Sociological Perspectives Flashcards
(18 cards)
Durkheim - Functionalism
Social solidarity- Society must be a part of a shared community and education provides this by transmitting shared beliefs from one generation to the next
Eg - Schools teach pupils history so they feel a sense of shard heritage and commitment to wider social groups
Society miniature
- school prepares us for later life.
Eg - teachers/pupils are like Colleagues and customers at work. and rules and dress code is similar to that of work
Specialists skills - Education gives pupils knowledge and skills needed for work
Economies have complex divisions of labour so schools help pupils get the skills to fifil their place in the work field
Parsons - Functionalism
Meritocracy- School bridges the gap between family and wider society
Particularistic values - rules that only apply in the family
universalistic values - rules that apply to everyone in school and wider society
School gives us acheived status through acheivment and effort and not fixed characteristics like bender and class which is ascribed status
meritocracy helps us move from family to wider society which is where everyone has equal opportunities and are rewarded through their own efforts and ability
Davis and Moore - Functionalism
Education allocates pupils to suitablefuture job roles
They focus on the relationships between education and inequality and thatroles in society needs to be for the most skilled and talented as some are more naturally talented that others
Education helps students prove their ability and are then sifted and sorted by ability and the highest qualifications get the highest positions - functionally important roles
Evaluation of functionalist perspectives
Wolf - high quality apprenticeships are raer and dont result in high paid jobs therefore education does not teach specialist skills adequately
Equal opportunities doesn’t exist in education and achievement is based on factors like race gender and class not ability
Tumin - D&M argument is circular a job is important because its highly rewarded and its highly rewarded becauses it’s important
Wrong - functionalist view is over socialised and sees people as societies puppets assuming pupils passively accept teachings and dont reject values
New Right Similarities to functionalist
Some people are more naturally talented than others
favours meritocratic system- competing and preparing students to join the workforce
Education should socialise us into shared values like competition and national identity
Chubb and Moe - New Right
Consumer choice - They propose a voucher system where parents shop for a school to give their voucher to
This forces schools to listen to what consumers want and therefore raise educational standards
Schools would have to compete to attract customers with these changes because the vouchers would be their main source of income
New right beliefs
Education system fails to do these things because its run by the state.
Argues that education has a one size has a one size fits all approach which imposes uniformity and ignores local needs
Consumers have no say which makes the state education ineffective
Schools that get poor results and waste money are not answerable to their consumers
These factors mean lower achievement standars which means a less qualified workforce
New right solution
Create an educational market
Having competition between schools and empowering consumers gives us more diversity choice and efficiency in schools
Schools ability to meet the needs of all consumers will also be increased if education is marketised
Two roles for the state
New right want a market force nut theres still 2 roles the state can fufill
imposind a framework that schools compete in giving parents more information so they can make informed choices about schools. For example - Ofsted inspection records and legue tables of schools exams results
The state ensures schools transmit a shared culture. Having one national curriculum makes sure schools socialise pupils into one cultural heritage.
Evaluation of New right
Ball - competition between schools only benefits MC because they can acsess better schools using their cultural and economic capital
Critics argue that lack of funding is the real cause of low educational standards is lack of funding and social inequality and not state control
New rights contradictions- they support parental choice but also want schools to have a compulsory national curriculum
Marxist argue that there is no shared culture in education instead it imposes the culture of a dominant minority ruling class and devalues the working class and ethnic minorities culture
Marx - Marxism
Education revolves around class division and capitalist exploitation non consensus
Class conflict - if workers realise they are being exploited so they demand for higher wages better conditions or no more capitalism
Eventually the proletariat will unite to overthrow capitalism and make a classless equal society
He says that education system is controlled by the state which reproduces class inequality prevents wc revolution and maintains capitalism
Althusser - Marxism
Says that these keep the state inpower.
Repressive State apparatus- police courts army all maintain bourgeoisies power by force or threats of force
Ideological state apparatus- religion education media maintain bourgeoisie rule by controlling peoples ideas beliefs and values
He argues that the ISA performs 2 functions
Reproduces class inequality- by transmitting it from generation to generation by failing each successive generation of wc pupils in turn
Legitimising class inequality - making sets of values and beliefs that hide their actual cause.
The ideology persuades workers to accept that inequality is inevitable and that they deserve subordinate positions in society meaning that wc pupils are less likely to challenge or threaten capitalism
Willis - Marxism
Studies show that pupils can resist being indoctrinated which Bowels and Gintis ignore.
He used qualitative research methods - unstructured interviews participant observation to study the lads counter culture or 12 WC boys
Found their counter culture opposes the school and they are scornful to the conformist boys (ear’oles) as they listen to teachers.
The lads find school boring and meaningless so they go against values and rules by smoking drinking truanting and distrupting class. These are their ways of rejecting school
They reject the idea that the WC can get MC jobs by working hard.
Lads counter-culture and shop floor culture of male manual work
both see manual work as superior and intellectual work as effeminate. The lads identify stongly with manual work which is why they see themselves as superior to girls and effeminate ear’oles who aspire to have non manual jobs
Bowels and Gintis - Marxism
Corespondence Principle - school mirrors the workplace. Eg - Schools and workplaces both have hierarchies headteachers/ bosses up top and workers and pupils at the bottom obeying
Study: 237 NY students where they found thst schools reward traits like punctuality that make up a submissive/ compliant workers and that students showing independence and creativity often had lower grades. They concluded that education helps produce obedient workers that capitalism need.
They argue that the corespondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum
Hisden curriculum - lessoms learnt in schools that are not directly taught on the national curriculum like being on time wearing uniform and working/obeying to get rewards
This means that wc pupils are prepared for the role of exploited workers which reproduces capitalism and continues class inequality from generation to generation
Myth of meritocracy - Marxism
Bowels and Gintis - education is a giant myth making machine and that meritocracy is a myth because no matter how hard someone works rewards are not just based on efforts
They see meritocracy as a away to justify their privileges the higher classes have and that others can work hard and get these privileges too.
Evaluation of the marxist view
Postmodernist - education produces diversity not inequality and the corespondent principle is wrong because we need schools to make labour force in todays post fordist economy
principle is too deterministic - and assumes that students are passive and accept indoctrination however it fails to explain why students can reject schools beliefs and values.
Morrow and Torres - argue that society is more diverse and marxism takes on a class first approach that ignores inequalities of race gender and more
Mcdonald - marxism ignores that education reproduces patriarchy
