Topic 5: The role of education in society

• The functionalist perspective of education- social solidarity 


  Durkheim

  • Social solidarity- argues society needs a sense of solidarity that is, it’s individual members must feel themselves to be part of a single body or community
  • He argues without social solidarity, social life and cooperation would not be possible as the individual will pursue their own selfish desires
  • The education system helps create social solidarity by transmitting societies culture (shared beliefs and values) from one generation to the next
  • School acts as society in miniature turning kids into social beings
• functionalist perspective- specialist skills

  Durkheim

  Modern industrial economies have a complex division of labour where production of even a single item involves the cooperation of many different specialists

  • Durkheim argues the education system teaches kids the specialist skills they need to play their part in the social division of labour
• Functionalist perspective- meritocracy

  Parsons

  Education is a focalising agent acting as a bridge between family and society

  • In the family, kids are judged against particularistic standards (rules that only apply to them) and their status is ascribed
  • In school, the rules are universalistic (apply to everyone) and in school and why the society status is achieved
  • This is a meritocracy as power, rank is gained through individuals own merit
• Functionalist perspective- role allocation


  Davis and Moore

  • Education is a device for selection and roll allocation, the inequalities in society ensure the most talented undertake important roles as it’s dangerous for less people to take on challenging jobs
  • Not everyone’s equally talented so more money is given for harder roles
  • Education sifts and sorts people according to ability, most able gain high qualifications which gives an entry to most important rewarded positions
• Functionalist perspective- role allocation

  Human capital- Blaue and Duncan argue that a modern economy depends for its prosperity on using human capital (it workers skills)

  • They argue that meritocratic education system does this best, since it enables each person to be allocated to the job that best suits their abilities
  • This will make most effective use of their talents and maximise their productivity
• Functionalist perspective- criticisms

  Education isn’t meritocratic as achievement is still influenced by class

  • tumin criticises Davis and moore for putting forward a circular argument, how do we know that a job is important? Answer because it is highly rewarded. Why are some jobs more highly rewarded? Answer- because they’re more important.
  • wrong Augies functionalists have an over socialised view of pupils as mere passive puppets of society
• Neoliberalism and the new right- the new right 


  Believe the state can’t meet peoples needs as their best met through free market

  • Similar to functionalist as: they believe some are more talented than others, they argue the education system is meritocratic, they believe people should be socialised into shared values
  • Different functionalists as: they have one size fits all approach, imposing uniformity and disregards local needs, they argue consumers have no say, that the education system is inefficient waste money, achieves poor results resulting in a poor economy
• Neoliberalism and the new right- the new right 


  The new rights solution

  • marketisation of education, turning education into market forcing schools to compete.
  • They believe competition between schools and empowering consumers will bring greater diversity choice and efficiency to schools and increase schools ability to meet the needs of pupils, parents and employers
• Neoliberalism and the new right- consumer choice

  Chubb and Moe

  American state education system failed , so hard to be open to market forces because disadvantaged groups weren’t treated equally , the education didn’t train peoples for Work

  • Private schools viewed as better as they more answerable to consumers
  • They compared achievement in state/private schools from low income families and private did 5% better
• Neoliberalism and the new right- consumer choice

  Chubb and Moe

  • Because of their findings they call for the introduction of a market system in state education that would put control in the hands of the consumers (parents)
  • To introduce a market in state education they propose a system in which each family will be given a voucher to spend on buying education from a school of their choice
  • This would for schools to become more responsive to parents wishes since vouchers would be the schools main source of income
  • These principles are already at work in the private education sector
• Neoliberalism and the new right- two roles for the state

  States important for two roles

  1. State publishes framework for schools to operate within, OFSTED produce inspection reports and league tables which makes school compete and gives consumers choice
  2. State insures schools transmit shared culture by using national curriculum creating social solidarity

  • Believe education should affirm national identity through British history and Christian act (praying)
  • They oppose multicultural education (education that reflects cultures of different minority groups)
• Neoliberalism and the new right- evaluation

  Ball- argues competition benefits mc who use cultural and economic capital to get into better schools

  • Social inequality and poor school funding could be to blame for achievement
  • Marxists argue education imposes culture/identity of the ruling class and not a shared culture/identity
• Marxist perspective- 


  Marxist society and education as based on class division and capitalist exploitation

  • marx described capitalism as a two class system

  1. Capitalist class are the minority class, they are the employers who own the means of production and make profit by exploiting the labour of the majority (wc)
  2. The Work class are forced to sell their labour power to capitalists since they own no means of production and have no other source of income, Work capitalism is poorly paid alienating and unsatisfying
• Marxist perspective

  The two class system creates a potential for class conflict e.g. if workers realise they’re being exploited they may demand high wages, better work conditions Or the abolishment of capitalism itself

  • marx believe that ultimately the wc would unite to overthrow capitalist system system and create a classless equal society
  • Despite this potential revolution that capitalism contains, it’s able to continue because the rc control the state
  • A key component of the state is the education system, education is a function to prevent revolution and maintain capitalism
• Marxist perspective-ideological state apparatus


  Althuser- state maintains dominant position through

  • repressive state apparatus- maintaining position through force/threat of it done by police, courts, where necessary they use physical coercion to repress the wc
  • Ideological state apparatus- maintain dominance through controlling peoples ideas/values through media, education system and religion
• Marxist perspective- ideological state apparatus


  Althusser

  • He argues the education system is an important ISA and performs two functions
  • Reproduces class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation by failing each successive generation of wc pupils
  • Education legitimises class inequality by producing ideologies That persuade workers to accept that inequality is inevitable and they deserve their subordinate position in society
• Marxist perspective- schooling in capitalist America

  Bowles and Gintis

  Argued capitalism requires a workforce that can be exploited, education system does this by reproducing obedient workers that will accept inequality

  • They found in their study that independence and creativity was punished and achieved low grades and punctuality was rewarded as that was what was needed of a compliant submissive worker
  • They argue from this evidence schooling helps produce obedient workers that capitalism needs, education, stunts and distort students development
• Marxist perspective- the correspondence principle and the hidden curriculum


  Bowles and Gintis

  • Argue school mirrors Work, hierarchy, uniform ect
  • they refer to these parallels between school and the workplace as examples of the correspondence principle , the relationships and structures found in education mirror or correspond those of Work
  • correspondence principal works through the hidden curriculum (every day workings of school without being directly taught) making them accustomed to hierarchy so they are prepared for their role as exploited workers, class inequality is needed to do this
• Marxist perspective- myth of meritocracy

  Bowles and Gintis

  Education system helps ensure we don’t rebel against inequalities as the education system legitimises it, producing ideologies to show its fair

  • B+G argue it’s a myth as the main factor determining income is family, class, background not educational achievement
  • This helps mc justify their privileges and wc accept inequality not rebel
• Marxist perspective- learning to labour


  Willis

  Capitalism can’t help without a workforce willing to be exploited, education system reproduces and legitimises class inequality ensuring working class except jobs that are poorly paid and alienating

  • Willis differs from bowels and Gintis as his study shows that working-class peoples can reject such attempts to indoctrinate them
• Marxist perspective- the lads counterculture

  Willis

  Studied 12 working class boys ‘ lads’ going from school to work, they are scornful of conformist (because unlike the lads they listen to what the teachers told them) and took the piss out of them

  • They found school boring so went against its rules by smoking, disrupting class ect as a way of resisting the school
  • They saw manual work as superior and intellectual work as inferior
• Marxist perspective- the lads counterculture

  Willis

  • The boys counterculture to education system puts them in the unskilled work capitalism needs them to perform as:
  • there are custom to boredom and don’t expect satisfaction from work so they will accept boredom of labour,
  • their acts of rebellion and guarantee that they will end up in unskilled jobs
• Marxist perspective- evaluation


  Post-modernist criticise bowels and Gintis correspondence principal on the ground that in today’s post-fordist economy requires schools to produce a very different kind of labourforce from the one described by Marxist. They argue education produces diversity, not inequality

  • Critical modernists such as marrow and Torres criticise Marxists for taking a class first approach that sees class as the key inequality and ignores all other kinds, they see non-class inequalities such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality as equally important
• Marxist perspective- evaluation

  Critical modernises argue sociologist must explain how education reproduces and legitimises all forms of inequality not just class and how the different forms of inequality are into related

  • Feminists such as MacDonald argues bowels and gintis ignore the fact that school is rep produce not only capitalism but patriarchy