The Role of Education in Society

Question 1

What did Durkheim (1903) argue the two roles of education are?

Answer 1

Social solidarity and teaching specialist skills

Question 2

Why does Durkheim (1903) argue we need social solidarity?

Answer 2

Without a sense of connection, social life and cooperation would become impossible as we would pursue selfish goals.

Question 3

How does Durkheim (1903) argue school’s create a sense of solidarity, giving an example?

Answer 3

Schools transmit the society’s culture and create a sense of innate connection with the people around you. History gives children a sense of shared heritage that bonds them.

Question 4

How do schools act as ‘society in miniature’ (Durkheim (1903))?

Answer 4

It prepares us for life in wider society by giving us similar tasks and responsibilities but with lower stakes. Missing an assignment in school is disciplined and teaches children not to miss deadlines in the working world.

Question 5

Outline Durkheim’s (1903) ‘Specialist Skills’

Answer 5

Schools need to teach children specialist skills in order to ensure smooth division of labour in the economy.

Question 6

According to Parsons (1961), how does school bridge the gap between family and wider society?

Answer 6

Within the family, a child is judged by particularist standards and has an ascribed status. In wider society, standards are universal and status is supposedly achieved. School combines aspects of both to assist the transition.

Question 7

According to Davis and Moore (1945), how do schools act as a device for role allocation?

Answer 7

As it would be inefficient to have less able people doing jobs like surgeon and pilot, schools act as a ‘proving ground’ or meritocracy where students can prove their aptitude to ascend to these higher jobs.

Question 8

Summarize Blau and Duncan’s (1978) belief about school’s and human capital

Answer 8

Modern economies’ prosperities relies on human capital or workers’ skills, a meritocratic system is the most effective for this.

Question 9

Give an example of school’s acting as meritocracies and a criticism

Answer 9

Everyone takes standardized tests and are graded by people that don’t know them so aren’t biased
- Many are disadvantaged based on innate characteristics like race and class

Question 10

Give three evaluations of the functionalist perspective of education.

Answer 10

• As we know, equal opportunity in education is not guaranteed and often a myth.
• Tumin (1953) criticises Davis and Moore (1945) for having a circular argument.
• Durkheim’s Social Solidarity VS. Marxist Bourgeois Hegemony
• New Right believes education fails in this

Question 11

How are New Right and Functionalist perspectives on education similar? How do they differ?

Answer 11

+ Both believe in natural aptitude
+ Both believe in a meritocracy
+ Both believe in instilling a national identity and culture
- The New Right does not believe that the current education system is doing this

Question 12

According to Chubb and Moe (1990), why has US state-run education failed?

Answer 12

• It has not created equal opportunity
• It fails to produce pupils with skills needed by the economy
• Private schools are more accountable

Question 13

According to Chubb and Moe (1990), how much better do W/C pupils do in private schools than public?

Answer 13

5%

Question 14

What was Chubb and Moe’s (1990) model of education

Answer 14

Pupil voucher

Question 15

What are the two roles of the state in education under the New Right?

Answer 15

1. Imposing a framework for schools to compete (e.g. publishing league tables and Ofsted reports)
2. Ensuring that schools transmit a shared culture (e.g. the National Curriculum)

Question 16

Give three criticisms of the New Right perspective of education.

Answer 16

• Gerwitz (1995) and Ball (1994): competition benefits the middle class who can use their cultural/economic capital to get better schools
• Real cause of low educational standards is social inequality
• New Right’s support of increased parental choice Vs. New Right’s support of National Curriculum
• Marxist critique: shared culture Vs. Bourgeois hegemony

Question 17

What are Althusser’s two types of state apparatus?

Answer 17

• Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs) that maintain rule by use of force
• Ideological State Apparatus (ISAs) that maintain rule by controlling ideas, values and beliefs.

Question 18

How is education considered an ISA?

Answer 18

Education reproduces class inequality by continually failing the working class and legitimates this inequality through the socialisation.

Question 19

Describe Bowles and Gintis (1976) ‘correspondence principle’.

Answer 19

Schools mirror the workplace and reward students who behave like good workers, encouraging that behaviour for late in life for their role as exploited workers.

Question 20

According to Bowles and Gintis (1976), how does education legitimate class inequality?

Answer 20

Through the ‘myth of meritocracy’, education convinced people that the bourgeoisie became rich and powerful through hard work and intelligence rather than being born into it. Additionally, it reinforced the “poor-are-dumb” theory.

Question 21

Give an example of how working class students are disadvantaged in education?

Answer 21

Working classes students are often labelled poorly and placed in lower streams, this effects their outlook (self esteem or rebellion) and can cap them at certain grades.
- Sees people as disagentic and unable to take control of their future

Question 22

How do Willis’s (1977) lads defy the school?

Answer 22

They ‘take the piss’ out of ear’oles and girls, smoke, drink, skiive, and generally reject the school’s meritocratic ideals.

Question 23

How are Willis’ (1997) lads’ counter-culture and manual-work shop floor culture similar?

Answer 23

Both see manual work as superior to and more masculine than intellectual work that ear’oles and girls aspire to.

Question 24

How does the counter culture of Willis’ (1977) lads benefit capitalism?

Answer 24

• They romanticise manual labour that will not pay very much
• They have learnt from school that work does not have to be fun so don’t expect fulfilment from their jobs
• Their acts of rebellion ensure that they end up in ‘unskilled’ and low-paid labour.

Question 25

How does Durkheim’s idea of capital relate to reproducing inequality?

Answer 25

Because the working class do not have any type of capital, working class children are unable to attain quality educations and escape poverty, so the cycle repeats.

Question 26

Give three criticisms of the Marxist perspective of education.

Answer 26

• Postmodernists argue that we are now in a Fordist economy that requires schools to produce a different kind of labour force than the Marxists describe.
• Marxists can’t agree on how schools reproduce and legitimate inequality : Bowles and Gintis (1976) Vs Willis (1977)
• Critical Modernists, such as the feminist MacDonald (1980), argue that Marxists almost entirely ignore different types of inequality that schools reproduce.
• Willis romanticises the Lads as working-heroes despite their anti social behaviour and prejudice to women and minorities.