Education 1a

Question 1

According to Durkheim what is needed for society to survive and flourish

Answer 1

a strong degree of social solidarity

Question 2

According to Durkheim what part does education play within society

Answer 2

It helps establish the norms, values, and beliefs in the pupils. It also helps by uniting children with social solidarity that is needed in society.

Question 3

According to Durkheim how does the education system help create social solidarity

Answer 3

Through:

• having the same national curriculum
• having assemblies in which everyone must attend
• creating an atmosphere that creates the illusion that they are all apart of something greater than them

Question 4

According to Durkheim how does education regulate its members

Answer 4

• having general rules and standards

- getting them to respect school rules=respecting societies rules

Question 5

According to Durkheim how does education act as a vehicle in modern society

Answer 5

It acts as a vehicle by providing an adequate supply of trained workers to work within the complex divisions of modern society in specialist roles.

Question 6

According to Parsons what is school and how does it prepare children for their adult roles

Answer 6

School is the focal socializing agency after the family.
it prepares children for their adult roles by encouraging them to be a highly motivated and achievement driven workforce.

Question 7

According to Parsons each family judges their children differently, so when they get to school how does this differ and change to prepare them for adult life

Answer 7

At school children are judged by universal standards of achievement. This prepares them for adult life as when they work they will all be judged by the same standards.

Question 8

According to Parson how does school act as a bridge from family to society

Answer 8

School becomes an environment in which you are taught the ways in which society expects you to behave and what morals you should have to succeed within the society.

Question 9

What do both Durkheim and Parsons agree on

Answer 9

The school represents a miniature version of the society in which they live in

Question 10

What is the stratification system and how do David and Moore link the education system to it.

Answer 10

The Stratification system is the class system. 
The education system sorts its pupils in sets according to ability and educates them according to their ability

Question 11

how is education linked to social inequality according to David and Moore

Answer 11

Education helps keep inequality as inequalities in talents means that inly the best can hold the most important and highly paid jobs. This encourages competition between everyone to be the most talented to be more socially mobile

Question 12

What part does education play in filling societies positions with talented people according to David and Moore

Answer 12

• education sifts/sorts/grades individuals based on talents and abilities, placing them into sets and bands
• the sets and bands then teach them to fulfil their potential
• this banding then allows the most talented to gain the most qualifications and gain the better paid jobs

Question 13

According to Blau and Duncan what does a modern society depend on for prosperity?

Answer 13

Human capital or its workers skills.
Gained through a meritocratic education system
- each member is allocated a job best suited to their abilities to effectively use their talents and maximise productivity

Question 14

list criticisms of the functionalist perspective

Answer 14

• generalise the population, not everyone is good at tests some at better at coursework
• some schools don’t follow the same curriculum, not everyone is taught the same thing
• society is not consistently meritocratic, some statuses are ascribed
• the school passes on patriarchal values, girls and women are disadvantaged
• there is no value consensus, the norms and values passed on are from the RC and not society as a whole
• there is no equal opportunity within education SC ethnicity and gender all play an important part in the success and failure of a student
• Bowles and Gintis said that the education system only disguises the fact that there is no equality of opportunity within education
• Privately educated children will be more likely to go to Oxbridge. 7%of all students are privately educated and 65%

Question 15

List positives of the functionalist perspective on education

Answer 15

• passes on the society’s norms/values/beliefs bringing about a value consensus
• helps bring about social mobility through the meritocratic system that it is

Question 16

What is neoliberalism? And how has it influenced education policy

Answer 16

It is an economic philosophy which states that the state should not provide public services for its people.

it has influenced educational policies as it encourages competition and the privatisation of public services. for example, the privatisation policies of school such as less FSM recipients, less funding to government run schools more to those that become self-sufficient/academies that specialise in one subject

Question 17

What do Neoliberals believe that only be possible if all schools became businesses, driven by completion between schools

Answer 17

They have influenced all educational policies since 1979.
- the value of a country’s education lays in how they compete score wise on a global level. They believe success can only be achieved if schools become more business like in the way that they operate and compete against other schools.

Question 18

What is the New Rights perspective on how society should be run and how does this differ from how they believe the state should run schools

Answer 18

They believe that the state cannot provide for everyone’s needs so it is better for them to meets their own needs through the free market.

they also believe that the state plays an important role on the market forces of education. It does this through 2 important roles

Question 19

What are the 2 roles that the state plays on the education market

Answer 19

1. The state provides a framework for schools; competing for better OFSTED reports and higher league table placements
2. The state ensures that a shared culture is transmitted; by setting the standard National Curriculum (NC)

Question 20

Evaluate the New Right and Neoliberalist view on education

Answer 20

• Problems within education are not due to a state controlled education but due to a lack of state funding
• The NC is also said to be ethnocentric
• it doesn’t impose a shared culture but the culture of the RC
• School competition will benefit the MC more than the WC as the MC can get their children into the desirable schools while the WC may not have the means to be able to do so
• The 1988 Education Act made it that the most disadvantaged in society will most likely stay that way as they at nit receive appropriate funding due to low placement on league tables

Question 21

Similarities between the New Right and Neoliberalism

Answer 21

• Believe people are naturally more talented than others
• like education systems based on meritocratic principles of open completion
• education serves the economy prepping people for work
• education socialises people into shared values and instils a sense of national identity

Question 22

The key difference between the New Right and Functionalists

Answer 22

The reason for educational failure is that it is run by the state and it is not accountable for the type of education in which its students will receive. Therefore for education to be successful it must be market based so there is more competition and schools will be held responsible for the type of education their pupils receive and the scores in which they get will represent how well the school is doing