role of education

Question 1

What do functionalists think the role of the education system is?

Answer 1

Secondary socialisation to pass on core values, sifts and sorts people for appropriate jobs and teaches skills needed in work and by the economy.

Question 2

What is Durkheim’s view on the role of the education system?

Answer 2

• passes on norms and values to integrate individuals into society.
• helps create social order based on cohesion and value consensus

Question 3

What is Parson’s view on the role of the education system?

Answer 3

• pass on universal value of achievement.
• education selects children into appropriate roles because its meritocratic.

Question 4

What is Davis and Moore’s (1945) view on the role of the education system?

Answer 4

there is a “principles of stratification” - a system of unequal rewards to motivate people to train for top positions.

Question 5

What do Marxists think about the role of the education system?

Answer 5

• prepares children for the world of work by giving them skills and values employers need.
• passes on ruling class ideology that supports capitalism.
• legitimises inequality

Question 6

What do Bowles and Gintis (1976) say about the role of the education system?

Answer 6

Pupils are prepared for the world of work by the school system.
- pupils taught to accept the hierarchy at school
- motivated bt grades to do boring work
- school day broken into small units
-rules are rewarded.

• the ‘hidden curriculum’ prepares people for work.

Question 7

What does Althusser (neo- Marxist) think about the role of the education system?

Answer 7

• part of the “ideological state apparatus” - a tool of capitalism to pass on the belief society is fair.
• produces docile and obedient workforce who do not challenge authority.

Question 8

What does Willis (1977) think about the role of the education system?

Answer 8

• education system doesn’t turn out an obedient workforce as some children form anti-school subcultures and muck about.

Question 9

What do Marxists think about meritocracy?

Answer 9

meritocracy is a myth, so working-class pupils are blamed for their poor results.

Question 10

What are the criticisms of functionalism?

Answer 10

• evidence of differential achievement in terms of class, gender and ethnicity suggests that education is not meritocratic.
• ‘Who you know’ is still more important than ‘what you know’ in some parts of society. So the allocation function isn’t working properly.
• It can be argued that the education system doesn’t prepare people adequately for work. (e.g., the lack of engineering graduates indicates education is failing to produce what employers and the economy needs.
• Functionalism doesn’t look at how education may serve the interests of particular groups in terms if ideology and values. it doesn’t explain conflict.

Question 11

What are the criticisms of Marxism?

Answer 11

• Marxism assumes people are passive victims. It exaggerates how much working-class students are socialised into obedience. Willis showed how students actually resist to authority.
• Most people are aware of the inequality in education, and don’t think that this inequality is legitimate.

Question 12

What do Feminists sat about the education system?

Answer 12

They say it is patriarchal.
- hidden curriculum reinforces gender differences.
- still gender differences in subject choice in school.
- girls are now outperforming boys at school - but boys still demand more attention from the teacher.
- men seem to dominate the top positions in schools.

Question 13

What do feminists want from the education system?

Answer 13

• liberal feminists want equal access to education for both sexes.
• radical feminists believe men are a bad influence, and want female-centred education for girls.
• marxist feminists want to consider gender inequalities combined with the inequalities of class and ethnicity.

Question 14

What do the New Right think about the education system?

Answer 14

• New Right theorists believe in the power of individual choice, and prefer this to the state intervening in people’s lives.
• the role of a school should be more like the role of a business.
• state schools are run by the state, so they don’t have to compete for their consumers. New Right theorists say this has caused poor standards.
• they want to accelerate the creation of an ‘education market’. a school’s role would be to provide what its community wants and needs.