Topic 4 - Role of Education

• Functionalism


  A consensus view that sees society as being essentially harmonious
• Functionalism


  • Society has basic needs, including the need for social order
  • To survive, society needs social solidarity through everyone sharing the same norms and values
• Social institutions


  Perform positive functions both for society as a whole and for individuals, by socialising new members of society and by helping to create and sustain social solidarity
• Durkheim


  • Education performs two basic functions:
  • 1. It promotes social solidarity by transmitting society's shared culture (its norms and values)
  • 2. It prepares young people for work by equipping them with the specialist skills needed to participate in work in a modern economy
• Parsons


  • The school is the 'focal socialising agency' of modern society
  • Education socialises individuals into the shared values of a meritocratic society
• Meritocracy


  • A society based upon two key values:
  • 1. Individual achievement - everyone achieves their status through their own efforts and abilities
  • 2. Equal opportunity for every individual to achieve their full potential
• Davis and Moore


  • The main function of education is role allocation - the selection and allocation of individuals to their future work roles
  • A meritocratic education system allows everyone to compete equally and 'sifts and sorts' individuals so that the most talented get the best qualifications and are allocated to the most important jobs
• Human capital theory


  A meritocratic education system is the best way to develop a sufficiently skilled workforce and thus create greater economic efficiency and higher living standards
• Criticisms of functionalism


  • Marxists argue that the values transmitted by education are not society's shared values, but rather those of the ruling class
  • Education is not meritocratic, because schools discriminate against some groups and don't give them an equal opportunity to achieve
  • Schools place more value on competition and developing individuals than on developing a sense of social solidarity
  • It is sometimes difficult to see a direct link between the subjects studied at school and what is required of workers in their jobs
  • Interactionists argue that the functionalist view of socialisation is too deterministic
• 'It is difficult to argue against the need for social solidarity to keep a society of tens of millions of people together'
• Neoliberalism


  • Believes the state should not provide education
  • A free-market economy encourages competition and drives up standards
  • Schools should be more like businesses and operate in an education market
• New Right


  • A more recent conservative view than functionalism
  • Has influenced educational policy in Britain and elsewhere
• Similarities between functionalism and the New Right


  • They believe that some people are naturally more talented than others
  • They agree that education should be run on meritocratic principles of open competition
  • They believe that education should socialise pupils into shared values and provide a sense of national identity
• New Right arguments


  • The state cannot meet people's needs
  • State-run education is inefficient and leads to lower standards
• Marketisation


  The introduction into areas run by the state (such as education) of market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers
• Chubb and Moe


  • State education has failed to create equal opportunity because it does not have to respond to pupils' needs
  • Private schools deliver higher quality education because they are answerable to paying consumers - the parents
  • The solution is to introduce a market system in state education via a voucher system
• Although the New Right want to reduce the state's role in education, they do still see a limited role for it
• Limited role for the state in education (according to the New Right)


  • Creating the framework for competition between schools
  • Ensuring that schools transmit society's shared culture through a curriculum that emphasises a shared national identity
• Criticisms of the New Right


  • School standards may have risen for reasons other than the introduction of a market
  • Low standards in some state schools are the result of inadequate funding rather than state control
  • Competition between schools benefits the middle class
  • Education imposes the culture of a ruling class, not a shared culture or 'national identity'
• New Right view rests on their claim that state control is the cause of education's problems. If other factors are the real cause, the New Right argument falls apart.
• Marxism


  A conflict view that sees society as being based on class divisions and exploitation
• Marxist view of society


  • In capitalist society there are two classes - the ruling class (capitalists, or bourgeoisie) and the subject class (working class, or proletariat)
  • The capitalist class own the means of production and make their profits by exploiting the labour of the working class
  • This creates class conflict that could threaten the stability of capitalism or even result in a revolution to overthrow it
• Althusser


  • The state consists of two elements which help to keep the capitalist class in power:
  • 1. The repressive state apparatus (RSA) - uses force to repress the working class
  • 2. The ideological state apparatus (ISA) - controls people's ideas, values and beliefs, including the education system
• Functions of the education system as an ISA


  • 1. Reproduction - education reproduces class inequality, by failing each generation of working-class pupils in turn
  • 2. Legitimation - education legitimates (justifies) class inequality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause
• Bowles and Gintis


  • The education system reproduces an obedient, exploitable workforce that will accept social inequality as inevitable and fair
  • There is a close correspondence (similarity or parallel) between relationships in school and those found in the workplace
• Hidden curriculum


  All the 'lessons' that are learnt in school without being directly taught, through which pupils accept hierarchy, competition, alienation etc.
• Myth of meritocracy


  The claim that education and the world of work are both meritocratic, when in reality success is based on class background, not ability or educational achievement
• Willis


  • Studied the counter-school culture of 'the lads' - a group of 12 working-class boys who resisted the school's authority and ideology
  • The lads' resistance to school ends up reproducing class inequality, as they end up in the manual work that capitalism needs
• Criticisms of the Marxist view of education


  • Postmodernists argue that Marxism is out of date and that class divisions are no longer important
  • Feminists argue that schools reproduce patriarchy as well as capitalism
  • Marxists disagree among themselves as to how reproduction and legitimation take place
  • Willis has been criticised for romanticising the 'lads'
• Although Marxists have been criticised, they do highlight how education maintains class inequality