Topic 5: Education - role of education in society

Question 1

Who proposed that there were 2 functions of education, when and what were they?

Answer 1

Durkheim (1903)
1. Social Solidarity
2. Teaching specialist skills

Question 2

Explain the function of social solidarity.

Answer 2

• Durkheim argues society needs a sense of solidarity
• individual members must fell themselves to be part of a single body or community
  The education helps to create this by transmitting society’s culture - shared beliefs and values from one generation to the next
• Durkheim argues that the teaching of a country’s history instils in children a sense of a shared heritage and commitment to wider social group
• School also acts as a ‘society in miniature’ - preparing us for life in wider society
  e.g. in school and work we have to cooperate with people who are neither family nor friends - teachers and pupils at school and colleagues and customers at work.

Question 3

Explain the function : Specialist skills.

Answer 3

Modern industrial economies have a complex division of labour where the production of a single item involves the cooperation of many different specialists
- this promotes social solidarity, but for it to be successful each person must have specialist knowledge and skills for their roles
- Durkheim argues that education teaches individuals the specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social division of labour

Question 4

What does Parsons see the school as?

Answer 4

‘the focal socialising agency’ in modern society, acting as a bridge between the family and wider society

Question 5

Why is this bridge needed?

Answer 5

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

• in the family, the child is judged by particularistic standards, rules that only apply to that child
• in the family - the child’s status is ascribed , fixed at birth

In schools and wider society, we are all judged by the same universalistic and impersonal standards (in schools we all sit the same exam and pass mark is the same for everyone) . in society the law

Question 6

What is the repressive state apparatuses?

Answer 6

(RSAs) maintain rule of the bourgeoisie by force or the threat of it.
e.g. police, courts and army
While necessary, they use physical coercion to repress the working class

Question 7

What is the ideological state apparatuses (Louis Althusser (1971)?

Answer 7

(ISAs), maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by controlling people’s ideas, values and beliefs
The ISAs include religion, media and the education system

Question 10

Explain Althusser’s function of education reproducing class inequality.

Answer 10

• Reproducing class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation
• failing each successive generation of working-class pupils in turn

Question 11

Explain Althusser’s function of education legitimising class inequality:

Answer 11

• Education legitimises (justifies) class inequality by producing ideologies (sets of ideas and beliefs) that disguise its true cause.
• The function of ideology is to persuade workers to accept inequality as inevitable and that they deserve their subordinate position in society.
  -If they accept these ideas they are less likely to threaten or challenge capitalism

Question 12

How do Bowles and Gintis develop Althusser’s ideas on educations functions further?

Answer 12

• Argue capitalism required a workforce with the kind of attitudes, behaviour and personality type to their as alienated and exploited workers willing to accept hard work
• education reproduces an obedient workforce that will accept inequality as inevitable

Question 13

What did Bowles and Gintis find from their study?

Answer 13

1. Study of 237 New York high school students and finding of other studies concluded that schools reward precisely the kind of personality traits that make a submissive, compliant worker
2. E.g. they found that students who showed independence and creativity tended to gain low grades, while those who showed characteristics linked to obedience and discipline (such as punctuality) tended to gain high grades
3. From this evidence they concluded that schooling helps produce obedient workers that capitalism needs
4. Education does not foster personal development , but stunts and distorts students development

Question 14

What do Bowles and Gintis argue?

Answer 14

that there are close parallels between schooling and work in capitalist society

e.g Both schools and workplaces are hierarchies, with head teachers or bosses at top making deciions and given orders with workers