28/04/25 - stuff I forgot

Question 1

How does education enable role allocation?

Answer 1

Davis and Moore - it provides a means of selecting and sifting people into a social hierarchy. I a meritocratic society access to jobs and power, wealth and status are directly linked to educational achievement

Question 2

Who talked about role allocation as a function of education?

Answer 2

Davis and Moore

Question 3

What is human capital?

Answer 3

the stock of knowledge, skills, values, habits and creativity that makes someone an economic asset to society

Question 4

6 criticisms of the functionalist view

Answer 4

• ignores the dysfunctional aspects of education
• myth of meritocracy - private education
• Marxists - the hidden curriculum reinforces social inequality and maintains ruling class ideology
• Feminists - hidden curriculum maintains and reinforces patriarchy not meritocracy
• Wong - functionalists see children as passive puppets of socialisation when the process is much more complex and involves teacher-pupil relationships
• there is a weak link between educational achievement and economic success

Question 5

What does Wong say about functionalists?

Answer 5

they see children as passive puppets of socialisation when the process is much more complex and involves teacher-pupil relationships

Question 6

who says that functionalists see see children as passive puppets of socialisation when the process is much more complex and involves teacher-pupil relationships?

Answer 6

Wong

Question 7

how do Marxists criticise functionalists?

Answer 7

hidden curriculum reinforces social inequality and ruling class ideology

Question 8

how do feminists criticise functionalists?

Answer 8

hidden curriculum maintains and reinforces patriarchy not meritocracy

Question 9

who are the NR sociologists?

Answer 9

Chubb and Moe

Question 10

Which policies have the NR influenced?

Answer 10

1980s vocational reform
1988 education reform act - funding formula, league tables
new labour - academies
coalition government - free schools, privatisation of education

Question 11

Marxist sociologists and their key ideas

Answer 11

Althusser - education reproduces and legitimises social inequality
Bowels and Gintis - correspondence principle, myth of meritocracy

Question 12

How does the education system reproduce social inequality + relevant sociologist?

Answer 12

Althusser
education deliberately engineers WC failure to create an unqualified factory workforce whilst private education prepares children of the elite for positions of power. the hidden curriculum is shaped to assist MC achievement and deter WC achievement

Question 13

how does the education system legitimise social inequality + relevant sociologist?

Answer 13

MC has access to more cultural and economic capital which puts them at an advantage / education encourages students to blindly accept capitalist values through the hidden curriculum

Question 14

what is the myth of meritocracy+ relevant sociologists

Answer 14

bowels and gintis
education claims to be meritocratic but schools discriminate in favour of the middle class e.g language
hidden curriculum lowers working class ambitions

Question 15

which 5 groups criticise marxism?

Answer 15

neo-marxists, social democrats, neo-liberal, new right, postmodernists