education

• Function of education


  • Create social solidarity
  • Teach skills necessary for work
  • Teach core values of society
• Particularistic vs universalistic values

  Particularistic values are individual to the child, universalistic values are applied to all students equally
• Role allocation


  Grades determine most suitable roles in society
• Meritocracy


  Ensures everyone has equal chances and opportunities of being assigned to a job
• Marxists argue that if education was truly meritocratic, there would be no private schools benefiting the rich and middle/upper class
• New Right view of education

  Schools should be run more like a business, competing for consumers and providing what they want
• New Right influenced the Conservative government from 1979-1997, introducing league tables to help parents choose schools</b>
• Marxist view of education

  Education passes on ruling class ideology to support and reproduce capitalism
• Althusser's view of education

  Education is an ideological state apparatus that reproduces class inequalities and creates false consciousness
• Correspondence principle


  Similarities between the workplace and school, preparing students for future work
• Meritocracy myth


  Failure is attributed to lack of individual effort rather than social class background
• Restricted vs elaborated language codes

  Working class have restricted codes, middle class have elaborated codes that match school language
• Pupil subcultures


  Groups of pupils with behaviours/ideas different from mainstream school culture
• Labeling theory


  Labels given to students become part of their identity, creating self-fulfilling prophecies
• Ethnicity and school processes

  Black students more likely to be disciplined and have low expectations from teachers
• Gender and school processes

  Boys negatively labeled as disruptive, leading to self-fulfilling prophecies
• Class and internal school factors

  Labeling, self-fulfilling prophecy, setting/streaming, pupil subcultures, class identity
• Cultural deprivation


  Working class parents' restricted language codes, lack of education, and present-oriented subculture disadvantage students
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Marginal utility


  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• Girls have outperformed boys in education although at certain points this gap has narrowed and bigger as well
• Policies introduced to help girls

  • Equal opportunities policies
  • Introduction of more women into science and engineering to motivate girls
  • Growing employment for women providing more female role models
• GCSE changes


  More coursework which suits girls who mature earlier and are more organised
• Teachers give more attention to boys as they are seen as disruptive, while girls are seen as cooperative
• Challenging stereotypes - books now portray women as strong characters
• Girls are more likely to get into better schools as schools focus on league table positions
• External factors affecting girls' achievement

  • Feminist campaigning
  • Changes in the family
  • Changes in women's employment
• Boys don't like reading as they see it as feminine
• Education is designed to be more girl-friendly, negatively impacting boys
• Lack of male primary teachers means boys lack male role models
• Boys form 'laddish subcultures' to increase their masculinity, reducing their achievement
• Boys may lack ambition if there are fewer jobs available due to more women entering the workforce
• Subject choices by gender

  • Girls choose languages and humanities
  • Boys choose science and technology
• Gender role socialisation


  Girls socialised to be gentle and protective, boys to be adventurous
• Teachers construct pupil identities based on ethnicity, with the 'ideal pupil' being white, middle-class and heterosexual
• 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, unintelligent, and culturally deprived