Roles of Education Flashcards
What view of education do Functionalists have?
- Structural, consensus view.
- Believe education is there to benefit everyone.
More specifically, what do Functionalists believe about education?
Give at least three examples.
At least three from the following:
- It acts as an agent of secondary socialisation.
- It should be used to benefit both the individual and wider society.
- It is a meritocratic system.
- Should encourage children into a sense of social solidarity.
- Some students are naturally more academically successful than others.
The main roles of education are:
- To promote social solidarity
- To teach norms and values
When were the New Right popular?
During the 1970s and 1980s
What are the similarities between New Right and Functionalist views of education?
They both believe:
- Some people are naturally more talented than others.
- Education is run on meritocratic principles and equal opportunity.
- Education should be designed to serve the needs of the economy by preparing pupils for work.
- Education should socialise pupils into shared norms and values and install a national identity.
What do the New Right believe about education?
- The current system isn’t achieving the goals of freedom as it is state run.
- Education is run on the politicians own personal view of what makes the best education system.
- State schools are unresponsive and insufficient.
- Schools are not answerable to their customers - they have less money and poor results, which results in pupil underachievement, a less efficient workforce, and a poor economy.
- We should not have a ‘once size fits all’ approach to education.
- The education system needs to introduce a free market, in order to give more freedom.
What are the evaluation points for New Right ideas?
- Free market principles only benefit the middle class.
- The real cause of educational underachievement, is not state schools, and instead is due to inequality in wider society.
- Contradictory policy - parents have chosen to a degree, but the state are still in control due to the national curriculum.
- Marxists believe education imposes the culture of capitalism.
Who do Marxists believe education benefits?
- The ruling class
- Capitalism - serves the needs of capitalism.
Why do Marxists want to move to a communist society?
So society can break free from false class conciousness.
What do Marxists believe to be the main role of education?
- To reproduce class inequality.
- To reproduce an ideal capitalist workforce.
What do Marxists believe the ideal capitalist workforce is?
People with the attitudes, behaviour and personality traits that will accept that:
- They have to work hard for low pay.
- They are being exploited.
What do Marxists believe about the meritocratic schooling system?
It is a myth
What do Marxists believe happens to the proletariat?
They are exploited to reduce the chances of a rebellion.
What do Marxists see to be the relationship between school and work?
There is a close link between school and work, and this is caused by the following:
- The hidden curriculum (things that pupils learn without being taught, such as manners.
- The inequality of power between people (hierarchy)
- Alienating conditions (the idea that you don’t always get to interact with the people you want to)
What are some evaluation points for Marxist ideas?
- Postmodernists argue that Bowles and Gintis fail to look at the different jobs and what skills/workforce they require.
- McRobbie (Feminist) argues that Marxist theories are gender bias (support men).
- Morrow and Torres believe that Marxist ideas ignore diversity and inequality outside of education (such as not being able to access the books and resources needed to succeed in education - material deprivation)
- MacDonald (1880) argues that Marxists ignore the fact that schools reproduce patriarchy as well as capitalism.
- Marxists acknowledge we have an ethnocentric curriculum which focusses only on one culture.
