Functionalist, Marxist, New right and marketization view of education

Question 1

What is social cohesion?

What is social mobility?

Answer 1

Social cohesion is the bonds or ‘glue’ that bring people together and integrate them into a united society

Social mobility is the movement of groups or individuals up or down in the social hierarchy

Question 2

What are functional Prerequisites?

What is social solidarity?

Answer 2

Functional Prerequisites are the basic needs that must be met if society is to survive. (For example food, shelter, clothing, and money)

Social solidarity is the integration of people into society through shared values, common culture and social ties that bring them together and build social cohesion

Question 3

What is the functionalist perspective on education?

Answer 3

• It is concerned with links between education and social institutions, such as family and workplace.
• They see society as an important agency of socialization, helping to main social stability through value consensus, social harmony and social cohesion.

Question 4

Functionalist acronym

Answer 4

Drunk people cry Sorry Ducks Move

Durkheim- School is like a minature society- perform two major functions in advanced industrial society

1. Transmitting the shared values of society
2. Simultaneously teaching the specialised skills for an economy based on specialised devision of labour

Parsons- particularistic values vs Universalistic values
Providing a bridge between the particularistic values and Universalistic values achieved in advanced societies.
Parsons see schools important secondary socialization, taking over from family. (provide a bridge between PV to UV) E.g children judged in terms of particularistic values. teachers not expected to judge an essay based on likability of student

Cohen- Status frustration
how working-class men feel frustrated by an inability to achieve the same status as members of the middle or upper class

Schultz (1971)- Developed theory of human capital
Developing human capital- Trained and qualified labour force
Schultz (1971)- originally developed theory of human capital, suggesting that high levels of spending on education and training = justified because of peoples knowledge and skills, important factor in successful economy. Jobs requiring greatest skills and responsibilities get them.

Davis and Moore- Equality of educational opportunity
Davis and Moore- Education system is a means of selecting or sifting people for different levels of the job market and ensuring most talented and qualified individuals are allocated to most important jobs.
In meritocratic society access to jobs and positions of wealth depend highly on skills and talents. Davis and Moore furthermore talk about equality of educational opportunity. ( work hard deserve success visa versa)

Question 5

What did the New right say?

Answer 5

• Mainly functionalist perspective
• Educations should be concerned not with promoting equality but with training the workforce
• Making sure the most able have their talents developed
• People should go into the Jobs that are right for them
• Education should socialize people into collective values
• Like a supermarket forced to supply cheap and better quality products as they compete for customers

Question 6

What is marketization?

Answer 6

A trend in education policy from the 1980’s where schools were encouraged to compete against each other and act more like private businesses rather then institutions under the control of local goverment.

Question 7

What did Chubb and Moe (1990) say?

Answer 7

• Education system controlled by state and local councils is not best means of achieving these aims. As it only produces single type of school
• There should be a free market in education- A range of independently managed schools and business run like private businesses- shaped by communities
• Marketisation produces benefits for taxpayers and educational standards

Question 8

What is the Marxism view on education?

Answer 8

They see education primarily as a means of social control, encouraging young people to be conformists, to accept their social position and not to do anything to upset the current patterns of inequality of power, wealth and income.

Question 9

What is Cultural capital?

Answer 9

• Those who come from better-off-middle and upper class backgrounds have more access to the culture of the dominant class.
• Also the knowledge, language, manner, and behaviour which give middle class and upper class students advantages in school

Question 10

What is False consciousness?

Answer 10

Failure by members of a social class to recognize their real interests

Question 11

What is the marxism acronym?

What did Althusser( 1971) say?

What did Bourdieu(1977) say?

Answer 11

A Ben Won Fortnite In Belgieum and Germany

Althusser (1971) - Role of education in capitalist society is to produce an efficient and obedient workforce.
Education is Ideological state apparatus(e.g family, media, law religion and education system)
2 aspects:
1. The reproduction of necessary technical skills
2. The reproduction of ruling class ideology( False consciousness)

Bourdieu(1977)- Education justifies class inequalities and reproduces the class system.

Each class has their own habitus (cultural Framework)- What counts as good and bad taste.

Middle and upper have more access to culture of dominant class- Advantage of cultural capital

Lower classes do not possess cultural capital so educational underchievement is inevitable.

Question 12

What did Illich and Friere say?

How does Altusser, Illich and Freier link together?

Answer 12

Illich(1995)- Schools are repressive institutions which promote and encourage students to passively accept existing inequalities

• Those who accept the school regime do well in the system
• Those who challenge the system or teachers will end up with poor grades, low paid jobs

Friere(1996)- Hegemonic control of the working classes
- Schools Repressive institutions where learners are conditioned to accept oppressive relations of domination and subordination e.g obeying teachers and deferring to their superior knowledge.

Link education system plays an important role in producing the hegemony and hegemonic control of the ruling class.
Convincing rest of society to accept the truth and supiriorty of ruling class’s set of ideas

Question 13

What is hegemony?

What is hegemonic control?

Answer 13

Hegemony is the dominance in society of the ruling class’s set of ideas over others, and acceptance of and consent to them by the rest of society

Hegemonic control- Control of working class is mainly achieved through the hegemony and acceptance of ruling class ideas

Question 14

What did Bowles and Gintis say?

Answer 14

Education in capitalist societies serves in the reproduction labour power

They say a workforce is reproduced in 2 main ways:

1. Through Hidden curriculum-‘ the long shadow of work’
2. The education system legitimizes and justifies inequality and the class structure

The legitimizaton of inequality:

• Helps to explain inequality in capitalist society
• Helps people come to terms with their own position in society
• Helps to reduce discontent and opposition to inequality

Question 15

What did Neo Marxist Paul Willis say?

Answer 15

• Both on interactionist and marxist approach
• He said schools DO NOT produce willing and obedient workforce
• Willis studied group of 12 working class males in Wolverhampton in 1970’s
• ‘Lads’ developed an anti-school or counter-school subculture

Question 16

What was the counter school culture of Willis’ experiment

Name the four characteristics

Answer 16

• Willis described friendship of 12 boys as counter-school culture
• their value system was opposed to that of school
• Three ways i which is was characterised:
  1. Lads felt superior to the teachers and other pupils
  2. No attachment to academic work, more ‘having a laff’
  3. Objective of school to miss as many ;lessons as possible to get status within group
  4. Time spent at school was trying to win control over their own time e.g make it their own

Question 17

Attitudes of future work

Answer 17

• They looked forward to paid manual work after leaving school, identified all non-school activities( smoking ,going out) with adult world and valued these activities far more than school work
• Believed manual work was proper work, and type of jobs hard working pupils got were pointless and the same

Question 18

What is vocational education?

How do functionalists and New right see this?

How do Marxists see it?

Answer 18

• Preparing young people for work and making education meet the needs of the economy.
• They see it in a beneficial way, by helping boost the economy.
• They tend to see it as a second rate education for those from working-class backgrounds.
• Also concerned with producing passive and conformist workers to support a profit making capitalist society.
• While middle-class enjoy more academic education leading to well-paid positions of power and influence in society

Question 19

What were the main focuses of vocational education?

Answer 19

• Improving quality of basic skills in workforce especially in ages 14-18.
• Ending the status division between academic and vocational qualifications, so practical technical and vocational educated is integrated with academic learning
• E.g As and A-levels and university degrees have more value in the labour market

Question 20

What methods were used to achieve globalisation?

Answer 20

• Work experience programmes for school and college students, to ease transition form school to work
• Expansion of post- 16 education and training, and more government training schemes for those leaving school E.g BTECs
• Stronger emphasis on key skills in the use and application of number, communication and information technology and problem solving, as well as basic literacy and numeracy skills in the national curriculum. These are what most employers found that school leavers lacked.

Question 21

Criticisms of vocational education

Answer 21

• Work experience is often seen as boring and repetitive by school students.
• Post school training schemes often criticisms for being a source of cheap labour by employers and providing little development skills.
• vocational education is seen as being inferior to traditional subjects
• Birdwell et al (2011) says that secondary schools in England and Wales neglect pupils with vocational aspirations, and focus on students destined to go to higher education. Also schools fail students to be prepared for the world of work.