Education - Role and Function of the Education System - 3.1 Flashcards
General Functionalist View on Education
> Positive promotes value consensus, social solidarity, teaches key norms & values and focuses on positive functions of education
3 key Functionalist theorists
> Durkheim (Socialisation and Social Solidarity)
Parsons (Universal values & Particularistic Values & Meritocracy)
Davis & Moore (Role Allocation)
Durkheim (Socialisation & Social Solidarity)
> Education is society in miniature, teaches specialist skills for workplace preparation
> Creates social solidarity e.g. teaching nations shared history instills shared heritage & commitment to wider social group
Parsons (Universalistic Values & Particularistic Values & Meritocracy)
> Schools is bridge between family & wider society, e.g. move from PV to universalistic values of wider society.
> Meritocratic allows for social mobility, anything possible with hard wrk, all have an equal chance
- ignores inequality & racism?
Davis & Moore (Role Allocation)
> Education is sieve allowing meritocratic selection for job roles
> Identifies more capable students, & allocates them to jobs based on skills and qualifications
> Inequality necessary to motivate hard work HOWEVER ignores power of social contacts
A03 Functionalism (Key Studies)
> Wong (Interactionist)
Hargreaves
Interactionists
Wolf report- A03 Functionalism
Wolf Report, 2011 found high quality apprenticeships are rare and up to a third of 16-19 year olds are on courses that do not lead to higher education or good jobs
Marxists - A03 Functionalism
Marxists would argue they are not shared values but ideology imposed by the minority dominant class.
What is the General Outlook of the Marxist Approach on Education?
- Reproduces class inequality.
- Legitimates class inequality.
- Works in the interests of capitalist employers
Outline 4 Key Marxist Thinkers/Views and what they advocate?
> Althusser: (Ideological State Apparatus, Reproduction and Legitimation of Inequality)
Bowles and Ginits (Correspondence Principle)
Hidden Curriculum
Willis (Anti-School Subcultures)
Define the Marxist idea of the Hidden Curriculum
Things pupils learn informally from going school to instil correct attitudes needed for work in capitalist system
What are examples of things learn’t through the Hidden Curriculum at school?
- Respecting Authority
- Punctuality
- Competition
- Having a ‘work ethic’
Explain Althusser’s Ideas of Impact of Ideological State Apparatus through Education?
- Schools part of Ideological State Apparatus, brainwash working class into accepting exploitation
- Spreading dominant ideology of capitalism.
- Thus instilling belief it’s normal to prevent revolution.
Explain Althusser’s Ideas of the Legitimation of Social Inequality through Education?
- Money decides how good an education you get, but people don’t realize as schools spread the ‘myth of meritocracy.’
- If we fail, we believe it is our own fault, as we feel system is fair when in reality it’s not
- Thus have effect of controlling working class, as kids grow up believing they had fair chance they’re less likely to rebel and create a revolution.
How does Education reproduce inequality?
Fails each generation of working class pupils, ensuring they end up in same position as parents.
Explain Bowles and Ginits ideas on the Correspondence Principle
- Belief education mirrors workplace in a capitalist society, to prepare working class for manual jobs.
Briefly outline four Examples of how School corresponds to exploitative nature of the workplace
- Passive subservience of pupils to teachers is the same as Passive subservience of workers to managers.
- Alienation: Pupils lack control over education in the same way that workers lack control over production.
- Motivation by external rewards (grades not learning) is the same as being motivated by wages not joy of the job
- Fragmentation
Explain the idea of Fragmentation in relation to the Correspondence Principle
> Only teach you a little bit of everything at school - same as the workplace
> Where employees only taught a little bit about company as employers fearful if they tell them too much, they’ll take advantage and set up competition against them.
Explain Paul Willis’s Study of the Lads Anti-School Subcultures
> Consist of students who rebel against school.
> Develop delinquent attitudes against academic aims, of a school.
> Desired manual work, believed it was proper work.
> Jobs earholes would get were all same and pointless.
What values did the Lads in Willis Study have?
- Lads felt superior to teachers and other pupils
- Didn’t care about work, more to ‘having a laff’
- Tried to bunk as many lessons as possible to get status in the group
How is Willis Study of the Lads’ attitudes Ironic?
Irony is by resisting school’s ideology, being part of an anti-school subculture guarantees they’ll fail, ending up in manual work, working in favour of capitalism.
How does the Postmodernist undermine Marxist Theories of Education (AO3)
Marxism is outdated, correspondence principles no longer operates, where Marxist see inequality, there’s really diversity and choice.
How does the Post-Fordism undermine Marxist Theories of Education (AO3)
- Believes correspondence principle no longer operates.
- Education’s responsive to the needs of individuals, workplace no longer needs passive workers.
- It needs creative workforce able to use technology.
How does Radical Feminism undermine Marxist Theories of Education (AO3)
Reproduces patriarchy.
How does Interactionist undermine Marxist Theories of Education (AO3)
Say they’re too deterministic, pupils don’t passively accept values, some reject and rebel against them
Outline a Key New Right Thinker and what they advocate?
> Chubb and Moe (Voucher System)
What is the problem with the state running of Education according to the New Right?
> State can’t meet people’s needs.
> Education inevitably ends up as ‘1 size fits all’ not meeting individual and community needs, or need for employers to have skilled workers.
> State Run - Schools with bad results aren’t answerable to consumers, result is lower standards and unqualified workforce.
Define Marketisation of Education
Process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition into education system.
What happens in Marketisation of Education?
> Schools run like business, competing for pupils.
> Rather than pupils going school in local catchment area.
> Schools that get most pupils will get extra funding.
What are the Benefits of Marketisation of Education?
> Schools are answerable to parents, as they have to be more efficient as they’re competing with other schools.
> Introduction of League Table and Ofsted Report give parents more info to choose right school and provides incentive, for schools to work harder.
What were Chubb and Moe’s findings in relation to Education?
> Stats show children from working class families do better in private schools, so state education, not meritocratic.
> Parents can’t do anything about failing schools, controlled by state.
> Private Schools have better quality education as they’re answerable to paying customers.
What did Chubb and Moe propose the intro of?
> So they proposed intro of a voucher system, giving control to parents, where each family will be given voucher to buy education from school of their choice.
What is the benefits of the Voucher System?
Vouchers are the school’s only source of income, incentivising them to provide quality education.
How do Functionalist and New Right views on Education compare?
> Believe some people are naturally more talented than others
> Agree education should be run on meritocratic principles of open competition.
> And education should socialise pupils into shared values and provide a sense of national identity.
Outline the Criticisms of the New Right view of Education?
> Gewirtz: Restrictions on Parental Choice
> Low Educational Standards, due to inadequate funding of state school, not state running
> Marxist argue education, imposes values of ruling class, not shared national identity
> National Curriculum too ethnocentric and restrictive on teachers and schools
The New Right AO3 of Functionalists
the state education systems fails to properly prepare young people for work.
Postmodernists argue society is characeterised by what?
chaotic, fragmented and diverse
Postmodernists argue there has been an increase in…
individualism
Postmodernists discuss the impact of globalisation in education…
- more focus on individual programmes
- customised schools
- increase in adult learners
AO3 of Postmodern thinkers
exaggerate the changes in education, e.g. there is greater centralisation in education in some areas, particularly the national curriculum rather than greater diversity and choice.
AO3 of postmodernism
Marxists would argue that rather than education being shaped by individual choice it is actually shaped by big businesses (capitalism) and postmodernists are ignoring the greater issue of inequality
