Perspectives in the sociology of education Flashcards
Durkheim - Functionalism
Durkheim emphasised the moral force of education, the way in which children internalise the values and beliefs of society to become ‘social’ beings. The main function of education was for the development of social solidarity through the transmission of a collective culture.
Parsons - American functionalism
Parsons claimed that schools are agents of secondary socialisation and their responsibility is to prepare children for adult life.
Parsons also believed the education system to be meritocratic, meaning that people have the same opportunities open to them, and that they can achieve status in society based on their abilities and qualifications, rather than their socioeconomic background.
Bowles and Gintis - Classical Marxism
Bowles and Gintis claim that schools reflect the hierarchical division of labour in the economy through a correspondence between the social relations of production, school and family. This is transmitted through the values and organisation of the school. Working-class schools are authoritarian, whereas middle-class schools are more open and democratic, in the same way as workplaces. This correspondence allows the education system to produce an amenable and fragmented labour force. This is known as the ‘correspondence principle’ (correspondence between school and the workplace).
Althusser - Neo-Marxism
Althusser believed that education had replaced religion as the main ideological state apparatus; in schools, children receive the ideology that prepares them for their role in capitalist society. This includes rules of good behaviour, skills and knowledge needed by capitalism.
Bourdieu - Neo-Marxism
Bourdieu suggested that through their families, children of the dominant class acquire cultural capital. Their culture is similar to that which permeates education. They have the right manners, accent, and confidence. They have the right language (linguistic capital) to unlock the categories used in formal education. This allows those of the dominant class to maintain their position in society, while the working-classes struggle for social class mobility.
Paul Willis - Neo-Marxism
In his study ‘Learning to Labour’, Willis (1977) studied the resistance of working-class ‘lads’ in a secondary school. Willis showed that the resistance these ‘lads’ displayed to schooling came from their working-class culture which prized manual over mental labour. Despite the fact that these ‘lads’ enjoyed bunking off and making teachers’ lives difficult, their resistance was ultimately reproductive as they ended up in manual jobs as a result of the absence of qualifications.
McRobbie - Neo-Marxism
McRobbie (1978) carried out a similar study to Willis, investigating working-class girls in a youth club. She found that these girls also regarded school as a place to celebrate their culture of femininity by smoking, gossiping about boys they fancied, and playing up teachers. They dismissed middle-class girls as ‘snobs’. Their response to schooling trapped them by reproducing gender and class relations. Their future roles as wives, mothers and low-paid workers loomed large in their lives.
Rist - Labelling theory
In 1977, Rist conducted an ethnographic study of an elementary school in Missouri, USA. A teacher made children sit at tables according to her evaluations of their academic ability based on social class. Those whose parents were on welfare (clowns) sat at one table, the working-class (cardinals) at another, and the middle-class (tigers) at another. Rist followed these children through the first and second grades, and found that the initial labels had stuck, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Rosenthal and Jacobson - Labelling theory
In Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study, they found that teachers were told that some pupils they had randomly chosen were ‘intellectual bloomers’, causing the teacher to treat them differently, and they performed better at the end of the year.
