Theories of education

• Functionalism


  A sociological theory that views education as serving important functions for society
• Emile Durkheim


  • Identified two main functions of education:
  • Creates social solidarity by transmitting culture and norms from one generation to the next
  • Provides specialist skills and promotes social integration through division of labor
• Socialization


  The process by which children learn how to behave and what is expected of them in society
• School as a society in miniature


  School has its own rules, order, and hierarchy, which serves as practice for later life
• Talcott Parsons


  • Education is a focal socializing agent that bridges the family and wider society
  • Education has universal, impersonal rules that prepare students for the equal application of laws in society
  • Education is a meritocracy where status is gained through achievement
• Meritocracy requires equal opportunities for all to demonstrate their capabilities
• Davis and Moore


  • Education is a device for selection and role allocation, ensuring the most talented undertake important roles
  • Education is a proving ground to show ability and talent, preparing people for challenging jobs
• Criticisms of functionalism include: equal opportunities may not exist, achievement is influenced by class, and education may only instill the values of the ruling class
• Neoliberalism and New Right


  Similar to functionalism but argue education is underperforming and needs to be marketized to increase efficiency and consumer choice
• Chubb and Moe


  • Claimed state education system has failed, private schools are better at training students for work due to accountability to consumers
• Chubb and Moe found private schools outperformed state schools for low-income students
• Disadvantaged groups had been badly treated by state education and it failed to create equal opportunities, therefore no meritocracy
• The claim that state education is inefficient and does not train pupils or students for later life and for work
• The claim that private schools are better at training pupils/students for later life and work because they are answerable to consumers
• If parents are unhappy with the quality of education at a private school, they can stop sending their child there and stop paying
• Private schools have to keep providing the best service possible to continue receiving money and stay in business
• A study found pupils in private schools did 5% better than those from low-income backgrounds in state schools
• The state should continue to publish a framework for schools to operate within, e.g. Ofsted inspections and league tables
• The state should continue to impose a national curriculum to ensure students share in the same culture and heritage and create social solidarities
• The new right opposes multicultural education, seeing it as problematic and divisive, and wants to promote cohesion and unity
• Competition between schools only benefits the middle classes who have the knowledge to access the best schools
• Social inequality and poor school funding could be to blame for low achievement rates, not just a lack of competition
• There is a contradiction between the new right's desire for parental choice and their imposition of a national curriculum
• Marxists argue education imposes the cultural identity of the ruling classes, ignoring the working classes
• Education is a tool by which the bourgeoisie maintain their position of power over the proletariat
• The ideological state apparatus, including education, controls people's ideas, values and beliefs to maintain bourgeois rule
• Schooling creates obedient workers for capitalism, not fostering personal development
• Schooling prepares working-class pupils for working-class lives and upholds bourgeois rule
• Working-class boys (the 'lads') formed a subculture against the school, rejecting academic success as the domain of middle-class students or girls
• The 'lads' were destined for low-paid, unskilled jobs due to their resistance to the school's values
• In a post-Fordist economy, a different kind of labour force is required than the one described by Bowles and Gintis
• Marxist critiques of education fail to provide an alternative, and education systems in communist/socialist countries have often performed similar functions