Education - The Role of Education in Society Flashcards
What did Durkheim (1903) argue the two roles of education are?
Social solidarity and teaching specialist skills
Why does Durkheim (1903) argue we need social solidarity?
Without a sense of connection, social life and cooperation would become impossible as we would pursue selfish goals.
How does Durkheim (1903) argue school’s create a sense of solidarity, giving an example?
Schools transmit the society’s culture and create a sense of innate connection with the people around you. History gives children a sense of shared heritage that bonds them.
How do schools act as ‘society in miniature’ (Durkheim (1903))?
It prepares us for life in wider society by giving us similar tasks and responsibilities but with lower stakes. Missing an assignment in school is disciplined and teaches children not to miss deadlines in the working world.
Outline Durkheim’s (1903) ‘Specialist Skills’
Schools need to teach children specialist skills in order to ensure smooth division of labour in the economy.
According to Parsons (1961), how does school bridge the gap between family and wider society?
Within the family, a child is judged by particularist standards and has an ascribed status. This leaves them unprepared for wider society, where standards are universal and status is supposedly achieved. School mirrors wider society with its meritocracy and universalistic standards to prepare students.
Davis and Moore (1984) and inequality:
Inequality is necessary to ensure that the most talented individuals fill the most important roles - society offers higher rewards for these roles to raise the bar of standards for applicants.
Davis and Moore (1984) and role allocation:
Schools act as a ‘proving ground’ for pupils to show their aptitudes and talents and for society to ‘sift and sort’ them via qualifications into the more important roles.
Summarize Blau and Duncan’s (1978) belief about school’s and human capital
Modern economies’ prosperities relies on human capital or workers’ skills, a meritocratic system is the most effective for this.
Give 4 evaluations of the functionalist perspective of education.
- As we know, equal opportunity in education is not guaranteed and often a myth.
- Wolf Review (2011): education fails to teach specialised skills, up to a third of 16–19 year olds are on courses that do not lead to higher education or good jobs.
- Wrong (1961): functionalists have an ‘over-socialised’ view of people, implying they passively accept all they are taught
- New Right believes education fails in this
How are New Right and Functionalist perspectives on education similar? How do they differ?
+ Both believe in natural aptitude
+ Both believe in a meritocracy
+ Both believe in instilling a national identity and culture
- The New Right does not believe that the current education system is doing this
Chubb and Moe (1990) and the issue with state education:
It applies a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that imposes uniformity and disregards local needs, with local consumers having no say as schools are unaccountable - this results in lower standards of achievement for pupils, a less qualified workforce and a less prosperous economy, as well as a lack of equal opportunity.
According to Chubb and Moe (1990), how much better do W/C pupils do in private schools than public?
5%
What was Chubb and Moe’s (1990) model of education
Pupil voucher, as well as general marketisation, to force schools to become more responsive to their consumers
What are the two roles of the state in education under the New Right?
- Imposing a framework for schools to compete (e.g. publishing league tables and Ofsted reports)
- Ensuring that schools transmit a shared culture (e.g. the National Curriculum)
Give three criticisms of the New Right perspective of education.
- Gerwitz (1995) and Ball (1994): competition benefits the middle class who can use their cultural/economic capital to get better schools
- Real cause of low educational standards is social inequality
- New Right’s support of increased parental choice Vs. New Right’s support of National Curriculum
What are Althusser’s (1971) two types of state apparatus?
- Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs) that maintain rule by use of force
- Ideological State Apparatus (ISAs) that maintain rule by controlling ideas, values and beliefs.
Why does Althusser (1971) consider education to be an ISA?
- Reproduces class inequality by failing successive generations of the w/c
- Legitimises class inequality by socialising w/c into the idea that it is inevitable
Bowles and Gintis (1976) and the hidden curriculum:
The role of education is to produce an obedient workforce that will accept inequality - it does this by rewarding personality traits that make people submissive workers, like obedience and discipline, and punishing pupils that show signs of resistance - also known as the ‘hidden curriculum’.
Bowles and Gintis (1976) and the correspondence principle:
Schools prepare students to be obedient workers by mirroring the workplace (hierarchy, obedience, etc.) and, by showing it to them so young, socialising pupils into the idea that these structures are only natural.
Cohen (1984) and youth training schemes:
Youth training schemes serve capitalism by not teaching young workers genuine skills, but the attitudes and values needed to be submissive workers.
According to Bowles and Gintis (1976), how does education legitimate class inequality?
Education is ‘a giant myth-making machine’ that pretends to be a meritocracy (the ‘myth of meritocracy’); by doing this, education convinces people that the bourgeoisie became rich and powerful through hard work and intelligence rather than being born into it. Additionally, it reinforced the “poor-are-dumb” theory.
How does Willis (1997) stray from other Marxist theories of education?
Marxists, like Bowles and Gintis (1976), see education reproducing and legitimating inequality as fairly straightforward (through the ‘myth of meritocracy’), Willis (1977) shows how pupils ran resist and still serve capitalism.
How do Willis’s (1977) lads defy the school?
They are part of a counterculture that ‘take the piss’ out of ear’oles (teacher’s pets) and girls, smoke, drink, skive, and generally reject the school’s meritocratic ideals as a ‘con’ - all in an effort to resist the school.
How are Willis’ (1997) lads’ counter-culture and manual-work shop floor culture similar?
Both see manual work as superior to and more masculine than intellectual work that ear’oles and girls aspire to.
How does the counter culture of Willis’ (1977) lads benefit capitalism?
- They romanticise manual labour that will not pay very much
- They have learnt from school that work does not have to be fun so don’t expect fulfilment from their jobs
- Their acts of rebellion ensure that they end up in ‘unskilled’ and low-paid labour.
How does Bordieu’s idea of capital relate to reproducing inequality?
Because the working class do not have any type of capital, working class children are unable to attain quality educations and escape poverty, so the cycle repeats.
Give three criticisms of the Marxist perspective of education.
- Marxists can’t agree on how schools reproduce and legitimate inequality : Bowles and Gintis (1976) Vs Willis (1977)
- Critical Modernists, such as the feminist MacDonald (1980), argue that Marxists almost entirely ignore different types of inequality that schools reproduce.
- Willis romanticises the Lads as working-heroes despite their anti social behaviour and prejudice to women and minorities.
