The Role Of Education In Society Flashcards
Explain what functionalists mean by ‘value consensus’.
An agreement among society’s members about what values are important.
What do functionalists aim to explain when studying education?
Functionalists seek to discover what functions it performs - that is, what does it do to help meet society’s needs?
Explain how education helps to create social solidarity.
By transmitting society’s culture - its shared beliefs and values - from one generation to the next.
Give an example of how education helps to create social solidarity.
Durkheim argues that the teaching of a country’s history instils in children a sense of a shared heritage and a commitment to the wider social group.
What is social solidarity?
Durkheim argues that society needs a sense of solidarity; that is, its individual members must feel themselves to be part of a single ‘body’ or community.
How does school resemble a ‘society in miniature’?
It prepares us for life in wider society.
For example, In both school + work we have to cooperate with people who are neither family nor friends - teachers + pupils at school, colleagues and customers at work. Similarly, both in school and work we have to interact with others according to a set of impersonal rules that apply to everyone.
According to Durkheim, why does education need to teach specialist skills?
Durkheim argues that education teaches individuals the specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social division of labour.
What are particularistic standards?
Rules that only apply to a particular person.
How does education act as a bridge between the family and wider society?
Parsons sees the school as the ‘focal socialising agency’ in modern society, acting as a bridge between the family and wider society. This bridge is needed because family and society operate on different principles, so children need to learn a new way of living if they are to cope with the wider world.
What is a meritocracy?
In a meritocracy, everyone is given an equal opportunity, and individuals achieve rewards through their own efforts and ability.
According to Davis and Moore, why is it important for role allocation to be meritocratic?
They argue that inequality is necessary to ensure that the most important roles in society are filled by the most talented people. Not everyone is equally talented so society has to offer higher rewards for these jobs (e.g pilot + surgeon). This will encourage everyone to compete for them and society can select the most talented individuals to fill these positions.
How does education achieve in making role allocation meritocratic?
It acts as a proving ground for ability. Education is where individuals show what they can do. It ‘sifts and sorts’ us according to our ability. The most able gain the highest qualifications, which then gives them entry to the most important and highly rewarding positions.
What is human capital?
Plau and Duncan argue that a modern economy depends for its prosperity on using its ‘human capital’ - its workers’ skills. They argue that a meritocratic education system does this best, since it enables each person to be allocated to the job best suited to their abilities.
State four criticisms of the functionalist perspective.
- The education system does not teach specialised skills adequately, as Durkheim claims.
- Tumin criticises Davis and Moore for putting forward a circular argument: How do we know that a job is important? Answer because its highly rewarded. Why are some jobs more highly rewarded? Answer: because they are highly important.
- Functionalists see education as a process that instils the shared values of society as a whole, but Marxists argue that education in capitalist society only transmits the ideology of a minority - the ruling class.
- Neoliberals and the New Right argue that the state education system fails to prepare young people adequately for work.
