role of education

Question 1

9oDurkheim

Answer 1

social solidarity, specialist skills, hidden curriculum, society in miniature

Question 2

parsons

Answer 2

Education acts as a bridge between particularistic and universal standards. It leads to value consensus- everyone is conditioned to agree on what is important.
Children are selected for suitable future roles- role allocation.

bridge between home and work, meritocracy, particularistic/universialistic standards, ascribed/achieve status

Question 3

davis and moore

Answer 3

role allocation
education ‘sifts and sorts’
Role Allocation - ‘Education sorts and sifts individuals ‘ - inequality is both natural and inevitable as people are born with unequal talents/abilities providing a meritocracy where people gain their position on ability alone.

Question 4

schultz, blau and duncan

Answer 4

human capital- modern economy depends on using human capital and utilising its workers skills- a meritocratic education system allocated roles and maximises productivity

Question 5

functionalist evaluations

Answer 5

• education system doesn’t actively teach specialist skills (1/3 of 16-19 yos in vocational courses dont get good jobs)

-DEA topics show that equal opportunity does not exist

-Tumin- criticises Davis and Moore as important jobs aren’t always highly rewarded

-Marxists argue there isn’t social solidarity, just capitalist ideology

-New Right argue education doesnt adequately prepare pupils for work

-Wrong- functionalists wrongly imply that pupils passively accept school values

Question 6

new right view on education

Answer 6

Like functionalists they believe that some people are more talented than others and that meritocracy exists and thy we should socialise pupils into shared values

BUT New Right think the current system is not achieving these goals and that the solution is marketisation

Question 7

chubb and moe

Answer 7

consumer choice, meritocracy, voucher scheme, ‘one size fits all’, two roles of the state
- state run education has failed because it hasn’t created equal opportunity and doesnt produce pupils with skills needed in the economy and their study shows low income pupils do 5% better in private schools

Question 8

new right two roles of the state

Answer 8

1- impose framework for schools to compete through eg league tables

2- impose a national curriculum to transmit shared values and affirm national identity

Question 9

chubb and moe voucher system

Answer 9

Each family given a voucher to spend on buying education from a school of their choice forcing schools to respond to parents since their vouchers are the schools source of income. Like private businesses the schools would compete for the parents

Question 10

new right evaluations

Answer 10

• Gerwitz and Ball argue that competition between schools benefit the middle class who can use their capital to get access to more desirable schools
• state control isn’t the reason for low standards, inequality is
  -contradiction between parental choice and having national curriculum
  -Marxists argue that education doesn’t impose shared national identity but capitalist ideology

Question 11

althusser

Answer 11

Education is an ISA. It reproduces class inequality and legitimates it by producing and transmitting ideology that inequality is inevitable and hierarchy is normal

Question 12

bowles and gintis

Answer 12

hidden curriculum, correspondence principle, myth of meritocracy, hierarchy, alienation, extrinsic values, fragmentation, competition

Study of 237 NY HS students shows that schools reward the type of traits that make a submissive compliant worker

Correspondence principle operating through hidden curriculum

Question 13

cohen

Answer 13

youth training schemes serve capitalism by teaching young workers not genuine job skills, but rather the attitudes and values needed in a subordinate labour force. - lowers their aspirations so that they will accept low paid work

Question 14

bordieu - role of education

Answer 14

cultural capital, habitus, reproduction of class inequality

Question 15

willis

Answer 15

• study of 12 WC boys: participant observation and unstructured
• distinct counter culture: find school boring, meaningless and break the rules, reject meritocratic system and ‘take the piss’ out of girls
• willis notes the similarity between the lads’ anti-school counter-culture and the shopfloor culture of male manual workers

Question 16

‘however’ of willis’ study

Answer 16

lads’ counter culture helps them to slot into the very jobs that capitalism needs someone to perform:
- having been accustomed to boredom in school, they don’t expect satisfaction from work and are good at finding diversions to cope with the tedium of unskilled labour
- their acts of rebellion guarantee that they’ll end up in unskilled jobs, by ensuring their failure to gain worthwhile qualifications

Question 17

willis evaluation

Answer 17

Critics argue he romanticises the lads as WC heroes despite their anti social behaviour and sexism

His study of 12 boys isn’t representative

McRobbie points out females are excluded from his study

Question 18

bowles and gintis evaluation

Answer 18

Postmodernists argue that the correspondence principle doesn’t apply to a postmodern post fordist economy

Willis argues that pupils can resist schools capitalist ideology

MacDonald- they ignore that school reproduces patriarchy as well as capitalism

Question 19

marxist evaluations

Answer 19

morrow and torres - criticises marxists for taking a ‘class first’ approach that sees class as the key inequality and ignores all other kind. they see non-class inequalities, such as ethnicity, gender, and sexuality as equally imprtant

Question 20

feminists - role of education

Answer 20

• patriarchal ideology