Education - Role

Question 1

Role of Education - Functionalist

What two functions did Durkheim (1903) identify in education?

Answer 1

• Social solidarity
• Specialist skills

Question 2

Role of Education - Functionalist

What does Durkheim say about social solidarity?

Answer 2

• Society needs to have a sense of solidarity
• Education helps to create solidarity through the hidden curriculum

Question 3

Role of Education - Functionalist

What does Durkheim say about specialist skills?

Answer 3

• Modern industrial societies often require many people with specialist societies to make something
• Education teaches people these specialist skills

Question 4

Role of Education - Functionalist

What does Durkheim say school is like?

Answer 4

‘Society in miniature’ that prepares us for wider society

Question 5

Role of Education - Functionalist

What is the hidden curriculum?

Answer 5

The transmission of ideas values through education not in the national curriculum

Question 6

Role of Education - Functionalist

What does Parsons (1961) argue that education is?

Answer 6

Meritocratic

Question 7

Role of Education - Functionalist

What does Parsons see the school as?

Answer 7

The ‘focal socialising agency’ in modern society

Question 8

Role of Education - Functionalist

What does Parsons say education is like?

Answer 8

A bridge between the particularistic values of home and the universalistic values of society

Question 9

Role of Education - Functionalist

What are particularistic and universalistic values?

Answer 9

• Particularistic - treated as an individual in the family
• Universalistic - treated the same as everyone else in society

Question 10

Role of Education - Functionalist

What function do Davis and Moore suggest education performs?

Answer 10

Role allocation

Question 11

Role of Education - Functionalist

How did Davis and Moore describe the process of role allocation?

Answer 11

Education is a device that ‘sifts and sorts’ who would be best for what job

Question 12

Role of Education - Functionalist

What do David and Moore argue is necessary and why?

Answer 12

Inequality
- to ensure that the most important roles are filled by the most skilled

Question 13

Role of Education - Functionalist

What do Blau and Duncan (1978) say in support of David and Moore?

Answer 13

A modern economy depends on human capital

Question 14

Role of Education - Functionalist

What is human capital?

Answer 14

Workers’ skills

Question 15

Role of Education - Functionalist

State three evaluation points of the functionalist view.

Answer 15

• Wong (1961) - functionalists have an ‘over-socialised’ view of people as puppets of society
• Marxists argue that education only transmits the values of the ruling class
• Neoliberals and the NR argue that state education fails to prepare young people for work

Question 16

Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right

What do the NR say about the education?

Answer 16

• The state education does not work and takes a ‘one size fits all’ approach
• Creating an education market will solve the problems caused by state education

Question 17

Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right

What do Chubb and Moe (1990) argue?

Answer 17

State-run education in the US has failed

Question 18

Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right

What do Chubb and Moe base their argument on?

Answer 18

Their study:
- Comparison of 60,000 pupils from low-income families in 1,015 state/private schools and the findings of a parent survey

Question 19

Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right

What do Chubb and Moe want?

Answer 19

The introduction of a market system
- They propose a voucher system to encourage schools to take parent’s wishes into account

Question 20

Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right

What are the two roles for the state in education?

Answer 20

• Imposes a framework onto schools - Ofsted
• National curriculum imposes a shared set of values

Question 21

Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right

Give three evaluation points of this view?

Answer 21

• Gewirtz (1995) - competition between schools only benefits the middle class
• Critics argue the real cause of low achievement is social inequality
• There is a contradiction in the NR support of parental choice and support of the National Curriculum

Question 22

Role of Education - Marxist

What does Marx say that education is and does?

Answer 22

• Part of the superstructure
• Provides a good workforce for the future
• Encourages young people to accept their position in society
• Reduces social mobility and increases class one

Question 23

Role of Education - Marxist

What does Althusser suggest education acts as?

Answer 23

An ideological state apparatus (ISA)

Question 24

Role of Education - Marxist

What does an ISA do?

Answer 24

Maintains the rule of the bourgeoise through transmitting beliefs and values

Question 25

Role of Education - Marxist

What are the two roles of education according to althusser?

Answer 25

• Reproduction of social inequality
• Legitimisation of social inequality

Question 26

Role of Education - Marxist

What does Althusser say private education does?

Answer 26

Prepares children of the elite for positions of power.

Question 27

Role of Education - Marxist

What are three evaluation points of this view?

Answer 27

• Willis (1977) - studied 12 wc boys, they formed an anti-school subculture and took on manual jobs, they rejected the hc and so the school failed to produce them as obedient workers
• Feminists say that marxists overemphasise the impact of class inequality
• Postmodernists - marxism is out of date, the correspondence principle doesn’t exist

Question 28

Role of Education - Marxist

What do Bowles and Gintis suggest the role of education is?

Answer 28

To produce an obedient workforce

Question 29

Role of Education - Marxist

Outline Bowles and Gintis’ study.

Answer 29

Studied 237 high school student and found that schools reward submissive and compliant workers
- used questionnaires and found correlation between obedience and rewards

Question 30

Role of Education - Marxist

What is the correspondence principle (Bowles and Gintis)?

Answer 30

The school mirrors the workplace