Education: Functionalist Flashcards
What is education for functionalist?
Providing young people with useful skills to enable them to perform a useful job in society.
What are the 4 main functions of education for functionalists?
- Transmission of cultural values
- Social control
- Economic training
- Social selection
Who emphasis the role of transmission of cultural values?
Durkheim and Parons
What does Parsons suggest about cultural values?
That school provides a bridge between family and society at which universal values e.g competition, individualism and equality of opportunity.
What does Durkheim believe?
He identifies particular subjects as important to enable children to feel a sense of belonging to society. e.g History. English, RE etc.
What is meant by Social Control?
Functionalists argue that every society need to regulate activities of citizens to an extant.
School reinforces this by teaching about acceptable and unacceptable behavior,
As well as knowledge of the political and economic system we live in.
What is meant by Economic Training?
Functionalist argue that schools produce an adequate supply of sufficiently trained labour for the modern economy.
As the economy becomes more complex education must provide a labour force to meet those needs
What is meant by Social Selection?
Functionalists such as Davis and Moore suggest that an important function of education is to allocate people to occupations which best suit their abilities.
The exam system helps sort citizens into jobs (with higher or lesser talent) that contributes to the smooth running of society.
Who’s views would conflict with Functionalists?
Marxist approach argue that this is not the case. and that education is seen as part of the apparatus that legitimizes and reproduces societies inequalities and divisions
