The role of education Flashcards
What do functionalists believe the role of education is
1) Passing on society’s cultures and building social solidarity
2) Providing a bridge
3) Developing a human capital
4) Selecting and allocating people for roles
Durkeim “Education provides two basic functions”
1) Promotes social solidarity
2) Prepares students for work
1) Education binds people together by teaching students the norms and values of society, as well as common history and shared rituals. It also teaches children to follow the same universalistic rules eg wearing uniform, listening to authority
2) Education equips individuals for the specialist skills needed to participate to work in a modern society
Parsons: Secondary socialisation and meritocracy
SS- as wonderful as primary socialisation is, families treat everyone as special, which cannot work in society as a whole. Schools is there to act as a bridge between family and wider society, and teachers. Everyone has the same universalistic standards. Gives students the shared values that we all have in our meritocratic society
Meritocracy- individual achievement
Everyone achieves their status through their own efforts and abilities. Everyone has the oppurtunity to reach their full potential
Davis and Moore: Role allocation
Some people are naturally more talented than others and some job roles are more complex than others
-For society to function, this role allocation needs to happen
-Higher rewards for the most complex jobs, which motivates everyone to strive for them
-A meritocratic education system allows everyone to compete for jobs equally. This education system allows the most talented individuals to get the best qualifications and are therefore allocated to most complex jobs
MARXISM- Althusser
The repressive and idealogical state apparatus-
Where the state uses force to stop rebellion eg police and army
The ‘brainwashing’ parts of society that help you believe in capitalist ideas such as meritocracy eg education and media
Education is an ISA through two functions:
Reproduction- the next generation of workers is reproduced through failing students from w/c backgrounds
Legitimation- by making lies such as ‘meritocracy’ appear as truth, blame failure on individual rather than the capitalist system
Has to be small number of exceptions to keep alive that achievement is possible
BOURDIEU- Cultural capital
Education plays a key role in legitimising class inequalities.
Each class has a habitus. This framework of cultural ideas is transmitted through the different agencies of socialisation
Upper and middle class habitus has more influence, which BOURDIEU calls cultural capital.
Suggests success in education is based on how much cultural capital a person has
Illich and Freire- “schools are places of repression”
Ilich- schools are repressive institutions which promote conformity and positivity
This is done by rewarding those who accept the regime and punishing those who don’t eg excluding students. Schools should be abolished
Freire- schools are places where learners are conditioned to accept oppression and subordination
Bowles and Gintis: The correspondence principle
Bowles and Gintis believe that school prepares students for work and that school mirrors the workplace in several ways- link to Parson’s and Durkheim
-Hidden curriculum: all the lessons you are taught in school that aren’t directly taught (obedience)
-Myth of meritocracy: Bowles and Gintis believe that success is not based on hard work and talent instead down to class background
-Role allocation: Believe education is there to allocate roles. Best grades go too most obedient students
Willis: Learning to labour
Criticises Bowles and Gintis
Instead of correspondence principle, he thinks w/c students don’t passively accept the system but know they are set up to fail
Sees through myth of meritocracy, and form counter-school subcultures where they go against school rules and aspire to manual jobs
End result still the same, boys still fail and become servants to capitalism
Marxist evaluation
Post modernists: Marxism is out of date
The correspondence principle no longer exists and we live in a post-class era
Feminists: argue that schools reduce patriarchy rather than capitalism
Romanticisation: W/C students seen as sympathetically, rather than poorly behaved students who can make bad decisions
New right on education- marketisation
Think schools work best in a free market environment, where schools act like businesses for the consumers (students)
Margaret Thatcher introduced neo-liberal policy into education
New right similarities with functionalism-
-Belief that some are more naturally talented than others
-Belief that education should be meritocratic and based on competition
-Belief that education socialises people to share values
Chubb and Moe- One size fits all
New right believe that government cannot run a good education system
Argue that this is because of state-run education system is essentially the same for everyone
New right believe that individuals and communities have variety of different needs
State-run education system cannot cater for this
Solution
New right think private schools are the answer as it solves the problems of accountability
Chubb and Moe specifically believe that each family should be a given voucher per students which they ‘spend’ with which ever private school they like
New right- national identity
Believe our schools should promote “Britishness” and teach about positive elements of British history
Therefore oppose multiculturalism within education
Fails to promote our single set of share values and culture
Doesn’t allow teachings of negatives eg transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, invention of concentration camps
New right evaluation
Gerwitz and Ball believe that marketisation only benefits middle class
Ignore what others believe to be the real cause of low education results eg lack of accountability of schools, pupils in poverty
