Functionalism

Question 1

What is the Organic Analogy?

Answer 1

• Basis of functionalism
• belief that society is a system of interdependent parts held together by a value consensus
• These values are learnt through socialisation from each part of society including education.

Question 2

What is meant by a value consensus?

Answer 2

A shared set of norms and values

Question 3

Emile Durkheim

Answer 3

Purpose of the education system is to :

• Instil social solidarity ( value consensus)
• Teach social rules and how to abide by them
• Teach specialist skills.

Question 4

How does education teach specialist skills? ( Durkheim )

Answer 4

• in a more complex, industrial society (one based on organic solidarity ) it is necessary to learn the shared values of broader society. For this reason, a more organised education system is required.
• people have to learn certain skills in order to function in that society and to perform specific economic roles. - - There are common pieces of knowledge that everyone should have, but also specific competencies that different people require in order to play their part in society based on a division of labour.

Question 5

How does education teach social rules and how to abide by them? (Durkheim)

Answer 5

• Durkheim argues the education system provides secondary socialisation as opposed to primary socialisation which is delivered by the family. While the family passes on particular norms and values, secondary socialisation passes on universal norms
• This helps individuals to become fully-functional, normal members of society and this in term helps society because people know how to behave.

Question 6

How does education instil social solidarity and a value consensus?(Durkheim)

Answer 6

By learning about history, PE, English, RE, pupils link themselves as part of a bigger picture and people should work together for common goals. Students also learn how to get on with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences.

Question 7

Durkheim Evaluation on specialist skills

Answer 7

Marxists : where do these shared values come from and whose interests do they serve?
- They don’t accept that there are a set of neutral norms and values that are best for everyone in society. they argue that the powerful in society use education to spread their ideology.
Some question whether schools ever really provided adequate training for work, noting that for most jobs the knowledge-based learned at school is of limited usefulness and much more specific skills are taught through in-work training.

Question 8

Durkheim evaluation on social solidarity

Answer 8

• Andy Hargreaves (1982) argued that the education system encourages individualism and competition rather than social solidarity and shared values. Educational norms discourage collaborative learning (seeing it as cheating/copying) and instead encourages individuals to try and beat each other: the opposite of social solidarity.
  Postmodernists- This theory is no longer a reflection of education in England and Wales. Society is now multicultural so it is not clear that school does teach any one set of collective values.

Question 9

Parsons

Answer 9

Education helps society to be meritocratic, and acts as a bridge between the family and wider society.

Question 10

Parsons Overview

Answer 10

• Individuals that work hard will be rewarded in society, whilst those who do not will not be rewarded.
• Instead of people holding positions in society based on what their parents did and being born into a high or low status people, through their efforts and their abilities, attain achieved status. Education sifts and sorts people into their appropriate jobs.
• one element of this is ascribed rather than achieved: natural ability, talent or intelligence. But this is fair and how it should be and has nothing to do with family background, gender, ethnicity, etc.
• Schools, provide a bridge between the‘particularistic’ valuesof the family and the‘universalistic’values of meritocracy of contemporary industrial society.

Question 11

Achieved Status

Answer 11

social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit and is earned or chosen

Question 12

Ascribed status

Answer 12

social status of a person that is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. The status is a position that is neither earned by the person nor chosen for them.

Question 13

Parsons Evaluation

Answer 13

• Bowles and Gintis conducted a study which demonstrated how IQ played a relatively small part in academic success and then whether academic success translated into economic success also greatly depended on social class, ethnicity and gender.
• Marxists argue that t the proletariat are persuaded to believe that the rich and powerful reached their positions through their hard work and natural ability rather than their privileged birth as this then leads them to accept inequality as fair. class inequalities are reproduced in the next generation and that the education system plays a key role in this. they argue that the myth of meritocracy plays an important part in developing a false class consciousness.

Question 14

Davis and Moore

Answer 14

Developed Parsons idea of Education serving as role allocation and facilitates meritocracy

Question 15

Davis and Moore Overview

Answer 15

• schools acts as a proving ground for ability.
• Education is where individuals show what they can do. It ‘sifts and sorts’ us according to our ability.
• The most able gain the highest qualifications, which then give them entry to the most important and highly rewarded positions.

Question 16

What did Davis and Moore conclude about Social stratification?

Answer 16

theinequalities in society are fair and just, everyone is given and equal chance, it’s merely that some people work hard and succeed and others choose to be idle. people who work hard at school become dentists while those that don’t become binmen

Question 17

Davis and Moore Evaluation

Answer 17

• It is not clearly the case that those who get the best qualifications do go on to get the highest incomes. Factors such as social class come into play . Some people are able to access high salaries without good qualifications, thanks to family connections. EG high levels of graduate unemployment and underemployment.
• MARXIST - the wealthy and powerful have all manner of advantages which the education system reinforces. This is not meritocracy, but instead the reproduction of inequality. The myth of meritocracy is what allows the rich to get away with entrenching their privilege and serves to convince everyone else that the process is fair.