Education

• Parsons - functionalist 


  Says that:

  • education acts as a bridge between work and home.
  • schools are meritocratic

  he developed Durkheim‘s ideas that education is fundamental to society since it:

  • passes on societies culture (through hidden curriculum)
  • socialisation
  • allowing meritocracy
  • instilling values
• ball - interactionalist


  he did a study on beachside comprehensive school and found that teachers had higher expectations of top set students and pushed them to achieve more academically. therefore lower set students achieved less.

  he argues that sets create negative labels - lower set pupils accept that they are of low ability and so underachieve.
• Becker - interactionalist 


  believes in the labelling theory and that it leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  • the negative labelling of students leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.
• Willis - Marxist

  Came to the conclusion that there are 2 different types of students: the “lads” and “ear-oles”

  the “lads” rejected education: working class boys who saw through the system and realised that not everyone can be socially mobile. They had negative attitudes towards academic work and had strong sexist and racist attitudes.

  they believed that there was no such thing as equal opportunity - no matter how hard they tried they would always be less successful than middle class.
• Halsey, heath and ridge - Marxist


  They found evidence of class inequality in education. In the year 1980

  they looked at A sample of 8000 men, subdivided into 3 categories based on fathers occupation:

  • service class (proffessionals and managers)
  • intermediate class (sales workers and the self employed)
  • working class (manual workers)

  they discovered that the working class had a 4 times smaller chance of staying in school until 16 compared to the service class.
• Bowles and gintis - Marxist


  believes that school mirrors the workplace and produces a hardworking, disciplined workforce.

  due to the correspondence principle, it benefits the wealthy and reinforces inequality.

  ^ students produce work for external rewards (grades) whilst workers work for pay-cheques
• durkheim - functionalist 


  believes that education creates social solidarity.

  the main function of education is to bind members of society together - creates unity and solidarity.

  its seen as a functional prerequisite (needed for society to survive) - it passes on the culture of a society, particularly its core values.