education sociology

• Role allocation


  One of the two functions of education according to Parsons
• Secondary socialisation


  One of the two functions of education according to Parsons
• Education acts as a bridge between families and the wider society

  Parsons' belief
• Meritocracy


  Schools reward students for their hard work through things like certificates, according to Parsons
• Feminists


  Disagree with Parsons, saying education helps fund the patriarchy where men have control over women
• Haseley,Health and Ridge are education keywriters who gathered evidence saying that middle classboys are 10 times more likely to end up continuing school after the age of 18.Haseley,Health and Ridge also said that middle class students are 11 times more likely to go school then working class children.This research was carried out by studying data, this being a secondary source of data.Some may criticse this study saying it is outdated.
• Paul Willis


  Another education keywriter who is a marxist
• Subcultures formed by students within comprehensive schools


  • Skipping school
  • Being disrespectful towards teachers
• 'Lads'


  Students who have formed an anti-school subculture
• The 'lads' have formed an anti-school subculture


  They have done this themselves, setting themselves up for failure
• The 'lads' behaviours


  They have picked up from their fathers, as their fathers also showed no respect for authority and would participate in activities such as urinating in their bosses cups of tea
• "Ear roles"


  Students who were apart of the pro-school subculture, referred to by the 'lads'
• This research was carried out by 12 unstructured interviews and overt observations
• bowels and Gintus are Marxist who say schools reproduce class inequality and the next generation of workers.This is done by rewarding students for their hard-work, the correspondence principle which is the idea that schools mirror the work place it is also done by the hidden circiculem which enforces values of wider society, also myth meritocracy where it is believed that people do better because of their social class rather then their intelligence.However functionalists would disagree and say the school provides values of society.
• Durkheim says school has two key functions within society it provides students with social solidarity through subjects like history and it also provodes specialised skills to help students when it comes to socialising within wider society.Durkheim also says that schools are like society in a miniature.Marxits would disgaree with this and say schools help serve the needs of the ruling class.
• parsons says education serves secondary socialisation and role allocation, education is seen as a bridge between the family and workplace.School is seen as a meritocracy rewarding hard work. Feminists would disagree and say schools are patriarchal.Marxists would also say that schools serve the needs of capitalism.
• Ball says that the streams are dependent on classes the higher streams are filled with middle class students and the lower class streams are filled with working class people.The higher streams have higher expectations from teachers thus leading to the self-fulfilling prophecy forming pro-school subcultures meaning they attain better grades in school.A criticism is some students reject the labels given by schools. The method of research used by ball was 3 yaers of participation observation in a school.
• Ball,Bowe and Gewtiz are sociologists who write from the marxist perspective.They say the education reform act in 1988 meant that parents could choose what secondary school their children go to as they dont have to take a 11 plus exam. They say that middle class parents use their cultural capital to manipulate there way into having their children get into the best schools that are ranked the highest on the league table.Middle class parents have the recorces like cars to drive their children to further away schools that normally have a better standard of education.
• Durkheim says the education system has two functions one being social solidarity and specialised skills schools are seen as society in a miniature.