Topic 6 - The Role of Education

Question 1

Functionalist perspective

Answer 1

• Organic analogy

Question 2

Durkheim

Answer 2

• Creating social solidarity
• Teaching specialist skills

Question 3

Social solidarity

Answer 3

• DURKHEIM
• Members feeling a sense of community
• Shared norms and values
• School = “society in miniature”

Question 4

Teaching specialist skills

Answer 4

• DURKHEIM
• School teaches specific skills depending on manual labour using their specialist knowledge

Question 5

Focal socialising agency

Answer 5

• PARSONS
• School = secondary socialisation
• Bridge the gap between knowledge learnt from home (primary socialisation) and wider society
• Family judged on particularistic standards
• School judged on universal standards

Question 6

Meritocracy

Answer 6

• PARSONS
• Same access to opportunity and rewarded through individual efforts and abilities

Question 7

Role allocation

Answer 7

• DAVIS and MOORE
• “sift and sort” through pupils to allocate them to jobs that suit their individual skillset
• Human capital = workers skills

Question 8

A03 Specialist skills

Answer 8

• WOLF REPORT found education system does not actually teach specialist skills
• INTERACTIONISTS “passive puppets”: some reject what they are taught
• NEOLIBERALS and NEW RIGHT argue the state education does not prepare people for work

Question 9

A03 Social solidarity

Answer 9

• FUNCTIONALISTS argue school instils harmony and solidarity
• MARXISTS argue they are not shared values but ideology imposed by the dominant class

Question 10

A03 Role allocation

Answer 10

• TUMIN = circular argument

Question 11

New Right perspective

Answer 11

• CHUBB and MOE
• Stare run education in America = failed
• Not created equal opportunity and has failed disadvantaged groups
• Inefficient = fails to produce pupils that the economy needs/private schools deliver higher quality education as they answer to paying parents
• In a study conducted on 60,000 pupils from low income families = do better in private schools than in state schools
• Parentocracy = giving parents control

Question 12

A03 New Right

Answer 12

• Takes one size fits all approach which disregards local need
• Unresponsive and inefficient
• Low standards and less qualified workforce due to schools that waste money and do not get good results

Question 13

Solution to New Right

Answer 13

• Marketisation = create an education market where competition between schools gives choice to the consumer and drives up standards

Question 14

A03 New Right and Neoliberalism

Answer 14

• GERWITZ and BALL = competition between schools benefit middle class (BOURDIEU)
• Real cause of low education standards is social inequality
• Contradiction between paretocracy and national curriculum
• MARXISTS ruling class dominates subject class

Question 15

Marxist perspective

Answer 15

• Education based on class division and capitalist exploitation

Question 16

Capitalist class

Answer 16

• Bourgeoisie

Question 17

Working class

Answer 17

• Proletariat

Question 18

Repressive State Apparatuses

Answer 18

• ALTHUSSER
• Maintain rules by force or threat

Question 19

Ideological State Apparatuses

Answer 19

• ALTHUSSER
• Maintains rule by controlling people ideas and values

Question 20

2 functions of education according to Marxists

Answer 20

1 Education reproduces class inequality
2 Education justifies class inequalities

Question 21

Schools in capitalist America

Answer 21

• BOWLES and GINTIS
• Submissive and Compliant students occur through 2 processes:
  1 Correspondence principle
  2 Hidden curriculum

Question 22

Correspondence principle

Answer 22

• Establishes a hierarchy between head teachers and pupils

Question 23

Hidden curriculum

Answer 23

• Lessons learnt from classes
• Fit into mainstream society

Question 24

Myth of meritocracy

Answer 24

• BOWLES and GINTIS
• Education system helps prevent people feeling like the system is unfair and rebelling by producing ideologies that justify inequality
• They do not believe that meritocracy exists but instead that the factor that defines doing well is making money, not achievement
• Less likely to overthrow capitalism

Question 25

“Poor are dumb” theory

Answer 25

• BOWLES and GINTIS
• Poverty is the fault of the individual not being “clever enough” rather than capitalism

Question 26

Learning to labour

Answer 26

• WILLIS
• The lads counter culture = 12 working class boys: school is meaningless and boring
• They take part in acts that defy the school and reject that working class people can achieve more if they work hard = do not accept meritocratic ideology

Question 27

A03 Marxist perspectives

Answer 27

• POSTMODERNISTS criticise BOWLES and GINTIS as they argue we are in a post modernist economy which requires schools to produce a different workforce
• WILLIS criticised for romanising “lads” and portraying them as class heroes despite their anti-school and sexist attitudes

Question 28

Postmodernist perspective

Answer 28

• Do not believe society is clear cut and predictable but instead they argue it is chaotic

Question 29

Postmodernist view point influencing education

Answer 29

• More of a focus on individual learning programmes
• Multitude of different qualifications
• Customised schools
• Increase in adult qualifications

Question 30

A03 Postmodernist perspectives

Answer 30

• Exaggerate the changes in education
• Education shaped by capitalism rather than individuals