Perspectives

Question 1

(Functionalism) = What are four positive functions that functionalist believe education performs?

Answer 1

1. Instills social solidarity
2. Specialist skills for work
3. Teaches core values
4. Role allocation

Question 2

(Functionalism) = How does school instill social solidarity?

Answer 2

• Emile Durkheim argued that school makes us feel like we are something bigger
• This is done through teaching british values
• Durkheim argued that school prepares us for life in a wider society

Question 3

(Functionalism) = How does school teach specialist skills for work?

Answer 3

• Durkheim noted that an advanced industrial economy required a complex division of labour
• Students are able to learn diverse skills necessary for this economy
• This is shown when specializing in subjects
• This is obvious in vocational education where students able to learn specific schools for a profession
• Durkheim believed that modern education systems are able to teach both core values of a sense of belonging and diverse skills required for an economic system

Question 4

(Functionalism) = How does education teach core values?

Answer 4

• Durkheim argued that education is a socializing agency in modern society
• Schools play a central role in secondary socialization which is taken over from primary socialization
• This was necessary because the family and wider society work based on different principles. Parsons argues this
• Children need to adapt if they are to cope in a wider world
• In the family, children are judged according to particularistic standards of their parents, they are given tasks based on different ability and therefore judged to their unique characteristics
• Parents often adapt rules to suit the unique abilities of the child however in school and wider society are based on universalistic standards
• They are applied irrespective of the unique character
• Achieved status is based on merit and ascribed is based on background

Question 5

(Functionalism) = How do schools teach role allocation and meritocracy?

Answer 5

• Education allocates people to their most appropriate jobs using their qualifications
• This ensures the most talented are allocated the best opportunities
• This is fair because of equality of opportunity
• Parsons argues that meritocracy means that everyone has a chance of success and it is the most able who succeed through their efforts
• Meritocracy is important as it allows people to understand status in society and why some people are able to gain higher qualifications

Question 6

(Functionalism) = What do Davis and Moore argue?

Answer 6

• There has to be a system of unequal rewards as it encourages people to work harder
• This facilitates meritocracy
• The education system sifts and sorts people into appropriate roles
• However, meritocracy is a myth and Hargreaves argues that competition can be harmful for the students

Question 7

(Functionalism) = What is a positive evaluation of the functionalist perspective?

Answer 7

• School performs positive functions most of the time, the majority come out of school with qualifications and improved skills
• There is a link between education and economic growth suggesting education benefits the wider society and the economy
• There is little active resistance to schooling shown in truancy rates
• Education now has more diverse vocational subjects offered to fit an advanced industrial economy
• However evidence shows the achievement gap opened in lockdown showing that it helps narrow it to an extent

Question 8

(Functionalism) = What is a negative evaluation of the functionalist perspective?

Answer 8

• Marxists argue that meritocracy is a myth, as it benefits students from better backgrounds
• Marxist would argue that it is ideological and reflects the view of the powerful
• It is outdated as it is not shifted with a postmodern society
• They also ignore the negativity of school and that it does not work for everyone such as bullying

Question 9

(New Right) = What do the New Right believe about education?

Answer 9

• The New Right believe in Marketisation and parentocracy
• They suggest that schools should be concerned about training the workforce, this means the most able students have their talents developed and recruited into the most important jobs
• Education should socialize young people into collective values to build social cohesion and solidarity, this ensures a stable society

Question 10

(New Right) = What do Chubb and Moe believe about education?

Answer 10

• Chubb and Moe suggest that state and local authorities cannot achieve train the workforce efficiently as it is a single type of school for all students
• There should be a free market in education of schools which are run like businesses and tailored to the needs of a local community
• Parents should be able to choose and given vouches
• Competition for students will lead to a more efficient education system of delivering better value

Question 11

(New Right) = What is an evaluation of the New Right?

Answer 11

• The reason fee paying schools do better than state schools is more than just competition, they have privileged lives
• Also, excessive competition may harm the children so it is not beneficial

Question 12

(Marxism) = What do Marxists believe about education?

Answer 12

• Marxists see education as a means of social control, this encourages young people to accept their position and to not upset the current pattern of inequality in power wealth and income
• Education reproduces existing social inequalities by giving the impression that failure is due to a lack of effort
• People are encouraged to accept the positions they find themselves in

Question 13

(Marxism) = What did Althusser believe about school?

Answer 13

• Althusser stated that the main role of education in a capitalist society is to reproduce an efficient and obedient workforce
• Althusser argues to prevent the working class from rebelling against their exploitation
• They are taught to accept the ruling class ideology carried out through an ideological state apparatus of education
• This ideological state apparatus spreads the ruling class ideology and ensures the proletariat are in a state of false class consciousness
• The bourgeoisie maintain power through the repressive state apparatus
• Education performs this through the hidden curriculum, education teaches us about hierarchy, respect, authority and rule following

Question 14

(Marxism) = What did Bowles and Gintis believe about school?

Answer 14

• Bowles and Gintis identified a correspondence principle between school and the workplace
• School and work both involve uniform, time keeping, hierarchy and rewards
• This prepares students for life in a capitalist system
• Work casts a long shadow over school
• Schools exist in the long shadow of work meaning that they prepare students for work
• The education system needs to reproduce labour power
• They say meritocracy is a myth and achievement is due social class

Question 15

(Marxism) = What does Pierre Bourdieu believe about school?

Answer 15

• Pierre Bourdieu stated that each social class contains their own cultural framework of a habitus
• This habitus is picked up through socialization, the dominant class has the power to impose its own habitus in the education system
• Education knowledge is actually the values of the dominant class
• Teachers often have a middle class habitus so will find it easier to relate to students who have this
• Those who do well in education do so because they access the dominant class culture therefore possess culture capital
• The dominant ideology is that success and failure in the education system is meritocratic, this is based on an individuals hard work
• Those who succeed are seen as being worthy of a higher position in society

Question 16

(Marxism) = What did Ivan Illich argue about school?

Answer 16

• Ivan Illich states that schools are repressive institutions which promote conformity and encourage students into passive acceptance of inequalities and the interests of the powerful, they do not want students to be critical
• Schools do so by rewarding those who accept the school regime with qualifications and access to higher education
• Illich suggests de-schooling

Question 17

(Marxism) = What did Paul Willis believe about school? (Evaluative study)

Answer 17

• Neo-Marxist Paul Willis uses Marxist ideas with an interactionist approach in his study
• Willis recognizes that schools do not always produce a willing and obedient workforce, there are students who disobey
• It is easy to recognize why middle class young people go into well paid jobs but more difficult to understand why working class young people willingly go into low paying jobs
• Willis studied twelve working class males in the 1970’s who were more interested in having a laff and freeing themselves from control
• There was similarities between the counter school culture and workplace culture of male lower class jobs
• These lads actively choose to be a part of anti-school subculture

Question 18

(Marxism) = What is an evaluation of the Marxist perspective?

Answer 18

• There is a lack of detailed research, as pupils are not always passive puppets of education
• It ignores the influence of the formal curriculum and that some subjects do encourage critical thinking however they still have low status
• The perspective is too deterministic as it suggests people have no free will

Question 19

(Feminism) = What do feminists believe about education?

Answer 19

• Feminists believe that education transmits values and norms onto its pupils
• Education is a powerful form of secondary socialization
• Schools transmit the patriarchal values

Question 20

(Feminism) = How does the hidden curriculum teach patriarchal values?

Answer 20

• The hidden curriculum teaches patriarchal values such as traditional family roles, the gender division in PE and the gender division of labour, male gaze, work

Question 21

(Feminism) = What do liberal feminists believe about education?

Answer 21

• Liberal feminists acknowledge that there has been many changed in education, this is through being allowed to do the same subjects however there is a gender difference between subject choices

Question 22

(Feminism) = What do radical feminists believe about education?

Answer 22

• Radical feminists believe that the education system is patriarchal and continues to marginalize and oppress women

Question 23

(Feminism) = What is a study for feminism?

Answer 23

• Sue Sharpe’ study ‘Just like a Girl’
• Sue Sharpe says that not all girls have the same experience of education. This is evident in Sue Sharpe’s study of attitudes of working class girls
• In this study, Sharpe compared the attitudes of girls from working-class backgrounds in the 1970s and then the 1990s. She found that attitudes had changed over time – 1990s girls were more assertive and committed to gender equality. Girls were also increasingly wary of marriage and wanted to be able to stand on their own two feet.

Question 24

(Feminism) = What is an evaluation of the feminist perspective?

Answer 24

• Schools do not marginalize women as most people in education are female and often managers
• There is higher female success in education
• The gender pay gap is still evident that women are disadvantaged in society, they face a glass ceiling