Education Topic two - Functions of the education system

What are the functions of the education system in England and Wales?

Education should:

• Provide opportunities for children

• Sort children in terms of their ability to learn and provide the correct type of educational opportunities

• Prepare children for adult life, mostly work, known as vocationalism

• Help children become active participants in society and live healthy and productive lives as citizens of their country

Socialisation and education

• Emile Durkheim claimed the education system was an important agency of secondary socialisation

• Its primary role was to ensure social stability and social cohesion so that society could be well-ordered with different people filing appropriate to ensure society survived

• For functionalists, education bridged the gap for children between the close personal relationships of family life and was their first introduction to universal relationships of adulthood

• Children would be introduced to the shared cultures of their society and thus would learn their place in the social world

• Marxists see the socialisation as part as brainwashing children into accepting inequality

• The national curriculum is a basic outline of what you need to know about you own culture

• Much of the education that…