ROLE OF EDUCATION IN SOCIETY - NEW RIGHT/NEOLIBERALISM

Question 1

What are the similarities between New Right and Functionalist views?

Answer 1

• Both believe that some people are naturally more talented than others
• Both favour an education system run on meritocratic principles of open competition
• Both believe that education should socialise pupils into shared values and instil a sense of national identity

Question 2

What do the New Right believe in?

Answer 2

Argue that education takes a ‘one size fits all’ approach. The local consumers who use the school have no say. Schools should be privatised to give parental choice (Parentocracy)

Question 3

What are the Two roles for the state?

Answer 3

• State imposes a framework on schools within which they have to compete. E.g: league tables
• State ensures that schools transmit a shared culture through imposing a single National Curriculum, seeks to guarantee that shcools socialise pupils into a single cultural heritage

Question 4

What do New Right believe education should affirm?

Answer 4

Education shoul affirm national identity. For example, the curriculum should emphasise Britain’s positive role in world history and teach British literature, Christian act of worship, etc

Question 5

How do Gewirtz and Ball argue against this perspective?

Answer 5

Competition between schools benefits the middle class, who can use their cultural and economic capital to gain access to more desirable schools.

Question 6

How do Marxists argue against this perspective?

Answer 6

Education does not impose a shared national culture, as the New Right claim, but imposes the culture of a dominant minority ruling class and devalues the culture of the working class and minority ethnic groups.