theories Flashcards
functionalist theory - durkheim - social solidarity and specialist skills
social solidarity - transmits society’s norms and values to new generations to prepare children for the wider world and teach specialist skills needed by employers due to complex division of labour
durkheim criticism
wolf report - education system doesn’t teach specialist skills adequately
functionalist - davies and moore - role allocation
most important roles should be filled by most talented people - role of education is to sift and sort students to their future roles through qualifications they get to fulfill most important roles
davies and moore criticism
new right - school fails to prepare students for work bc of too much interference from government
functionalist - parsons - bridge between family and society and secondary socialisation
in wider society status is achieved based on universalistic standards as society is meritocratic - through edu, children get used to meritocratic and universalistic standards preparing them for wider society
school carries out secondary socialisation to prepare children for wider society
parsons criticism
edu system not meritocratic - evidence that CAGE can affect achievement
new right
edu system failing to fulfil its purpose of preparing students for world of work and secondary socialisation
state takes one size fits all approach - ignores needs of parents and students
edu system inefficient - wastes resources, maintains low standards, creates unprepared labour force - damaging to economy
new right - chubb and moe - marketisation
schools should be marketised to create competition and give choice to consumers.
each family should be given vouchers to use to pay for children’s edu - for more money, schools need to attract the most students -> need to have good results for this -> increases competition
chubb and moe criticism
competition and parental choice only benefits m/c who use cultural and economic capital to get children into best schools
social inequality causes low educational standards, not state control
new right - role state should have
provide framework within which schools compete against each other
ensure schools transmit shared values by imposing national curriculum on all schools to integrate pupils into same set of values
marxism - althusser - ideological state apparatus
edu is part of ideological state apparatus so protects r/c by: reproducing class inequalities - fail each successive gen of w/c so poor stay poor
legitimising class inequality - using r/c ideology to disguise truth so w/c think system is fair
althusser criticism
deterministic - assumes students passively follow r/c ideology created by edu system when students have free will
marxism - bowles and gintis - correspondence principle and hidden curriculum
edu reproduces class inequality through: correspondence principle - schools mirror workplace to prepare children for fordism - both are hierarchies, students and workers are alienated from work, extrinsic rewards to create submissive punctual and compliant students
hidden curriculum - things learnt through everyday life at school - punctuality, obedience
bowles and gintis criticism
postmodernists - outdated theory - move to post fordism which requires highly skilled adaptable workforce
marxism - willis
edu reproduces and legitimises class inequality by creating obedient workforce - acknowledges free will - w/c can resist indoctrination at school however, the resistance slots them into labour force that meets needs of capitalism
studied 12 m/c white boys - counter school s/c - didn’t follow rules and had sexist attitudes and didn’t believe hard work leads to m/c jobs so by holding anti school attitudes they failed their exams - were only able to get low paid manual jobs
