Role of education

Question 1

Give the Functionalist perspective

Answer 1

Functionalism is based on the view that society is a sytem of interdependant parts held together by a shared culture or value consensus

Each part of society, including the education system, performs a function that helps maintain society as a whole as well as meeting society’s needs

Question 2

Define value consensus

Answer 2

An agreement among society’s members about what values are important

Question 3

The founder of funtionalist sociology, identified which two main functions of education?

Answer 3

Durkheim: Creating social solidarity and teaching specialist skills

Question 4

Define social solidarity

Answer 4

Individual members must feel themselves to be part of a single ‘body’ or community

Question 5

How does the education system help to create social solidarity?

Answer 5

By transmitting society’s culture - Its shared beliefs and values - from one generation to the next

For example, Durkheims argues the teaching of a country’s history instils in children a sense of shared heritage and commitment to the wider social group

Question 6

What does Durkheim argue on social solidarity?

Answer 6

• Society needs a sense of solidarity. WIthout it, social life and cooperation would be impossible as each individual would pursue their own selfish desire

• Education helps create social solidarity by…

• School acts as a ‘society in miniature’ preparing for life in wider society
For example in both school and society we must cooperate with people that are neither family nor friends
i.e. teachers and pupils, colleagues and sustomers

In both, we interact according to a set of impersonal rules that apply to everyone

Question 7

What does Durkheim argue on specialist skills?

Answer 7

• He argue education teaches individuals the specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social division of labour

• Modern industrial economies have a complex division of labour where even the production of a single item involves the cooperation of many different specialists

• This cooperation promotes social solidairty but for this to be successful, each individual; must have the necessary specialist knowledge and skills to perform their role

Question 8

Define meritocracy

Answer 8

A person’s status is achieved not ascribed through individual effort and ability

In a meritocracy, eveyone is given an equal opportunity

Question 9

What does the American functionalist say on meritocracy?

Answer 9

• Parsons sees schools as preparing us to move from the family to wider society as both are based on meritocratic principles

• He sees the schools as the ‘focal socialising agency’ in modern society acting as bridge between the family and wider society - the bridge necessary as society & the family operate on different principles

• In the family the child is judged by particularistic standards Similarly in the family, the child’s status is ascribed, fixed by birth. For example, an elder son and a younger daughter may be given different rights and duties due to differences in age and sex

• Both school and wider society judge us all by the same universalistic and impersonal standards.
E.g. same laws apply to all, we all sit the same exam and the pass mark is the same for all

• In school and society - status is largely achieved, not ascribed
E.g. promotion - based on strength and how well we do our job, pass/fail based on individual efforts

Question 10

Give the functionalist view on role alloction

Answer 10

School performs a function of selecting and allocating pupils to their future work roles. By assessing individuals’ aptitudes and abilities.

Davis & Moore see education as a device for selection and role allocation

• They argue inequality is necessary to ensure important roles are filled by most talented people

E.g. It would be innefficient and dangerous to have less competent people performing roles like a surgeon of airline pilot

Not eveyone is equally talented so higher rewards are given, increasing competition & society can select the most talented

• Education plays a key role in this process: Acts as a ‘proving ground’ for ability, It ‘sifts and sorts’ us according to ability

Similarly Blau and Duncan argue that a modern economy depends for its prosperity on using its ‘human capital’, arguing a meritocratic education system does this best making most effective use of talents and maximise their productivity

Question 11

Define ‘human capital’

Answer 11

Blau & Duncan

It’s worker’s skills

Question 12

Give the six evaluations of the functionalist perspective on the role of education

Answer 12

• Doesn’t teach specialist skills adequately - The Wolf review of vocational education claim high quality apprenticeships are rare and up to a third of 16-19 yr olds are on a courses that don’t lead to high education or good jobs
• Achievement is greatly influenced by class background rather than ability
• Tumin criticises Davis & Moore for putting forward a circular argument
• Marxists argue education in capitalist society transmits the ideology of the minority - the ruling class not like functionalists that view education as a process that instils the shared values of society as a whole
• Functionalists wrongly imply that pupils passively accept all they are taught and never reject shool values.
  Interactionist Wrong argue Functionalist have an ‘oversocialised view’ of people as mere puppets of society
• Neoliberals + New Right argue the state education fails to prepare young people adequately for work

Question 13

What is the neoliberal perspective on education?

Answer 13

Value of education lies in how it enables the country to compete in the global marketplace only achieved if schools become more like businesses, empowering parents and pupils as customers using competition to drive up standards

They believe the state shouldn’t provide certain sevices such as education

Question 14

What is Neoliberalism?

Answer 14

A highly influential economic doctrine that has had major influence: on education policy, all governments

Based on the idea that the state must not dicatate to individuals how to dispose of own property, and shouldn’t try ro regulate the free-market economy

Governments should encourage competition, privatise state-run businesses and deregulate markets

Question 15

What is the New Right?

Answer 15

A conservative political view, incorperates neoliberal economic ideas

A central principle is the belief that the state can’t meet people’s needs & that people are best left to meet their own needs through the free market - for this reason they favour the marketisation of education

Question 16

Give the three similarities between the New Right and Functionalist perspective

Answer 16

1. Both believe some people are naturally more talented than others
2. 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
3. Both believe education should socialise pupils into shared values, such as competition, and instil a sense of national identity

Question 17

Give a key difference between the New Right and Functionalist perspective

Answer 17

They believe the current education system is not achieving these goals

The reason for it failure - it is run by the state

State education system takes a ‘one size fits all’ approach imposing uniformity and disregarding local needs. The local customers - parents, pupils, employers - have no say

SES are therefore unresponsive and inefficient. Schools that waste money or get poor results are not answerable to customers

This means lower standards of achievement for pupils, a less qualified workforce and a less prosperous economy

Question 18

Give the New Right’s solution to this key difference

Answer 18

Marketisation of education - creating an ‘education market’

Competition between schools and empowering consumers will bring greater diversity, choice and efficiency to schools, and increase schools’ ability to meet the needs of pupils, parents & employers

Question 19

Give a good example of the New Right perspective on education

Answer 19

Chubb & Moe - Consumer choice

argue state education has failed in the US

Question 20

Why did the NR American sociologists argue state educaction in the US has failed? Give three reasons

Answer 20

• It has not created equal opportunity + has failed the needs of disadvantaged groups
• Inefficient as it fails to produce pupils with skills needed by the economy
• Private schools deliver higher quality education, since unlike state schools, they are answerable to paying consumers - parents

Question 21

What did Chubb & Moe base their arguments on?

Answer 21

A comparison of the achievements of 60,000 pupils from low income families in 1,015 private and state high schools

Together with the findings of a parents survey and case studies of ‘failing schools’ apparantly being ‘turned around’

Their evidence shows that pupils from low income families consistently do about 5% better in private than in state schools

Question 22

Based on these findings what did Chubb & Moe call for + propose?

Answer 22

• Call for the introduction of a market system in state education, that would put control in the hand of consumers (parents + local communities). They argue this would would allow consumers to shape schools to meet their own needs and would improve quality & efficiency
• To achieve this, they propose a system in which each family is given a voucher to spend on buying education from a school of their choice.

Question 23

Give an advantage of the voucher system Chubb & Moe proposed to intoduce a market into the SES

Answer 23

Forces schools to become more repsonsive to parents’ wishes, as vouchers would be the school’s main source of income

Like private businesses, schools would have to compete to attract ‘customers’ by improving their ‘product’

Question 24

Where does the market system already exist?

Answer 24

Private sector - principles already at work

In C+M’s view, educational standards would be greatly improved by introducing the same market forces into the state sector

Question 25

Give another function of education in the NR view

Answer 25

Education should affirm the national identity

For example, the curriculum should emphasise Britains positive role in world history, teach British literature & their should be a Christian act of worship each day in school - since Christianity is the main religion

The aim is to integrate pupils into a single set of traditions and cultural values - oppose multicultural education reflective of the cultures of different minority groups in Britian

Question 26

Give the two roles of the state in the NR view

Answer 26

• Imposes a framework on schools within which they have to compete

For example by publishing Ofsted inspection reports and league tables of exam results, the state gives parents’ information with which to make more informed choice between schools

• Ensures schools transmits a shared culture

By imposing a single National Curriculum, seeking to guarantee pupils are socialised into a single cultural heritage

Question 27

Give the four evaluations of the NR perspective

Answer 27

• Gewirtz & Ball argue that competition only benefits the middle class who can use their economic and cultural capital to gain access to more desirable schools
• Critics argue the real cause of low educational standards is social inequality and inadequate funding in state schools not state control
• Contradition between the NR’s support for parental choice on one hand and the state imposing a compulsory National curriculum on the other
• Marxists argue education doesn’t impose a shared national culture, but imposes the culture of the dominant minority ruling class and devalues the culture of WC and ethnic minorities

Question 28

Give the Marxist perspective on education

Answer 28

A class conflict approach

Based on class division and capitalist exploitation