Funtionalist Perspective on Education
- Created by: xpoppywilliams
- Created on: 25-03-18 14:46
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- Functionalist Perspectives on Education
- Key Ideas
- Based on the view that society is a system of interdependent parts help together by a shared culture or value consensus
- Schools perform the function of selecting and allocating pupils to their future work roles
- Based on the view that society is a system of interdependent parts help together by a shared culture or value consensus
- Parsons: Mertiocracy
- Sees school as the 'focal socialising agency' in modern society
- Acts as a bridge between the family and wider society
- Family and society operate on different principles - children need to learn a new way of living - helps them cope with wider society
- Acts as a bridge between the family and wider society
- Within the family
- Children are judged by particularisticstandards - rules apply to only that child
- Children's status' are ascribed - fixed by birth
- Children are judged by particularisticstandards - rules apply to only that child
- School and society judge people by the same universalistic and impersonal standards
- Society - same laws apply to everyone
- School - each pupil is judged against the same standards
- School and society - status is achieved not ascribed
- School prepares people to move from the family to wider society
- Wider society and school are both based on meritocratic principles
- Sees school as the 'focal socialising agency' in modern society
- Davis and Moore: Role Allocation
- Education is a devise for selection and role allocation
- Focus on the relationship between education and social inequality
- Inequality is necessary to ensure that the most important roles are filled by the most talented people
- Not everyone is equally talented - society offers higher rewards for these jobs
- Encourages competition
- Not everyone is equally talented - society offers higher rewards for these jobs
- Education 'shifts and sorts' pupils according to ability
- the most able gain the highest qualifications - gives the, entry to the most important roles and highly rewarded positions
- Education is a devise for selection and role allocation
- Evaluation
- The education system doesn't teach specialised skills adequately
- Equal opportunities in education don't exist
- Marxists argue that education in capitalist society's only transmit s the ideology of a minority
- Dennis Wrong (1961) argues that functionalist so have an 'over-socialised' view of people as mere puppets of society
- Wrongly assume pupils passively accept all they are taught and never reject the schools values
- Key Ideas
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