The role and function of education

Durkheim

• education teaches social solidarity
  • this is important because it means that everyone in society shares the same values which creates social cohesion 
• Society in miniature
  • schools act like society by mimicking how the workplace and adult life are 
    • e.g rewards and sanctions are also in the workplace
• Specialist skills
  • schools teach specialist knowledge for certain jobs which allow them to be filled in society and done well 

Parsons

• meritocracy 
  • in education, universalistic standards are applied to students. They are able to move up or down in their status by achieving merits (grades). This is similar to the workplace in which achievements gain status
    • e.g. Through being able to change sets or doing higher paper exams

Davis and Moore

• Role allocation
  • Educational inequality is necessary because it means that the most suitable person gets the right job in society and rewards these people well 
    • e.g top biology student -> surgeon or doctor
  • encourages competition within schools 

New Right

• shares some values with functionalism 
  • e.g meritocracy
• Sees current education system as a failure due to being run by the state and disregards the needs of the local consumers 
• Chubb and Moe
  • created the voucher system which meant that parents were able to choose schools like businesses 
  • the schools then had to operate on the needs and wants of the parent 'consumers' otherwise they would not receive the voucher payment and income would decrease 
• Roles of the state in education 
  • state must impose a framework onto schools where they must compete 
  • state should ensure a shared culture is transmitted through the curriculum 

Marxists believe that the function of education to prevent revolution and maintain capitalism 

Althusser

• Schools are an ideological state apparatus and performs two functions
  • reproduces class inequality through transmitting it between generations, which fails many generations of the same WC family
  • legitimises class inequality by hiding its true cause through ideology, which causes acceptance of their lower status, false class consciousness and prevents a social revolution

Bowles and Gintis

• Correspondence principle 
  • schools reward submissive and compliant behaviour which reflects the workplace.
  • all structures and processes within education reflect working life under capitalism in some way
• hidden curriculum
  •   The informal learning which occurs in school teaches students what it is like in the working world in a capitalist society 
    • e.g wearing a uniform at school -> wearing a uniform at work 
• the myth of meritocracy 
  • disagree with functionalist sociologists that schools are meritocratic
    • they are not, and this makes it easier to justify upper-class privilege and higher achievement in education 

Paul Willis - Learning to Labour (1977)

• Studied a group of 12 WC boys 
• Saw that they didn't identify with the school rules, found school boring and sought enjoyment by causing disruption and 'taking the ****'
• Found that they rejected the norms and values of the school they were in and formed an anti-school counterculture. 
• They also strongly identified with manual rather than "effeminate office" work
• All of these factors led to the boys ending up in low paid manual labour jobs after finishing school - destined to fill the roles they are needed for under capitalism 
  • rebelled in school -> failed, no qualifications -> must work in an unskilled trade 
  • bored by school -> used to boring unskilled labour at work, do not complain and accept low wages.