role of education

• Functionalist view of education 


  They focus on how education system if beneficial for the whole of society.
• Parsons argued that education was necessary as it taught young people about the norms and values of society so that they could become good citizens who would contribute positively to society
• Durkheim believed that schools were important because they helped to create social solidarity, which is the sense of unity between people.
• Durkheim believed that schools were important because they helped students develop self-discipline, which is essential for them to be able to work effectively within society.
• New right neoliberal 


  take a broadly functionalist view of what the education system looks like. They are crytical of the idea that the education system is unfair and of the role of the state in the education system.
• Chubb and Moe:


  Marketisation and the creation of free market in education will produce a better education system.Parents should choose how children are educated not the state.
• Durkheim 


  Argues that school helps create social solidarity and value consensus by socialising us into shared norms and values. He argues that school is society in a miniture where we learn to interact with eachother, education teaches us special skills.
• parsons:


  Argues that education is a bridge between the family and others parts of society such as work, education takes us from particularistic to universalistic norms and values. school provides universalistic norms: there is one set of norms for everyone; everyone is judged by the same standard.
• Davis and Moore


  Argues that education helps in the process of role allocation. Education sifts and sorts the pupils looking for their abilities, based up metriocracy.
• parsons


  work and school status is achieved by passing exams - metriocracy
• Saunders


  Middle class do better in education because they work harder and are more intelligent
• globalisation


  As a result of globalisation, workers need high levels of skills in order to compete, education should meet the needs of the economy.
• Marketisation views on the role of education

  argues that the main role of the education system is to reproduce the inequalities of the capitalist economic system and impose the ideas of the ruiling class on everyone else.
• Bowles and gintis - Marxists


  there is a similarity between social relationship in the workplace and education. This correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriclum and it shapes the workforce in the following ways:

  • helps produce a subserivent workforce
  • hidden curriculm encourages acceptance of the heirachy
  • pupils learn to motivated by external rewards rather than the love of education itself
• Bourdieu - cultural capital


  Education is dominated by middle class culture which rewards those pupils who appear with a similar culture. Working class pupils have knowledge of things not seen as important by school
• Althusser - ideological state apparatus 


  education, along with family and mass media, reproduce class based inequalities by creating the belief that capitalism is somehow normal, natural and just
• Althusser


  the effect of all this is that is the reproduction of the class system in that the sons and daughters of working class tend to remain working class.
• willis


  working class lads see through the metriocracy of school and create a counter school culture that challenges the schools dominant values. However, Willis accepts that the outcome is similar to that suggested by Bowles and Gintis, as their anti school behaviour guarentees that they end up in dead end jobs
• Feminists views on the role of education

  Argues that education is Patriarchal; dominated by male ideas and reflecting what males think is important.
• Lobban


  school reinfornces gender stereotypes found in wider society
• Grafton


  Stereotypical views within schools direct girls into steryotyped subject choices, the curriculm reflects white middle class knowledge. subjects are gendered
• stanworth


  boys get more attention that girls and boys dominate the physical space and culture of schools, sexual harrasment of girls is tolerated in schools as part of everyday life.
• Interactionist views on the role of education


  look at the way in which educational sucess or failure is a consequence of the small scale interactions between all the people inside schools. Pupils are not passive recipients of teachers knowledge, but activley participate in learning. Teachers play a crucial role in the sucess of their students, because they can affect on self concepts and self esteem.
• Becker: 


  the labelling and typing of students by teachers can lead to the creation of self fulfilling phrophecy
• ball


  streaming and setting can have significant effects on pupil effects