Role of education in society

Question 1

What 2 main functions of education does Durkheim identify?

Answer 1

1. Creating social solidarity
2. Teaching specialist skills

Question 2

Why does Durkheim think that social solidarity is important in society?

Answer 2

He argues that without social solidarity, social life and cooperation would be impossible because each individual would pursue their own selfish desires

Question 3

How does Durkheim argue that the education system helps to create social solidarity?

Answer 3

1. Transmits society’s culture - its shared beliefs and values from one generation to the next
2. School acts as a ‘society in miniature’ preparing us for life in wider society - both in school and work we have to cooperate with people who are neither family nor friends

Question 4

How does Durkheim argue that education teaches individuals their specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play a part in the social division of labour?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Why does Parsons describe school as the ‘focal socialising agency’ in modern society?

Answer 5

• School acts as a bridge between the family and wider society
• The bridge is needed because family and society operate on different principles

Question 6

Why is the child judged by different standards in the family and wider society such as schools?

Answer 6

• The child is judged by particularisitic standards in the family, the child’s status is ascribed
• Both schools and wider society judge us all by the same universal standards, a person’s status is largely achieved

Question 7

How does Davis and Moore see education as a device for selection and role allocation?

Answer 7

• Education ‘sifts and sorts’ us by assessing an individuals aptitudes and abilities
• They argue inequality is necessary to ensure that the most important roles in society are filled by the most talented people

Question 8

What are 3 criticisms of the functionalist perspective?

Answer 8

1. There is ample evidence meritocracy doesn’t exist - achievement greatly influenced by class background
2. Marxists argue education in capitalist society only transmits the ideology of the ruling class
3. ‘Over-socialised view’ of people as mere puppets of society - assumes pupils will not reject schools values

Question 9

What do Neoliberals argue?

Answer 9

1. The state must not dictate to individuals how to dispose of their own property and argue that state should not provide services such as education, health and welfare
2. Gov should encourage competition, privatise state-run businesses and deregulate markets - schools should become more like businesses
3. Value of education lies in how well it enables the country to compete in the global marketplace

Question 10

What do New Rights argue?

Answer 10

• The state cannot meet people’s needs and that people are best left to meet their own needs through the free market
• For this reason New Right favour the marketisation of education

Question 11

What are similarities between the New Right and functionalist views?

Answer 11

• Both believe some people are naturally more talented than others
• Both favour a meritocratic education system
• Believe education should socialise pupils into shared values, such as competition

Question 12

What is are 2 key difference between Functionalism and New Right?

Answer 12

1. New Right argue that the education system takes a ‘one size fits all’ approach imposing uniformity and disregarding local needs
2. Believe in marketising education - believe that competition between schools and empowering consumers will bring greater diversity, choice and efficiency

Question 13

What does Chubb and Moe argue?

Answer 13

• Believer in consumer choice allowing parents to be in control to shape schools in order to meet their own needs
• Force schools to become more responsive, schools have to compete to attract ‘customers’ by improving their ‘product’ (private schools do better because they are answerable to paying consumers)
• Found 5% of LI children do better in private schools than state schools

Question 14

What 2 roles of the state does New Right highlight as important?

Answer 14

1. Imposes a framework, such as publishing Ofsted inspection reports and league tables
2. State ensures that schools transmit a shared culture by imposing the National Curriculum

Question 15

What are 2 criticisms of the New Right perspective?

Answer 15

1. Marxists argue that education does not impose a shared national culture but imposes the culture of a dominant minority ruling class
2. Real cause of low educational standards is not state control but social inequality and inadequate funding
3. Gerwitz and Ball both argue that competition between schools benefits the MC who can use their cultural and economic capital

Question 16

What do Marxists see as the function of education?

Answer 16

Functioning to prevent revolution and maintain capitalism

Question 17

According to Althusser the state consists of what 2 elements or ‘apparatuses’?

Answer 17

1. The repressive state apparatus - which maintains the rule of the bourgeoisie by force such as police/courts
2. The ideological state apparatus - which maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by controlling people’s ideas, values and beliefs such as the media/religion

Question 18

Althusser argues the education system is an important ISA, what 2 functions does it perform?

Answer 18

1. Education reproduces class inequality by transmitting it from one generation to the next
2. Education legitimates class inequalities by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause (accepting that inequality is inevitable)

Question 19

What kind of workforce does Bowles and Gintis describe as ‘well-suited’ for capitalism?

Answer 19

• Requires a workforce with the kind of attitudes, behaviour and personality-type suited to their role as alienated and exploited workers willing to accept hard work and low pay

Question 20

In Bowles and Gintis study, how did they conclude that schooling helps to produce the obedient workers that capitalism needs?

Answer 20

• In their study of 237 NYC students they conclude that schools reward precisely the kind of personality traits that make for a submissive, compliant worker

Question 21

What is the correspondence principle highlighted by Bowles and Gintis?

Answer 21

• There are close parallels between schooling and work, both schools and workplaces have hierarchies
• The relationships and structures found in education mirror to those of work

Question 22

What is the hidden curriculum suggest by Bowles and Gintis?

Answer 22

• The correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum, that is all the ‘lessons’ that are learnt in school without being directly taught
• Preparing pupils for their role as exploited workers

Question 23

How does Bowles and Gintis believe education responds to the poor feeling that the inequality is undeserving and unfair?

Answer 23

The education system prevents this from happening by legitimising class inequalities
- This is done by producing ideologies that serve to explain and justify why inequality is fair, natural and inevitable (myth of meritocracy)

Question 24

What was Willis ‘learning to labour’ study?

Answer 24

• A study of 12 WC boys who formed a district counter-culture
• They are scornful to the conformist boys the ear’oles
• They find school boring and meaningless and they flout its rules and values these are their ways of resisting the school

Question 25

How does the lads counter-culture of resistance to school help them to slot into the very jobs - inferior in terms of skill, pay and conditions?

Answer 25

1. Having been accustomed to boredom and finding ways to amusing themselves they don’t expect satisfaction from work
2. Their acts of rebellion guarantee that they will end up in unskilled jobs

Question 26

What are 2 criticisms of the Marxist approach?

Answer 26

1. Bowles and Gintis take a deterministic view, they assume pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination
2. Willis’ account of the ‘lads’ romanticises them, portraying them as WC heroes despite their anti-social behaviour