Education theory

• Durkheim's 2 functions of education

  1. Cresting social solidarity - transmission of norms and values. School is essentially 'society in miniature' where we learn to interact and cooperate.
  2. Teaching specialist skills - skills needed so they can play their part in the social division of labour. Parents cannot teach these schools.
• Parsons 3 functions of education

  1. A bridge between family and society - The system acts as bridge to help children how to cope in the real world. It allows children to be judged equally on universalistic values ie. exams rather than ascribed status'.
  2. Selecting and allocating roles - education selects people for the future roles by assessing abilities in school to find the job they are most suited for.
  3. Promoting the idea of meritocracy - believes the system of equal opportunities rewards individuals on their achievements and how hard they have worked. Judges people on their achieved status.
• Davis and Moore

  • Saw the role of the education system was to sift and sort people into different jobs roles (role allocation).
  • They believe that inequality is necessary to ensure the most important job roles are given to the most talented people.
  • Sifting and sorting depends on the individuals ability, and they see the education system as meritocratic in that people are judged on their ability not who they are.
• David Hargreaves

  • Critical of the functionalist perspective.
  • Argues that education promotes competition and individualism through exams to achieve the best grades, not shared values.
  • Education in Britain fails to transmit shared values, promote self-discipline and cement solidarity.
• Alfred Shultz

  • Developed the theory of human capital, which suggests the education system is good for the economy as the success of modern economy is dependant on its ability to use human capital (worker skills) effectively.
  • Education makes sure workers are properly trained, qualified and flexible labour forces them to be able to undertake a wide range of jobs.
  • When skills are used effectively, productivity is maximised.
• Dennis Wrong

  • An interactionist who was critical of functionalism as it treats people as mere role players, like they are puppets.
  • Functionalism is too deterministic.
  • The concept of social solidarity implies that pupils passively accept all that they are taught and never reject schools values.
  • Not everyone has shared values and beliefs. School can try and teach this but inevitably some pupils will reject values and form pupil subcultures.
• Marxist critique of functionalism

  • Sees functionalisms 'sense of solidarity' as a false ideology.
  • The education system transmits a culture that benefits the ruling class.
  • It exists to provide a workforce to serve the capitalist economy.
• Louis Althusser - the education system performs 2 functions

  • Reproducing class inequality by failing each new generation of working class pupils. Also reproduces technical skills to form an efficient labour force. Trains pupils from working class backgrounds to do working class jobs and provides elite education for the wealthy.
  • Legitimises (justifies) class inequality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause. The ideology persuades worker to accept that inequality is inevitable and they deserve their subordinate position in society.
• Bowles and Gintis - correspondence principle

  • Believe that the education system produces an obedient work force through the correspondence principle which suggests there was a close relationship between the school and work in the long shadow of work.
  • Education mirrors structures in the work place which helps prepare students for future exploitation as education effectively correspondents with employment.
• The correspondence operated through the hidden curriculum, which prepares students for the long shadow of work - Bowles and Gintis

  •  Conformist pupils are awarded with higher grades, to mirror compliant workers.
  • School teaches that acceptance of the hierarchy.
  • Pupils are motivated by extrinsic rewards (end results), just as workers are motivated by wages.
  • Education is fragmented, like the roles in the workplace so that no one worker is given the ability to take over operations from those in power.

   
• Myth of meritocracy - Bowles and Gintis

  • It's not how hard you work, it is the social status you are born with that makes you who you are
  • Education system is not designed to enable everyone to succeed, and therefore justifies poverty and blames it on the individual
  • Poor and dumb theory - 'I am poor because I am not clever'
  • This justifies and legitimises your place in society, reproducing generations of compliant workers
  • Proletariants will never achieve the same status as the bourgeoisie. High income and success is not based entirely on academic achievement but on social class background
• Bowles and Gintis study

  • Studied 237 New York high school students and compared their personality traits with their exam results.
  • They found a correlation between personality trained valued by employers ie. obedience and discipline. And high exam results.
  • Whereas students too showed creativity and independence tended to get lower grades.
• Phil Cohen

  • Believed the real purpose of youth training schemes was to teach social control.
  • They were to create good behaviour and disciplined rather than training for work. 
  • Young people who refused to take part are punished by having benefits withdrawn. 
  • The sorts of skills taught are only useful for low paid insecure jobs.
  • It works to lower aspirations, so that they will accept low paid work.

   
• Pierre Bourdieu

  • Primarily concerned with the way power is transferred.
  • Believes the education system is biased in favour of the middle class so therefore the middle class will succeed by default rather than through meritocracy.
  • The education system in capitalist societies legitimises class inequality and reproduces class structure. 
  • Uses the phrase cultural capital. This refers to the knowledge, attitudes, values and abilities that middle class parents pass onto their children.
  • Working class children will simply fail because they don’t possess cultural capital. 
• Henry Giroux

  • Working class pupils don’t passively accept their role.
  • They can shape their own education and are capable of resisting discipline imposed on them by the school.
  • Also, schools are sites of ideological struggle, but this goes further than class, there are also religious, ethnic and cultural groups that don’t ‘fit in.
  • Although capitalists have more power than any single group, they don’t have all the power.
• Paul Willis

  • Criticised Marxism for being too deterministic.
  • Carried out a study of 12 working class lads over their last 18 months of school and their first few months into work.
  • The lads had a negative attitude to school, they did as little work as possible and saw themselves as ‘superior’.
  • The boys gave higher status to manual labour than academic achievement, which defeats the false class consciousness.
  • Willis believed the lads had been through capitalist ideology, however he noted that their actions had led them into jobs where they were being exploited by the ruling class.
• Postmodern critic of the correspondence principle

  • Postmodernists think that today’s economy requires schools to produce a very different labour force from the one described by Marxists
  • They believe that modern education produces students with diverse skills.
  • This view is sometimes called post Fordism. It presents the idea that Marxists have exaggerated the extent to which schools provided a ready, willing and qualified labour force
  • They would say the correspondence principle is now obsolete and the education system produces diversity not inequality
• Postmodern critic of education creating obedient and uncritical thinkers

  • Philip Brown would say that this is no longer valid.
  • Nowadays capitalist employers value team working skills, the education system fails because the exam system insists that people compete as individuals. 
  • It presents the idea that Marxists have exaggerated the extended to which schools provided a ready, willing and qualified labour force. 
• Interactionist critic of education creating obedient and uncritical thinkers

  • Much of formal education no longer perpetuates the manufacturing of the ideal employee and that any subjects which develop critical awareness would undermine the studies of Bowles and Gintis
  • Students who study subjects like sociology, religious studies, politics and history produce critical thinkers. They would challenge the conformist behaviour
  • Marxists exaggerate the link between education and economic position. Local authorities still have a considerable amount of freedom in how they organise schools
• Neoliberalism

  • Is the economic doctrine behind the new right that believes:
  • Competition between businesses should be the basis behind any system.
  • Services provided by the state are inefficient because they lack competition.
  • Believe the state shouldn't provide series such as education, health and welfare.
  • Instead encourages competition and privatisation of markets.
• Neoliberals and education

  • The overall value of education lies in how well it allows the country to compete in the global market.
  • Believe that schools can only do this is they become like businesses, empowering parents and pupils as consuming and using competition between schools to drive up standards.
  • The state shouldn't provide education.
  • Raising standards is not to promote greater educational equality, but to create economic efficiency.
• Main roles of the education system according to the new right

  1. To raise standards of education.
  2. To promote economic growth
  3. To train the workforce needed to produce this economic growth.
• The new right perspective

  • Concerned with the breakdown of society and wish to return to traditional family values.
  • Blame lone parents as the cause of social problems like poor discipline and underachievement in school.
  • Having an overgenerous welfare state has led to a underclass, we should reduce spending of the state.
  • Believe all institutions should be independent.
  • State education wastes money by enforcing a 'one size fits all' approach.
  • Schools should be run like businesses
• Similarities between functionalism and the new right

  • Education systems needs to respond to globalisation.
  • Education should promote social integration and community.
  • The most talented and skilful members of society deserve higher rewards than the less skilled.
• The new right believe education fails to achieve 3 main roles

  1. To raise standards
  2. To promote economic growth
  3. To train the workforce needed to produce the economic growth.
• The new rights solution to the failure of state education

  • Schools should be separate from the state through privatisation.
  • Schools should introduce free market forces. This means schools will only be in demand if they provide what is desired by the consumers.
  • Policy should focus on introducing vocational education and training a suitable workforce.
• Chubb and Moe - failure of state education

  • Believe that state education is ineffective in producing a highly skilled work force.
  • State education has not opened up equal opportunities for disadvantaged groups.
  • State education is inefficient as it ails to produce pupils with the skills needed by the economy.
• Chubb and Moe's study

  • They compared the achievement of 60,000 pupils from low-income families in 10,05 state and independent high schools.
  • They also carried out a survey of parental attitudes to schooling and case studies of ‘failing’ schools apparently being ‘turned around’. 
  • Found that pupils from low-income families do consistently better (about 5 %) in independent schools than they do in the state schools.
• Chubb and Moe's solution

  • Introduce a free market system to put the control in the hands of the consumers.
  • Encourage a range of different types of schools, tailored to the consumers.
  • Introduce an element of competition for students and funding.
• The result of Chubb and Moe's solution

  • A more efficient education system.
  • Better value system for the tax payer.
  • A more skilled and qualified workforce.
• How would Chubb and Moe's solution be done

  • Chubb and Moe proposed a system in which each family would be given a voucher to spend on buying education of their choice.
  • This would force schools to become more responsive to their parents’ wishes as the vouchers would be the main source of income. 
• Social democratic criticism of the new right

  • Social democrats say that new rights proposal is contradictory.
  • On the one hand they call for parental choice to shape the schools to meet local needs and increase diversity.
  • Yet on the other hand they argue for state to impose national curriculum for all schools to follow. 
• Marxist critic of the new right

  • Marxists would argue that education doesn’t reinforce a share national culture but rather imposes and justifies the culture of a dominant minority ruling class and devalues the culture of the working class and ethnic minorities.
  • This means that the education system is not designed for everyone to succeed, and Marxists say this is to make sure only the rich and powerful succeed and gain qualifications.

   
• Gerwitz and Ball

  • Argue that competition between schools benefits only the middle class, who can use their cultural and economic capital and more developed choice making stills to gain more access into schools. 
  • They point out that the understanding of choice and choice making is underdeveloped within the lower classes of society.