Sociology education unit 1

•  A functionalist will put an emphasis on positive aspects of schools such as socialisation: the learning of skills and attitudes in school. Education helps maintain society by socialising young people into values of achievement, competition and equality of opportunity. Skills provision is also important: education teaches the skills for the economy. For example, literacy, numeracy and IT for particular occupations. Role allocation is all part of this: education allocates people to the most appropriate jobs for their talents, using examinations and qualifications.

• Views education as an entity creating social solidarity: community, cooperation. Education transmits culture: shared beliefs and values. Schools are a miniature society: cooperation, interaction, rules – universalistic standards. Specialist skills: division of labour – schools teach specialist knowledge and skills.

• Views education as being part of a meritocracy. Education is a secondary agent of socialisation – bridge between family and society. Parsons believes that education instils values of competition, equality and individualism. In a meritocracy everyone is given equality of opportunity. Achievements and rewards are based on effort and ability – achieved status. Parsons is supported in these views by Duncan and Blau who believe that a modern economy depends for its prosperity on using human capital – its workers and skills. A meritocratic education system does this best.

•  Saw education as a means of role allocation, but they linked the education system more directly with the system of social stratification. Davis and Moore saw social stratification as a mechanism for ensuring that the most talented and able members of society are allocated to those positions that are functionally more important in society. High rewards, which act as incentives, attached to those positions. This means, in theory, that all will compete with them and the most talented will win through.

• Education passes on society's culture from one generation to the next, including shared norms and values underpinning value consensus.These provide the 'social glue' which creates social solidarity and social cohesion.

     Marxists would argue that this view ignores the inequalities in power in society. There is no value consensus and the culture and values passed on by the school are those of the dominant or ruling class.

     Feminists might argue the school passes on patriarchal values and disadvantages girls and women.

• See education primarily as a means of social control, encouraging young people to be conformists to accept their social position and not to do anything to upset the current patterns of inequality in  power, wealth and income.
• Emphasize the way the education system reproduces existing social inequalities and passes them on from one generation to the next. At the same time it does this by giving the impression that those who fail in education do so because of their lack of abilityand effort and have only themselves to blame. In this way people are encouraged to accept the positions they find themselves in after schooling, even though it is disadvantages arising from social class background that create inequalities in educational success.

• Education is part of the 'ideological state aparatus'.
• Education is a tool of capitalism.
• Education creates obedient workforce.

• There is a close link between school and work= correspondace principle.
• There is a close link betweenpupil experiences of school and adult work: pupils are taught to accept hierarchy at school and there is hierarchy in the work place.
• Pupils are motivated by good grades to do boring work. Workers are rewarded with pay to do boring work.
• Argue that hidden curriculum and doing homework prepares people for work.
• They also say that meritocracy is a myth which is used to blame individuals for not succeeding.

• Feminists believe that education is an agent of secondary socialisation that helps to enforce patriarchy.
•  They argue that the curriculum is more based around traditionally male-dominated subjects. Thus it sets up men more than women for further education or more prosperous work opportunities. Coupled with this is the stereotypical view of a woman’s part in society – of becoming housewives, marrying early and having children. Feminists argue that this contributes to the suppression put on women by the male-run society.

• Carried out a study ove a long period of time on girls and their aspirations. In the 1970s when she first conducted the research she found that girls aspired to be married and have children. Thye wanted love, husbands and children.
• When she conducted the research again in the 1990s she found that female teenagers then wanted careers and highly paid jobs over a family and husband.

• Argues education should be concerned not with promoting equality or equality of opportunity but with training the workforce making sure the most able students have their talents developed and are recruited into the most important jobs while others are prepared for lower-level employment.
• They believe education should socialize young people into collective values and responsible citizenship and thereby building social cohesion and social solidarity to ensure a stable and united society.