Role Of Education In Society

Question 1

Durkheim social solidarity

Answer 1

We need sense of solidarity, so people feel part of ‘body’ and don’t pursue selfish desires. Education creates this by transmitting society’s culture e.g., teaching a country’s history. School creates a society in nature, preparing pupils to cooperate with those who are neither family nor friends

Question 2

Specialist skills

Answer 2

Durkheim says education teaches specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social division of labour

Question 3

Parson’s meritocracy

Answer 3

School acts as bridge between family and wider society which is needed so children can cope with wider world. Child is judged by particularistic standards at home whilst school and society judge with universalistic standards. Status is achieved.

Question 4

Davis and Moore role allocation

Answer 4

Inequality is necessary so those who are the most talented get the most important jobs in society and are incentivised with high pay

Question 5

New right

Answer 5

Similarities between them and functionalism include that both believe some are more talented than others, both favour meritocratic education and both believe education should socialise pupils into shared values. However, New Right say education is inefficient and marketisation is needed

Question 6

Chubb and Moe consumer choice

Answer 6

Look at 60K pupils from low-income families and found they do 5% better in private schools so we need a market system where consumers get choice and that vouchers should be introduced where families can spend these on buying education from school of their choice

Question 7

Two roles for the state

Answer 7

New Right say important roles for state are imposing a framework on schools within which they have to compete and that the state ensures that schools transmit a shared culture

Question 8

Althusser

Answer 8

School is an ISA and reproduces class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation, education legitimatises class inequality by producing beliefs that disguise its true cause

Question 9

Bowles and Gintis

Answer 9

Study of high school students found schools reward personality traits that make up submissive workers

Question 10

Correspondence principle and hidden curriculum

Answer 10

Bowles and Gintis say both school and work are hierarches with workers at the bottom showing how school mirrors workplace

Question 11

Myth of meritocracy

Answer 11

No equal opportunities

Question 12

Willis: learning to labour

Answer 12

study of 12 wc boys who find schools boring and notes similarity between lads’ anti school counterculture and shopfloor culture of male-manual workers. Both see manual work as superior and explains their resistance to school