Education - Theorists Flashcards
Key functionalist theorists
- Durkheim
- Parsons
- Davis and Moore
What two functions did Durkheim identify?
- Social Solidarity
- Specialist skills
How does education help social solidarity?
Members feel part of a community and are able to cooperate. It transmits culture and history from one generation to the next and gives them commitment to a wider social group
How does education provide specialist skills?
It teaches people specialist knowledge needed to play a part in the social division of labour since most industrial economies require a variety of different specialities
What function did Parsons put forward?
Education is a bridge to wider society. In the family, the child has ascribed status but in educaion and life its acheived. They’re judged by a set of impersonal rules and meritocratic principles.
What are meritocratic principles?
Where everyone is given equal opportunity to succeed
What function did Davis and Moore identify?
Education allocates children to their future work roles by making people compete for the best jobs to ensure they are filled by the most talanted people. Inequality is therefore important.
What evaluative points can be made about functionalism?
The education system doesn’t teach specialist skills well enough
Myth of meritocracy
Turmin says we don’t know when a job is more important
Marxists argue it transmits the ideology of the ruling class
Interactionalists say pupils are not passive
The New Right say the system fails to prepare them for work
How do Marxists critisize the functionalist view?
It transmits the culture of the ruling class
What points can be made about the New Right view?
Chubb and Moe: Marketization
Two roles of the state
What 2 roles do the New Right argue the state should fufill?
Make a framework for the schools to compete e.g league tables
Ensure schools transmit a shared culture through the national curriculum
What points did Bowles and Gintis make?
The correspondence principle and the hidden curriculum
The legitimisation of class inequality
