Key Sociologists - Education Flashcards
Stephen Ball - Beachside Comprehensive: mixed ability vs banded, the working class kids move to anti-school culture
Beachside comprehensive Three years fieldwork as a participant observer. The consequences of working-class kids being categorised as less able leads to an anti-school culture.
The study describes a school in the process of change and raises questions about the selection and socialisation experienced by two cohorts moving through the school, one banded by ability and the other taught in mixed ability classes.
Ball, et all - Market Forces and Parental Choice: pressure on schools moves to the students, working class parents do not have school choice, league tables
Pressure on schools and by extension students to be the best. Working class students do not have access to the best schools due to their parents not getting a choice.
A study of fifteen schools with different population profiles (eg class and ethnicity). The study evaluates the impact of parental choice and the publication of league tables, eg the pressure to reintroduce streaming and setting and the tendency for some schools to focus on the more able.
Bowles and Gintis - Schooling in Capitalist America: reproduction of labour power is the main role of education, correspondence principle means education mirrors workplace
Bowles and Gintis argue that the major role of education in capitalist societies is the reproduction of labour power. Correspondence Principle means the way in which education MIRRORS the workplace.
They reject the view that capitalist societies are meritocratic and believe that class background is the most important factor influencing levels of attainment.
They argue that there is a close correspondence between the social relationships which govern interactions in the work place and social relationships in the education system eg the creation of a hardworking, docile, obedient, and highly motivated workforce, which is too divided to challenge the authority of management.
Durkheim - Moral Education: the main function of education is the transmission of society’s norms and values, the hidden curriculum is positive
Durkheim saw the major function of education as the transmission of society’s norms and values.
He argued that school is a society in miniature. It uses the hidden curriculum to enforce sanctions, norms and values to prepare the children for the workforce.
Halsey, Heath and Ridge - Origins and Destination: middle class students are eleven times more likely to go to university than working class, service class - intermediate - working class
Children from middle class backgrounds were eleven times more likely to go to university than working class.
Based on a sample of over 8,000 males born between 1913 and 1952 the authors found evidence of clear class inequalities in education. The sample was divided into three main groups (based on the father’s occupation):
the service class (professionals, administrators and managers)
the intermediate class (clerical or sales workers, the self-employed and lower grade technicians and foremen) and the working class.
The chance of an individual from the middle class attending university was eleven times greater than one from the working class. It should be noted that the research excluded females and this might have made a significant difference to the findings.
Parsons - The school class as a social system: universalist ice standards and particularistic standards, status is achieved on the basis of merit
Universalistic standards = All kids have an equal opportunity.
Particularistic standards = The child is judged individually.
Parsons believed that the school acts as a bridge between the family and society, taking over as the main agency of socialisation and preparing children for adult life.
Parsons argued that the schools operate on meritocratic principles: status is achieved on the basis of merit.
He believed that schools socialise children into the basic values of the wider society, maintaining a value consensus that emphasised achievement and equality of opportunity. Moreover, Parsons believed that schools functioned as an important mechanism for the selection of individuals for their future role in society. His functionalist perspective has been criticised by those who argue that the values of the education system may simply be those of the ruling elite, or that equality of opportunity is an illusion in an unequal society where wealth and privilege are more important than individual merit.
Willis - Learning to Labour: midlands lad study, lads felt superior to teachers and conformists and ended up in unskilled manual work, benefiting the bourgeoisie
Midlands ‘lad’ study.
Used primary sources to gain qualitative data on the children.
The members of the counter-school culture felt superior to teachers and conformists but ended up in unskilled manual work which still benefitted the bourgeoisie.
Paul Willis focused on the existence of conflict within the education system. He rejects the view that there is a direct relationship between the economy and the way that the education system operates.
