The Role Of Education In Society (Perspectives) Flashcards
What view does Functionalism have?
based on the view that society is a system of interdependent parts held together by a shared culture or value consensus.
What 2 features did Durkheim talk about in education?
Social solidarity
Specialist skills
Explain social solidarity
- It is necessary in society to be part of a community that has shared norms and values, and that education provides it.
- Education system helps to create this by transmitting society’s culture (shared beliefs and values) from one generation to the next.
Give an example of social solidarity. How does school prepare us?
School also acts as a ‘society in miniature’, preparing us for life in wider society.
E.G. both in school and work we have to cooperate with people who are neither friends nor family - teachers and students at school, colleagues and customers at work.
Explain specialist skills
-Modern industrial economies have a complex Division of Labour, where the production of even a single item usually involves the cooperation of many different specialists.
- Education teaches individuals the specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social Division of labour.
What did Parsons say?
Argues that school bridges the gap between the family and wider society- children have to learn society’s principles.
What is meritocracy?
Meritocracy at school helps us move from family to wider society. Meritocracy is where everyone is given equal opportunities and are rewarded through their own efforts/ability.
What was Parsons viewpoint about status?
Believes school /wider society gives us achieved status gained through efforts/achievements, not through fixed characteristics like gender or class- ascribed status.
What did Davis and Moore say about role allocation?
- Argue that education allocated pupils to suitable future job roles.
- They focus on the relationship between education and inequality – That important roles in society need to be for the skilled and talented, as some are naturally more talented than others.
Give an example of Davis and Moore viewpoint.
It would be inefficient and dangerous to have less able people performing roles such as airline pilot or doctor.
What was Davis and Moore point about functionally important roles?
Education is where students prove their ability and are then sifted and sorted by ability. The highest qualifications get the highest positions.
1) Evaluation of functionalism - equality
There is ample evidence that equal opportunity in education does not exist. E.g. achievement is greatly influenced by class background rather than ability;
2) Evaluation of Functionalism- Marxists
Marxists argue that education in capitalist society only transmits the ideology of a minority (the ruling class);
3) Evaluation of functionalism- Wrong (1961)
Interactionalist Wrong (1961) says that functionalists have an ‘over socialised view’ of people as mere puppets of society, they imply that pupils accept everything they’re taught and never reject the school’s values;
4) Evaluation of functionalism - New right + neoliberals
Neoliberals and New Right argue that the state education system fails to prepare young people adequately for work.
What did Althusser say?
The purpose of education is to reinforce and legitimise inequalities through the myth of meritocracy.
Althusser argues that education is an important ideological state apparatus, that performs what 2 functions?
1) Reproduces class inequality: transmitting it from generation to generation, by failing each successive gen of WC pupils in turn.
2) Legitimising class inequality: making sets of values/beliefs that hide their actual cause. The ideology persuades workers to accept that inequality is inevitable and that they deserve subordinate positions in society. This means WC pupils are less likely to challenge/threaten capitalism.
What did Bowles and Gintis argue about the hidden curriculum?
Education prepares students for future roles through the hidden curriculum. This means school prepares WC pupils for the role of exploited worker, which reproduces capitalism and perpetrates class inequality from generation to generation.
What is the correspondence principle?
argues school mirrors the workplace.
EG: schools/workplaces both have hierarchies- headteachers/bosses up top, workers/pupils obeying at the bottom. They argues that the correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum.
What is the ‘myth of meritocracy’ ?
It is the legitimisation of class inequality. Meritocracy is a myth because no matter how hard someone works, rewards aren’t based on efforts.
Marxists see meritocracy as a way to justify privileges the higher classes have, and that others can ‘work hard’ and get them too.
What did Willis say?
W/C pupils are aware of being exploited so they resisted the attempts of education that tried to get them to conform.
Explain Willis’ study?
- He used qualitative research methods- unstructured interviews, participant observation to study the lad’s counter-culture of 12 WC boys.
Found their counter-culture opposes the school, they are scornful to the conformist boys as they listen to teachers. - The lads find school boring/meaningless, so they go against values & rules by smoking/drinking, truanting and disrupting class. Here they reject the idea that the WC can get MC jobs by working hard
1) Evaluation of Marxism - postmodernists
Postmodernists say education produces diversity, not inequality, the correspondence principle is wrong because we need schools to make a labour force in today’s Post-Fordist economy.
2) Evaluation of Marxism - deterministic
Principle is too deterministic- it assumes students are passive and accept indoctrination- fails to explain why pupils can reject school’s beliefs and values.
