Theories of education

• Functionalism


  Education performs positive functions both for society and for individuals. For example, education helps create and sustain social solidarity and prepares children for their role in the economy.
• Key concepts of Functionalism

  • Particularistic values: specific values for one person
  • Universalistic values: standards used to judge everyone as a whole
  • Meritocracy: everyone has an equal chance to succeed and achieve based on effort
  • Specialist skills: people need to be trained to take on specific roles in society
  • Society in miniature: education acts like a bridge between home and society
  • Role allocation: most talented people given the correct occupation
  • Sift and sort: students sorted in terms of ability
• Wolf Report- education doesn't teach specialist skills adequately
• Marxists- 'Myth of Meritocracy'
• Sifting and sorting pupils through streaming can be negative
• New Right


  Education should be run on meritocratic principles and should teach shared values. Believe in marketisation and parentocracy. They also believe education should affirm national identity
• Key concepts of New Right

  • Marketisation: The idea that school should be run like a business
  • Parentocracy: A system rules by parents where choice is key
  • British values: defined by OFSTED as democracy
  • National curriculum: all content that should be taught at schools
  • Privatisation: transfer of services previously owned by the state which is now privately owned
  • Neo liberal views: ideas which see a reduced role of the state and greater individualism
  • Prevent: policy that stops students having radicalised views
  • Education reform act 1988: legislation which introduced the national curriculum and GCSEs, league tables and marketisation
• Gewirtz: parentocracy is a myth because not all parents can exercise choice
• Bartlett: marketisation disadvantages the working-class students as they're not selected by better schools
• Free schools can be very selective, and they take fewer disadvantaged students
• Tuition fees may prevent working class students to attend university
• Contradiction between parental choice and national curriculum
• Marxists: education doesn't impose a shared national culture but imposes the culture of the dominant ruling class
• Marxism


  Education transmits messages to pupils which justify and legitimise capitalist ideology. For example, meritocracy and education promotes false class consciousness
• Key concepts of Marxism

  • Economic determinism: the belief that society is shapes by the economic system
  • Correspondence principle: school mimics work and prepares students to be workers
  • Symbolic violence: working class students experience violence in school so feel less valued
  • False consciousness: the idea that were not aware of the true extent to which we're exploited by capitalism
  • Cultural capital: the appropriate norms and values which leads to material rewards
  • Habitus: a cultural framework which infers good is middle class and poor is working class
  • Ideological state apparatus: government uses to control ideas
  • Myth of meritocracy: making individuals blame themselves instead of the system for failing
  • Hidden curriculum: things we learn at school not taught explicitly
  • Repressive state apparatus: government uses when people go against their ideas
• They ignore that some working-class students do well by working well
• Rutter: the school must be well organised
• B+G assume pupils have no free will
• Postmodernists: economy requires schools to produce a different kind of labour force
• Willis romanticises the lads
• Working class can increase their cultural capital by learning the dominant culture from friends
• Marxists ignore non-class inequalities such as ethnicity and gender which are as equally important
• Feminism


  Education is an instrument of exclusion and limitation because it reinforces gender identities and stereotypes as well as patriarchal ideology
• Key concepts of Feminism

  • Gendered subject choices: students choose courses and subjects which they label as feminine and masculine
  • Equal pay act 1970: legislation which made it the law for women to be given the same salary as men for the same work
  • Glass ceiling: women reach a point where they cannot progress in their career any further
  • Sex discrimination act 1975: discourages discrimination in the workplace
  • Radical: feminist view that thinks the only way to get equality is to overthrow patriarchy
  • Liberal: education is becoming more equal in terms of gender, but more legislation is needed
• Each type of feminism can be used to evaluate the other
• Social Action


  Focus on inside the classroom and they're interested in understanding the meanings and motives that individuals give to their experiences of education
• Key concepts of Social Action

  • Labelling: the process of attaching a definition or meaning to an individual or group
  • Self-fulfilling prophecy: when a person internalises a label they have been given and it becomes part of their identity
  • Streaming: process of categorising into groups based on ability
  • Pupil subculture: a group who have similar norms and values based on the way they were labelled
• Labelling theorists only focus on inside schools and ignore other wider factors
• Labelling theorists are too deterministic, and the self-negating prophecy may occur
• There are benefits of streaming
• Postmodernism


  A one size fits all approach to education is outdated and no type of school can meet all the needs of individuals. Education should be tailored to individuals
• Key concepts of Postmodernism

  • Faith schools: a type of school which caters to religious beliefs
  • Globalisation: the process where the world is becoming more interconnected
• Some argue it's not possible to have an individualised education system because of financial costs
• Functionalists: worry that the education system may struggle to pass on society's shared values without a universalistic education system
• Postmodernists are criticised for failing to account class, ethnic and gender differences in educational achievement