EDUCATION - T5 - ROLE OF EDUCATION IN SOCIETY

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  • ED. T5 - Role of education in society
    • Functionalist
      • reinforces shared norms and integrates all into singular shared community
      • Durkheim: solidarity + skills
        • social solidarity: without it people will pursue own selfish desires
        • Specialist skills: more able perform harder jobs - education teaches skills needed
      • Parsons: meritocracy
        • family judge child by particularistic standards
          • society judges all to universalistic standard
            • in school all judged same - work hard to succeed through own effort - achieved status. Not ascribed
            • school prepares us to move from family to wider society - meritocratic principle
      • Davis and Moore: role allocation
        • school matches students to best suited job
        • inequality necessary to ensure most talented get best jobs. Big rewards for these jobs leads to competition
          • education = proving ground for ability. Sifts and sorts able from unable
      • EVAL of perspective
        • circular argument - important jobs have high rewards but rewarded because important
        • over socialised view - ignores free will. People not puppets and not all accept school values
        • Equal opportunity doesn't exist. Class/gender inequality
    • Neo-Liberalism and New Right
      • competition = necessary to contribute to economy
      • The New Right
        • state cannot meet needs of all. "one size fits all" approach does not work. Unresponsive = failures = less prosperous workforce = less prosperous economy
          • school must become like business to increase standards when schools compete
      • Chubb and Moe: consumer choice
        • private school high results because of choice. Answer to consumers (parents). Unlike state run education
        • introduce market system to raise standards - parents choose - shape school to needs
          • vouchers which parents choose school to invest in. Vouchers being schools source of income forces quality to raise
      • Two roles for state:
        • publish league tables - give parents informed choice.
        • socialise children to one shared culture.
          • education should affirm national identity. Teach British history + Christianity.
      • EVAL of New Right
        • social inequality + bad funding leads to failure
        • dominance of M/C - ignores W/C culture
        • M/C use economic capital to choose better schools already
    • Marxist
      • ruling class control state and maintain capitalism.
      • Althusser: Ideological state apparatus
        • ISA = control through ideas, e.g. media, religion
          • RSA = repressive. control through force, e.g. police + physical violence
          • education = ISA. performs two functions:
            • reproduces class inequality. All generations fail
            • legitimises class inequality. persuades workers to accept inequality - will not challenge capitalism
      • Bowles and Gintis: schooling in Capitalist America
        • capitalism requires obedient workforce suited to role of low pay, orders from above
          • study of 237 NYC schools: school reproduces this workforce. Creativity = low grades. Obedient = high
          • correspondence principle and hidden curriculum: structure of ed. mirrors workplace - teaches hierarchy. Lessons to accept order and work for low rewards
            • Myth of meritocracy: B + G: this reproduces inequality. Blame selves for not working hard enough
              • justifies M/C success making it seem though they won the universal competition
      • Willis: learning to labour
        • W/C can resist capitalism - interactionist approach - focuses on personal meaning of resisting indoctrination
        • Lads counter culture: study of 12 W/C boys
          • distinct anti sch. subculture - disrupt classes,etc. Reject meritocracy as 'M/C con'.
            • Willis: notes similarity of lads culture and manual labourers. Both deem intellectual work inferior.
              • Irony of culture resisting schools ideology guaranteeing their unskilled work position. - capitalism requires this
      • EVAL of Marxism
        • Postmodernists - reproduces diversity, not inequality
        • Modernists - Marxism ignores class gender ethnic inequality
        • Disagrees with one another. B+G - deterministic. Willis - brainwashed students

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