Education Flashcards
FUNCTIONALISM
What are the roles and functions of education?
Socialisation
Role allocation
Bridge effect
Developing human capital
FUNCTIONALISM
What is Durkheim’s view on education?
Education is a means of socialisation where the culture and values of society are shared through hidden curriculum or PSHE.
This builds social solidarity as it allows people to interact with other people in the workplace.
FUNCTIONALISM
What are the criticisms of Durkheim’s view of education?
Marxists argue that the education system serves the interests of the ruling class rather than society as a whole.
Feminists argue that socialisation through hidden curriculum reinforces and maintains patriarchy
Some researchers argue that schools emphasise individual competition through the exam system rather than encouraging cooperation and social solidarity.
FUNCTIONALISM
What are Davis and Moore’s view on education?
Education is a system of role allocation and a system of social stratification.
The education system sifts and sorts people into the social hierarchy where status and access to jobs are linked to educational achievement.
Social stratification ensures that the most talented and able members of society are allocated to those positions that are functionally more important for society.
FUNCTIONALISM
What are the criticisms of Davis and Moore’s view on education?
There is a weak link between educational achievement and income.
Marxists argue that meritocracy is a myth.
They blame marginalised groups of people for their own poverty.
FUNCTIONALISM
What is Parson’s view on education?
Parsons believes that school acts as a bridge between family and society as a whole.
It allows students to move from their ascribed status and particularistic values to the meritocratic and universalistic values of wider society.
FUNCTIONALISM
What are the criticisms of Parsons’ view of education?
He fails to give consideration to the possibility that the values transmitted by the education system may only benefit a ruling minority rather than society as a whole.
MARXISM
What is Althusser’s view on education?
Reproduces social inequality - State education deliberately engineers W/C failure to create an unqualified factory workforce whilst private education prepares children of the elite for positions of power.
Legitimises social inequality - Hidden Curriculum is shaped to assist M/C achievement and deter W/C achievement as students are taught to blindly accept capitalist values.
MARXISM
According to Althusser, what processes combine to reproduce technically efficient, submissive and obedient workers?
The reproduction of the skills necessary for an efficient labour force.
The reproduction of ruling class ideology and the socialisation of workers in terms of it.
These processes reproduce the workers that make the profits that capitalism depends on.
MARXISM
What are the criticisms of Althusser’s view on education?
Giroux - Existence of anti-school subcultures, truancy and exclusion suggest that the hidden curriculum that teaches students to blindly accept capitalist values has failed.
Social democrats - They point out that govt policies such as comprehensivisation have improved the chances of the working class.
MARXISM
What is Bowles and Gintis’ view on education?
Correspondence principle: School processes mirror the world of work in order to prepare students for manual labour required for capitalism.
Myth of meritocracy: Education is not meritocratic because schools discriminate in favour of the middle class, e.g. language.
MARXISM
According to Bowles and Gintis, how does the education system create a workforce required by capitalism through submission of authority?
Characteristic traits such as, resilience, consistency and punctuality are rewarded by the school.
Schools are organised on a hierarchical principle of authority, where students have little control
This prepares them for relationships within the workplace where they will be required to accept the authority of supervisors and managers.
MARXISM
According to Bowles and Gintis, how does the education system create a workforce required by capitalism through external rewards?
Because students have little control over their work, they get little direct satisfaction from it, so they are motivated by external rewards such as the possibility of examination success and the promise of employment.
This is mirrored in the world of work as workers are motivated by wages rather than work itself.
MARXISM
What are the criticisms of Bowles and Gintis’ view on education?
Postmodernists argue that Bowels and Gintis’ theory is outdated. Society is a lot more child-centred than it used to be.
Neo-Marxist Paul Willis argues that working-class pupils can resist indoctrination as he found in his study that by developing an anti-school subculture, a ‘lad culture’, working-class pupils rejected their subjugation by opposing schooling.
MARXISM
What are sites of ideological struggle?
Places where there are conflicts based on different beliefs and values.
MARXISM
What are ideological state apparatuses?
Institutions, including the education system, which transmit ruling class ideology and creates a false class consciousness.
MARXISM
What are repressive state apparatuses?
Institutions, such as the army and the police, which keep the subject class in its place.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
What is the new right view on education?
The New Right promotes the marketisation of education
an education system that runs on meritocratic principles better serves the needs of the economy as it produces skilled workers.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
According to neoliberalism, why is marketisation the key to raising standards in education?
It encourages educational institutions to raise standards in order to attract students.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
What are the criticisms of the new right view on education?
Although competition and choice do produce small improvements, they are unlikely to be spread evenly across the student population which will lead to greater social inequalities.
Marxists believe competition between schools only benefits the ruling classes who can use their capital to access the “best” schools.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
What is marketisation?
The process where organisations compete in the market.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
What is privatisation?
A process where services are subcontracted to private companies.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
What is cola-isation?
The entry of private companies promoting their goods into schools and colleges.
NEOLIBERALISM/NEW RIGHT
What is creaming?
Selecting students who appear most likely to succeed for entry to an educational institution.