Role of education Flashcards
Functionalism
Durkheim:social solidarity
- education encourages social solidarity:important for schools to bring pupils together in a sense of community
- important for future as allows young people to learn that when the get into wider society they will have to work together with others
- education described as society in a miniature:imitates the ways in which adults engage with others in the wider world of work+social interaction
- encourages social solidarity by transmitting society’s culture to children.->done through subjects children study.Encouraged to feel sense of pride in country strengthens them being part of a community Eg-history achievements
Functionalism
evaluation of durkheim-social solidarity
-Not all children feel sense of community in school,some children face racism
Functionalism
Durkheim:education provides pupils with specialist skills
- education is an essential social institution for helping maintain the economy.Knowns as specialised division of labour
- main role of education is to provide children with the skills required that they need to progress into future jobs
- different subjects in schools provide different forms of knowledge or strategies for working and learning->transferred to work place EG-essay subjects such as english encourage development of literacy skills
- at the end of education pupils have the qualifications which are important to progress in the world as adults
Functionalist
Evaluation of durkheim:specialist skills
some adults have to learn new skills for going into the job
Functionalism
Davis+Moore:education performs the function of role allocation
- main function of education is to allocate people roles within wider economy
- inequality as necessary->everyone needs to play different roles in order for economy to function
- education helps sift and sort pupils according to ability and skill set EG-some pupils are good at maths whilst others are more creative so good at art
- identifys human capital:finds out where their skills are strongest which helps them pursue careers which are suitable for their ability
- education is meritocratic system,everyone has the same opportunities
- recognise some pupils will be successful in education whilst others leave with no qualifications
- not a bad thing as those with good qualifications go onto skilled+high paid jobs
- those with no qualifications go onto less skilled but essential jobs in economy
- economy is a reward based system
- > hardest working are rewarded by founding into high paid jobs
- gives people an incentive to work hard
Functionalism
Davis+Moore:education performs the function of role allocation
EVALUATION
-economy isn’t a fair system as the gender pay gap still exists between men and women even if both work hard to achieve
Marxist
Althusser:education acts as an ideological state apparatus
ideological state apparatus:education transmit info to young to young people to get them to accept main ideas, ideologies of capitalism+regard it as an adequate system to follow->helps keep bourgeoisie in power
1) actively reproduce class inequalities
- seen year after year as pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds underperform in GCSEs compared to more privileged students.
- teaches have lower expectations of w/c pupils
2) education system justifies the ongoing existence of class inequality.
- promoted view that reason for w/c doing poor in education is down to them having a poor work ethic compared to m/c pupils or parents not interested in their education
- placing blame on the culture of w/c distracts them from the structural causes of class inequalities
Marxist
Althusser:education acts as an ideological state apparatus
EVALUATION
theory is outdated.Today education reproduces diversity not inequality
Marxist
Bowles+Gintis:education applies a correspondence principle to the capitalist economy
-main view of education is to mirror the workplace in a way that it churns out the types of workers needed to maintain an unequal capitalist system.
Correspondence principle:idea that schools mirror the world of work in a number of different ways.EG-schools are structured in a hierarchical way->teaches+senior leaders have most power and students at the bottom with no power or influence
-schools teach pupils a hidden curriculum of subliminal messages which they will internalise before taking them to the workplace as adults EG-children learn to passively accept authority,not to challenge rules and to compete with others for status+rewards.
-main rule of schools is to teach them to be obedient and accepting of rules and authority not to teach them genuine skills->benefits capitalism by providing it with subordinate workers which are needed to fill low paid jobs
Marxist
Bowles+Gintis:Education applies a correspondence principle to the capitalist economy
EVALUATION
outdated theory as today most jobs are service jobs (done in an office) and not laborious jobs
Marxist Bowles+Gintis:education helps legitimise class inequality
- wrongly led to believe the education system is fair,any inequalities between classed in terms of success can be justified by blaming the w/c themselves
- In reality it is the school system to blame for class divide in exam results
- school system on purpose encourages w/c pupils to lower their aspirations whilst pushing m/c to be successful
- leads to the view of that m/c pupils are successful because they are hard working+naturally intelligent-> leaves w/c pupils who experience being disadvantaged in the schools system that it is their own fault for not being successful
- encourage culture for w/c that progression to uni+high paid jobs isn’t for them->accept this culture so go into low paid jobs+have low status.Leaves bourgeoisie in power
Marxist
Bowles and Gintis:education legitimises class inequality
EVALUATION
not always the schools fault for underachievement.Some pupils simply don’t try and believe education isn’t for them
+useful in exposing the myth of meritocracy
New right
Chubb+moe:consumer choice
-conducted US study into educational achievement of 60,000 pupils from low income backgrounds.Some in state run schools, others private schools.
-found children at private schools performed better on average than those at state schools
-this is because they have a better quality of education due to being treated like consumers.->offer good service in return for hard cash
NEW RIGHT IDEA:
-came up with funding vouchers:parents are given these vouchers which they then give to the school they want their child to go to->puts schools under more pressure to give a good quality of education as parents are responsible for their funding
MARKETISATION
-educational polices need to be done around marketisation
marketisation:schools should operate like an economic market ,they have to compete for the ‘custom’ of parents+pupils
-parents base their decisions on things such as the schools exam results and inspection data
-if schools are dependent on custom money, they will work harder to ensure that they are providing a good quality service to pupils ->raises standards and improves the role that education plays in society
New right
Chubb+Moe
EVALUATION
-competition between schools only benefits the m/c as they use their cultural capital to access better schools
