Role and function of the education system

Question 1

-Durkheim’s perspective on education

Answer 1

-education reinforces social solidarity and teaches us specialists skills

Question 2

-how does the education system create social solidarity?

Answer 2

-transmitting societies culture from one generation to another

Question 3

-examples of how social solidarity is promoted in schools:

Answer 3

-history: gives us a shared sense of identity and heritage

• group work/assemblies/school plays etc

-the British values promoted in school

-in american schools, children pledge allegiance to the flag.

Question 4

-how does education promote specialists skills?

Answer 4

-Durkheim noted that modern industrial economies require a massive and specialised division of labour

-people have specialised jobs which require specific skills and knowledge.

-Schools are in place to teach people the skills they will need to fulfil these different roles for the good of the economy.

Question 5

-Parsons perspective on education:

Answer 5

education acts as a bridge between family and wider society

-prepares children for universalistic standards rather than particularistic standards taught in family

-believed that school gives us achieved status through efforts and achievements not through fixed characteristics like gender or class ( ascribed status)

Question 6

-Davis and Moore : role allocation

Answer 6

-Schools performs the function of selecting and sifting students into their future role through:

-sorting and siting pupils based on ability
-most able pupils end up in higher positions in society
-lower ability end up in low skilled positions

-promotes ideas of social mobility and meritocracy

Question 7

-what do Davis and Moore say about inequality?

Answer 7

-They argue that inequality is necessary to ensure that the most important roles in society are filled by the most talented people.

-not everyone is equally talented so society has to offer higher rewards for these jobs.

-This will encourage everyone to compete for them and society can then select the most talented for these positions.

Question 8

-AO3 OF FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE

Answer 8

-There is ample evidence that equal opportunity in education does not exist. E.g. achievement is greatly influenced by class background rather than ability;

-Marxists argue that education in capitalist society only transmits the ideology of a minority (the ruling class);

-Wrong (1961) says that functionalists have an ‘over socialised view’ of people as mere puppets of society, they imply that pupils accept everything they’re taught and never reject the school’s values;

-Neo-liberals and New Right argue that the state education system fails to prepare young people adequately for work.

Question 9

-NEOLIBERALISM perspective on education

Answer 9

• promote marketisation: schools become more like businesses, empowering parents and pupils as consumers and using competition between schools to drive up standards.

-They argue that the state should not provide services such as education, health and welfare.

Question 10

-THE NEW RIGHT (NR) perspective on education:

Answer 10

-to ‘Marketise’ Education – run a school like a business and compete with other schools to attract ‘Customers’ /
pupils.

-means schools will have to listen to the needs of pupils, parents and staff. If schools compete with each other, then standards will increase which will result in a more qualified workforce and a more prosperous economy.

Question 11

-What are the similarities between
functionalism and the new right?

Answer 11

Both believe that some people are
naturally more talented than others

Both favour an education system run on
meritocratic principles of open competition and one that serves the needs of the economy by preparing young people for work

Both believe that education should socialise pupils into shared values, such as competition, and instil a sense of national identity

Question 12

-What should the role of the state be according to New Right?

Answer 12

governments should perform the following
roles:

It should impose a strict, standardised framework for schools to compete
within e.g. OFSTED Inspections, League Tables etc

It should make sure that all schools transmit a shared, united culture i.e. through a standardised National Curriculum.

Question 13

-Chubb and Moe: Consumer Choice

Answer 13

-argue that America’s state schools have failed in their goals + should be placed in the free market

Question 14

-how have school failed according to Chubb + Moe?

Answer 14

1) failed disadvantaged groups

2) pupils are not equipped with the skills needed to work.

3) private schools are more efficient and productive because they answer to their clients

Question 15

-Methodology of Chubb and Moe:

Answer 15

They compared the achievements of 60,000 pupils from low income families in 1,015 state schools and private schools as well as a parents survey

Question 16

-Solution for schools

Answer 16

1) Parents should be given an education voucher to spend at the school at their choice forcing them to improve
2) As vouchers would be a schools main source of income they would have to compete to attract customers by improving their product
3) Educational standards would improve and bad schools would be forced to close
4) Want to end the state system where schools receive guaranteed funding forcing them to take a marketised approach

Question 17

-Evaluation ( Gerwitz )

Answer 17

Three types of choosers
1) Privileged / skilled choosers - strongly motivated aware of league tables prepared to pay for education
2) Semi skilled choosers - Lack insider knowledge more likely to choose a local school
3) Disconnected choosers - Not bothered about academic performance ( children’s happiness )

Question 18

-Evaluation by Ball (Marxist):

Answer 18

Marketisation benefits the middle class and disadvantages the working class

Question 19

-Evaluation criticism:

Answer 19

The new right wants parents to have a choice and freedom but at the same time want a strict curriculum (contradictory) as it ignores wider social inequalities and blames schools

Question 20

-Evaluation (Marxist) for New Right:

Answer 20

Schools do not transmit a shared culture only the culture of the R/C the dominant culture

Question 21

-Althussers perspective on education:

-Ideological state apparatus:
1. Education reproduces class inequality

Answer 21

-Education deliberate engineers W/C failure in order to create an unqualified factory workforce.

-Private education prepares children of the elite for positions of power.

-Hidden Curriculum is shaped to assist M/C achievement
and deter W/C achievement.

Question 22

A-lthussers perspective on education:

-Ideological state apparatus:
2)Education legitimates class inequality

Answer 22

-M/C has access to more cultural and economic capital which puts them at an
advantage.

• Education encourages students to blindly accept capitalist values, through the
  hidden curriculum.

Question 23

-Bowles & Gintis; Correspondence Principle

Answer 23

argue that there are similarities
between schooling and work in capitalist society.

They refer to these similarities or parallels as the ‘correspondence principle’.

Question 24

-define Hidden curriculum

-examples

Answer 24

this refers to all the ‘lessons’ that are learnt in school without being directly taught.

Examples:

• Being on time to class
• Having the correct uniform

-Working for rewards (achievement points/good grades)

Question 25

-Bowles and Gintis : Myth of Meritocracy

Answer 25

-Education claims to be meritocratic but schools discriminate in favour of the
middle class, e.g. language.

-Hidden Curriculum lowers
working class ambitions.

Question 26

-Evaluation of Marxist approach to education

Answer 26

-Critics also point out the Marxists’ standpoint is outdated and doesn’t sufficiently take into account more recent developments in education, such as progressive teaching methods and policies aimed at reducing inequalities.

-The ideas of meritocracy and social mobility are challenged by other perspectives like functionalism, which argue that the education system does reward individual effort and talent, and it can help children from less advantaged backgrounds to climb the social ladder.

Question 27

-Willis study

Answer 27

-studied working-class boys in a Midlands school.

-focused on “the lads” ,who were disruptive, misbehaved and had a very negative attitude to education.

formed what Willis called an anti-school subculture. Within this subculture it was “cool” to “mess about” and to fail.

there was no value consensus here: pupils were actively rejecting the norms and values of society. As such, they were a long way from the hard-working, docile, obedience workers suggested by Bowles & Gintis.

Question 28

-criticisms of Willis’s study

Answer 28

However, it has been suggested that the boys may have acted up more to “show off” to Willis. This might have occurred when they were being observed (the Hawthorne Effect - people behave differently when they know they’re being watched) and when they were interviewed (an interviewer effect).

Question 29

what are the roles of education/school in society according to postmodernists?

Answer 29

• schools have become more consumerists + provide more individual choice

-education has become more individualised

-education is more diverse

-increasing fragmentation

-

Question 30

how have schools become more consumerist and provide more individual choice?

Answer 30

-marketisation has made schools into buisnesses and parents/students into consumers with parents ‘browsing’ for a school of their choice or home

Question 31

how has education become more individualised ?

Answer 31

-teachers are expected to use a variety of teaching approaches in their lessons, to take into account variety of ‘learning styles’ of students

Question 32

how has education become more diverse?

Answer 32

• increase in specialists schools, faith schools and academies/free schools + apprenticeships

Question 33

-how have schools/education become fragmented?

Answer 33

-privately educated school children enjoy more cosy

-education while lower class pupils feel alienated by middle class school system.

home education shows schooling becoming fragmented

Question 34

how has education become more hyperreal?

Answer 34

schools are making more use of ICT in education + students are directed to online sources for learning support.