Education Flashcards
(12 cards)
Durkheim’s functions of education
Enforces social solidarity and teaches specialist skills
How does education achieve social solidarity and teach specialist skills?
-Social solidarity: education creates a shared culture among students (through history, literature and religion) which promotes a shared identity.
-Specialist skills are taught through the National Curriculum which sets out required knowledge students must know, e.g. literacy and numeracy provide necessary skills/knowledge needed for employment.
Evaluate Durkheim’s functions of education.
-Marxists suggest history, religious beliefs and literacy that schools teach are passed from the bourgeoisie, contradicting Durkheim’s beliefs of shared culture and replacing them with ideas of dominant culture.
-Feminists claim that specialist skills are not taught to all pupils as girls are discouraged from certain subjects with a typically masculine domain, e.g. engineering, and are not able to learn specialist skills needed for future employment.
Parson’s function of education.
Acting as a source of secondary socialisation
How do schools achieve secondary socialisation?
Through the hidden curriculum which aids pupils transform particularistic values of home into universalistic values of society, teaching pupils implicit knowledge that enables success in wider society, e.g. being punctual and accepting hierarchy.
Evaluate Parson’s function of education.
-Marxists argue that the hidden curriculum prepares students for future exploitation by transmitting values of capitalism and enabling a state of false class consciousness.
-Postmodernists criticise Parson’s ideas of universal values, believing that society has become fragmented, thus the impact of passing on norms and values in society has become diluted due to its hyperreality.
Davis and Moore’s function of society
Role allocation
How does education achieve role allocation?
By sifting and sorting pupils based on their ability, e.g. those with aptitudes for science are persuaded to go down a more scientific route. Education also promotes ideas of social mobility and meritocracy, socialising pupils to believe that achieving good grades is based on natural ability and hard work which will then reward them with a high-status job.
Evaluate Davis and Moore’s function of role allocation.
-Marxists criticise meritocracy, claiming that it is a myth designed to reinforce traditional roles of middle and working-class students. As such, promoting ideas of meritocracy legitimises inequality by shifting blame for underachievement from the education system to the individual.
-It is not necessarily true that students with best qualifications go on to get high-status jobs. Some people are able to access high-status jobs without good qualifications, thanks to family connections, and there are also high levels of graduates who go on to be unemployed, despite their qualifications.
Althusser’s function of education.
Maintaining its status as an ideological state apparatus
How does education achieve its status as an ideological state apparatus?
Offering a fragmented curriculum that doesn’t offer a clear depiction of society, e.g. subjects such as history aren’t taught from a global perspective. Education also teaches key skills for employment (e.g. literacy and numeracy) from an early age, whereas subjects such as drama and dance are relatively ignored.
Evaluate Althusser’s function of education.
-Functionalists disagree with Althusser on the motives for education, suggesting that promoting of meritocracy and value consensus all have beneficial functions for society.
-Althusser’s theory is deterministic as many working-class students have gone on to succeed and enter higher education. COUNTERPOINT: still fewer than 10% of students from working-class backgrounds in higher education.
