Key terms in education

Question 1

Social solidarity (Durkheim)

Answer 1

The integration of individuals into society through shared beliefs, values, common culture and shared understandings that brings them together and builds social cohesion

Question 2

Social cohesion

Answer 2

The bonds that brings people together and integrate them into an united society

Question 3

Particularistic values

Answer 3

Rules and values that give a priority to personal relationships

Question 4

Universalistic values

Answer 4

Rules and values that apply equally to all members of society, no matter who they are

Question 5

Meritocracy

Answer 5

• Society where jobs are allocated on the basis purely of people’s individual talents, value and usefulness.
• Believed by Parsons that everyone is given equal opportunities to succeed but it is down to their abilities to how well they succeed

Question 6

Marketisation

Answer 6

• Process where services (education/ health) that were previously controlled and run by the state, have government or local council control reduced or removed altogether
• They then become subject to the free market forces of supply and demand, based on consumer choice or demand

Question 7

Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

Answer 7

Agencies which serve to spread the ideology, and justify the power, of the dominant social class

Question 8

Habitus

Answer 8

Cultural framework and a set of ideas prossessed by a social class, into which people are socialised, and which influences their cultural tastes and choices