at school
• Education is a bridge between families and society where people are socialised into the correct values so they respect the laws of society
• Some teachers do not enforce the rules, pupils are treated differently based on stereotypes like 'ideal' pupil, differences in gender, class and ethnicity
• Developing human capital

  Training a labour force
• Specialist division of labour is necessary in a modern economy. Schools train individuals to work in different types of jobs or industries
• All jobs need to be filled for society and the economy to function - both academic and vocational
• Not everyone who is qualified goes on to be part of the labour force (ends up in employment)
• Many jobs that are not related to education - businesses say students are not skilled using excel, power point, and word, yet schools predominantly use paper
• Meritocratic society


  Selecting and allocating people for roles based on merit, and legitimising social inequality
• Davis and Moore believed there was equality of opportunity - everybody has the same opportunities in education to pick options to succeed
• They believe it is fair that pupils are placed in different sets, it leads to 'sift and sort' them into future jobs
• Sets are not always fair as different class habits can impact learning, class culture, summer born vs September born, ethnic differences in language
• The curriculum is ethnocentric, leading to loss of success for some students