Education - Role Flashcards
Role of Education - Functionalist
What two functions did Durkheim (1903) identify in education?
- Social solidarity
- Specialist skills
Role of Education - Functionalist
What does Durkheim say about social solidarity?
- Society needs to have a sense of solidarity
- Education helps to create solidarity through the hidden curriculum
Role of Education - Functionalist
What does Durkheim say about specialist skills?
- Modern industrial societies often require many people with specialist societies to make something
- Education teaches people these specialist skills
Role of Education - Functionalist
What does Durkheim say school is like?
‘Society in miniature’ that prepares us for wider society
Role of Education - Functionalist
What is the hidden curriculum?
The transmission of ideas values through education not in the national curriculum
Role of Education - Functionalist
What does Parsons (1961) argue that education is?
Meritocratic
Role of Education - Functionalist
What does Parsons see the school as?
The ‘focal socialising agency’ in modern society
Role of Education - Functionalist
What does Parsons say education is like?
A bridge between the particularistic values of home and the universalistic values of society
Role of Education - Functionalist
What are particularistic and universalistic values?
- Particularistic - treated as an individual in the family
- Universalistic - treated the same as everyone else in society
Role of Education - Functionalist
What function do Davis and Moore suggest education performs?
Role allocation
Role of Education - Functionalist
How did Davis and Moore describe the process of role allocation?
Education is a device that ‘sifts and sorts’ who would be best for what job
Role of Education - Functionalist
What do David and Moore argue is necessary and why?
Inequality
- to ensure that the most important roles are filled by the most skilled
Role of Education - Functionalist
What do Blau and Duncan (1978) say in support of David and Moore?
A modern economy depends on human capital
Role of Education - Functionalist
What is human capital?
Workers’ skills
Role of Education - Functionalist
State three evaluation points of the functionalist view.
- 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
Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right
What do the NR say about the education?
- 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
Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right
What do Chubb and Moe (1990) argue?
State-run education in the US has failed
Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right
What do Chubb and Moe base their argument on?
Their study:
- Comparison of 60,000 pupils from low-income families in 1,015 state/private schools and the findings of a parent survey
Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right
What do Chubb and Moe want?
The introduction of a market system
- They propose a voucher system to encourage schools to take parent’s wishes into account
Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right
What are the two roles for the state in education?
- Imposes a framework onto schools - Ofsted
- National curriculum imposes a shared set of values
Role of Education - Neoliberalism and the New Right
Give three evaluation points of this view?
- 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
Role of Education - Marxist
What does Marx say that education is and does?
- 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
Role of Education - Marxist
What does Althusser suggest education acts as?
An ideological state apparatus (ISA)
Role of Education - Marxist
What does an ISA do?
Maintains the rule of the bourgeoise through transmitting beliefs and values
Role of Education - Marxist
What are the two roles of education according to althusser?
- Reproduction of social inequality
- Legitimisation of social inequality
Role of Education - Marxist
What does Althusser say private education does?
Prepares children of the elite for positions of power.
Role of Education - Marxist
What are three evaluation points of this view?
- 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
Role of Education - Marxist
What do Bowles and Gintis suggest the role of education is?
To produce an obedient workforce
Role of Education - Marxist
Outline Bowles and Gintis’ study.
Studied 237 high school student and found that schools reward submissive and compliant workers
- used questionnaires and found correlation between obedience and rewards
Role of Education - Marxist
What is the correspondence principle (Bowles and Gintis)?
The school mirrors the workplace
