The Role of Education Flashcards
Functionalist theorists believe that the role of education is to carry out secondary socialisation of core values. What does Durkheim argue the role of education in society to be?
Durkheim argues that education passes on norms and values in order to integrate individuals into society. This way social order is created and is based on cohesion and value consensus as well as social solidarity.
Education functions to allocate roles though sifting and sorting people to the appropriate roles. What did Parsons call education?
Parsons argues that education is the bridge between childhood and adulthood. Education is meritocratic and selects students into roles universally through achievement.
According to functionalist theory, education provides the skills for work that are required by the economy. What principles did Davis and Moore base this on?
Davis and Moore argued that through stratification people are motivated by money or status to gain high positions.
Briefly summarise the functionalist position on the role of education.
Functionalists believe that education is meritocratic - social rewards are allocated based on talent and effort rather than being innate. Education provides equal opportunity to gain high qualifications in society.
Differential achievement suggests that education is not as meritocratic as functionalists suggest. What other issues are there with the functionalist view of education?
The allocation function is flawed because of “who you know”.
Education does not prepare for work. the lack of engineering graduates implies that education fails to produce what the economy needs.
Functionalism ignores conflict and does not look at the social processes of schools.
What are the three basic points of the functionalist contribution to education?
Education provides secondary socialisation
Education is meritocratic.
Education provides the skills required by the economy.
Marxist theorists, Bowles and Gintis, argued that education prepares students for work by teaching them the skills and values needed. How does education do this?
Bowles and Gintis argue that education teaches students the status hierarchy in school and work, rewards for boring work and subservience. The hidden curriculum (lessons not openly intended) teaches norms, values and beliefs of following instructions.
Education to Marxists passes on ruling class capitalist ideology. Outline and evaluate this claim.
Althusser argues that education is a part of the ideological state apparatus that legitimises inequality and produces a workforce that is obedient, docile and not a challenge to authority. Willis criticises this by pointing out that students form anti-school subcultures that gain status from disrupting lessons.
Marxists also argue that education legitimises inequality. Provide evidence for this claim
Bordieu outlined how middle-class students go on to fill out the top positions in society. This is due to cultural capital - the right language, skills, knowledge and attitudes. The more cultural capital one has, the more successful one will be in education. Working class students don’t have access to cultural capital as it is passed on through cultural reproduction.
Bordieu argued that working class students don’t do as well in education due to a lack of cultural capital. Evaluate this claim.
Halsey argues that Bordieu ignores material factors as well as the fact that not all working class students fail. Bernstein aruges that w/c students are disadvantaged in terms of language - restricted code over elaborate code.
Briefly evaluate Marxist ideas on education.
Marxists exaggerate how much w/c students are socialised into obedience (Willis)
People already don’t think of inequality as legitimate and are aware of it.
Marxism doesn’t look at the social processes at schools.
Summarise the Marxists’ take on education in three points.
Prepares children for work by teaching the skills and values needed.
Passes on ruling class ideology
Legitimises inequality.
Define the hidden curriculum.
The hidden curriculum refers to the lessons which aren’t intended to be taught. For Marxists the hidden curriculum teaches students the hierarchy, hard work, dress code etc while for feminists the hc reinforces patriarchal values and gender differences.
Briefly summarise the feminist take on the role of education.
Feminists believe that there are gender differences in subject choice, male domination in classrooms as well as top positions within the school.
What do liberal feminists argue for in education?
Liberal feminists want equal access to education for both sexes.
