The Role of Education in Society

What is the functionalist view of education?

→ Society is a system of interdependent parts held together by a shared culture/value consensus.

→ Institutions such as the family, economy and education perform functions that help maintain society.

→ Functionalists ask what functions education performs to meet society’s needs.

🔥 Analysis:

Education → performs functions for society → helps maintain social order + stability → society continues to function.

How does Durkheim (1903) argue that education creates social solidarity?

→ Society needs solidarity: individuals must feel part of a single community/body.

→ Without solidarity, individuals would pursue selfish desires → cooperation would be difficult.

→ Education transmits society’s shared culture, beliefs and values from one generation to the next.

→ Teaching national history can create a sense of shared heritage and commitment to the wider social group.

→ School is a “society in miniature”, preparing pupils for wider society.

→ Pupils learn to cooperate with people who are not family/friends and follow impersonal rules that apply to everyone.

🔥 Analysis:

Education → transmits shared values + teaches cooperation/rules → creates social solidarity → ↑ social integration + cooperation → maintains social order.

How does Durkheim (1903) argue that education teaches specialist skills?

→ Modern industrial economies have a complex division of labour.

→ Producing even one item often requires cooperation between many specialists.

→ Each person needs specialist knowledge and skills to perform their role.

→ Education provides individuals with the specialist knowledge and skills needed to play their part in the social division of labour.

→ Cooperation between specialists also promotes social solidarity.

🔥 Analysis:

Complex division of labour → need for specialist skills → education trains individuals for different roles → effective cooperation → economy + society function effectively.

How does Parsons (1961) see the role of school in modern society?

→ School is the “focal socialising agency” in modern society.

→ Acts as a bridge between the family and wider society.

→ Family and wider society operate according to different principles.

→ School prepares children for the different expectations of wider society.

→ In the family, children are judged by particularistic standards and have an ascribed status.

→ In school and wider society, people are judged by universalistic and impersonal standards and have largely achieved status.

🔥 Analysis:

Family → particularistic + ascribed status → school → universalistic + achieved status → prepares children for wider society.

How does Parsons (1961) argue that education is based on meritocracy?

→ School and wider society judge individuals by the same universalistic standards.

→ In school, pupils are judged against the same standards, e.g. the same exam and pass mark.

→ Status is largely achieved, rather than ascribed.

→ Pupils pass or fail through their individual effort.

→ In wider society, rewards such as promotion depend on how well someone performs.

→ Meritocracy = everyone has an equal opportunity and rewards are gained through effort and ability.

→ School therefore prepares children for a meritocratic wider society.

🔥 Analysis:

Equal standards + individual effort/ability → achieved status → rewards based on merit → education prepares pupils for a meritocratic society.

How do Davis and Moore (1945) explain education’s role in role allocation?

→ Education selects and allocates individuals to their future work roles.

→ Schools assess individuals’ aptitudes and abilities to match them to jobs they are best suited to.

→ Education acts as a “proving ground” where individuals show what they can do.

→ It “sifts and sorts” people according to ability.

→ The most able gain the highest qualifications → access to the most important and highly rewarded positions.

🔥 Analysis:

Assessment of ability → education sifts/sorts individuals → highest achievers gain qualifications → allocated to important roles → society uses talent effectively.

Why do Davis & Moore (1945) argue that inequality is necessary, and how does this relate to Blau & Duncan (1978)?

→ Not everyone is equally talented → society needs to ensure the most important roles are filled by the most talented people.

→ Important jobs require higher rewards to encourage people to compete for them.

→ Education identifies the most talented individuals → allocates them to these positions.

→ Blau & Duncan (1978): modern economies depend on “human capital” = workers’ skills.

→ A meritocratic education system allocates people to jobs suited to their abilities.

→ This makes effective use of talents → maximises productivity.

🔥 Analysis:

Unequal ability → unequal rewards encourage competition → education selects the most able → important roles filled effectively → ↑ productivity + economic prosperity.

What evidence challenges the functionalist view that education provides specialist skills and equal opportunities?

→ Work Review of Vocational Education (2011): high-quality apprenticeships are rare.

→ Up to a third of 16–19-year-olds are on courses that do not lead to higher education or good jobs.

→ This challenges Durkheim’s claim that education adequately provides the specialist skills needed for the division of labour.

→ There is also evidence that equal opportunity does not exist.

→ Educational achievement is greatly influenced by class background, rather than ability alone.

→ This challenges Parsons’ and Davis & Moore’s view of education as meritocratic.

🔥 Analysis:

Poor vocational provision + class differences in achievement → education does not simply develop/identify ability → weakens the functionalist view of education as preparing and allocating everyone fairly.

How does Melvin Tumin (1953) criticise Davis and Moore’s view of role allocation?

→ Tumin argues that Davis and Moore use a circular argument to justify unequal rewards.

→ Why is a job important? → Because it is highly rewarded.

→ Why is it highly rewarded? → Because it is important.

→ Therefore, the argument does not actually explain why some jobs deserve greater rewards.

🔥 Analysis:

Importance → high rewards → importance → circular reasoning → Davis & Moore fail to independently prove that inequality is necessary.

How do Marxists and interactionists criticise the functionalist view of education?

→ Marxists: education does not transmit the shared values of society as a whole.

→ Instead, in capitalist society it transmits the ideology of the ruling class.

→ Dennis Wrong (1961): functionalists have an “over-socialised view” of people.

→ They treat pupils as if they are passive puppets who simply accept society’s values.

→ In reality, pupils may reject or resist the values taught by schools.

→ Neoliberals/New Right: state education fails to prepare young people adequately for work.

🔥 Analysis:

Functionalism assumes shared values + passive acceptance → Marxists highlight ruling-class ideology and interactionists highlight active pupils → functionalism underestimates conflict, resistance and inequality.

What is neoliberalism, and how does it apply to education?

→ Neoliberalism is an economic doctrine that argues the state should not provide services such as education, health and welfare.

→ The state should not regulate a free-market economy or dictate how individuals use their property.

→ Governments should encourage competition, privatise state-run businesses and deregulate markets.

→ Neoliberal ideas have influenced governments since 1979, including Conservative, Labour and Coalition governments.

→ In education, schools should become more like businesses.

→ Parents and pupils should be empowered as consumers.

→ Competition between schools should drive up standards.

🔥 Analysis:

Less state provision → ↑ market competition + consumer choice → schools operate more like businesses → pressure to improve standards.

What do neoliberals believe is the purpose of education?

→ Education is valuable because of how well it enables the country to compete in the global marketplace.

→ Schools should prepare young people with the skills needed for the economy.

→ Schools should become more like businesses.

→ Competition between schools → ↑ pressure to improve standards.

→ Parents and pupils are treated as consumers who can choose between schools.

🔥 Analysis:

Global competition → need for an effective workforce → education focuses on skills + standards → ↑ economic competitiveness.

What is the New Right view of education?

→ The New Right is a conservative political view incorporating neoliberal economic ideas.

→ Believes the state cannot meet people’s needs effectively.

→ People are best left to meet their needs through the free market.

→ Therefore, the New Right favour marketisation of education.

→ Schools should operate through competition and consumer choice rather than state control.

🔥 Analysis:

State provision → seen as inefficient/unresponsive → marketisation → ↑ competition + choice → schools become more responsive to consumers.

What are the similarities and differences between the New Right and functionalist views of education?

Similarities:

→ Both believe some people are naturally more talented than others.

→ Both favour meritocratic principles and open competition.

→ Both believe education should prepare young people for work/the economy.

→ Both believe education should socialise pupils into shared values such as competition.

→ Both see education as helping create a sense of national identity.

Key difference:

→ Functionalists see education as broadly performing these functions successfully.

→ New Right argue the state education system fails to achieve them because it is state-run.

→ State education takes a “one size fits all” approach → ignores local needs.

→ Parents, pupils and employers have little say as consumers.

→ Schools that waste money or achieve poor results are not sufficiently accountable to consumers.

→ This leads to lower achievement → less qualified workforce → less prosperous economy.

→ New Right solution = marketisation → competition + consumer choice → greater diversity, efficiency and responsiveness.

🔥 Analysis:

State control → uniformity + lack of consumer choice → inefficiency → lower standards → marketisation → competition + choice → ↑ efficiency + standards.

How do Chubb and Moe (1990) criticise state education?

→ State education has failed to create equal opportunity and has failed disadvantaged groups.

→ It is inefficient because it fails to produce pupils with the skills needed by the economy.

→ Private schools provide higher-quality education because they are answerable to paying consumers, especially parents.

→ Their research compared 60,000 low-income pupils in 1,015 state and private high schools, alongside parent surveys and case studies.

→ Low-income pupils consistently achieved about 5% better in private schools than state schools.

🔥 Analysis:

State control → lack of consumer accountability → inefficient/unresponsive schools → poorer outcomes → market forces could improve quality and efficiency.

How do Chubb and Moe (1990) propose introducing consumer choice into state education?

→ Introduce an education market where control is placed in the hands of consumers, especially parents and local communities.

→ Each family would receive a voucher to spend on education at a school of their choice.

→ Vouchers would provide schools with their main source of income.

→ Schools would therefore have to become more responsive to parents’ wishes.

→ Schools would compete to attract customers by improving the quality of their education.

→ Chubb and Moe argue that applying these market forces to state education would improve standards and efficiency.

🔥 Analysis:

Vouchers → parental choice → schools compete for pupils/funding → ↑ responsiveness + pressure to improve → ↑ quality + efficiency.

What two roles do the New Right believe the state should have in education?

→ 1. Create the framework for competition: the state sets the rules within which schools compete.

→ Publishes Ofsted inspection reports and league tables of exam results → gives parents information to make informed choices.

→ 2. Ensure schools transmit a shared culture: the state imposes a National Curriculum to ensure schools socialise pupils into a shared cultural heritage.

🔥 Analysis:

State sets framework → information enables parental choice → schools compete → ↑ pressure to improve.

State imposes shared curriculum → common values transmitted → ↑ social integration + national identity.

Why do the New Right support a shared national culture and oppose multicultural education?

→ Education should affirm a shared national identity.

→ Curriculum should emphasise Britain’s positive role in world history and teach British literature.

→ New Right support a Christian act of worship each school day because Christianity is Britain’s main religion.

→ Aim = integrate pupils into a single set of traditions and cultural values.

→ Therefore, the New Right oppose multicultural education that reflects the cultures of different minority groups in Britain.

🔥 Analysis:

Shared curriculum + traditions → common cultural values → shared national identity → ↑ social integration.

Multicultural education → seen by New Right as reflecting separate cultures → potentially ↓ shared national identity.

How do Gewirtz (1995) and Ball (1994) criticise the New Right’s support for competition?

→ Competition between schools does not benefit everyone equally.

→ Gewirtz (1995) and Ball (1994) argue that the middle class can use their cultural and economic capital to gain access to desirable schools.

→ This means marketisation and parental choice can reproduce class inequality.

→ Critics also argue that the cause of low educational standards is not state control.

→ Instead, social inequality and inadequate funding of state schools are the real causes.

🔥 Analysis:

↑ competition + parental choice → MC use greater capital → ↑ access to desirable schools → class inequality reproduced → challenges the New Right claim that markets benefit all pupils.

What are two further criticisms of the New Right perspective on education?

→ Contradiction: New Right support parental choice, but also support the state imposing a compulsory National Curriculum on all schools.

→ This limits the freedom and choice they claim to support.

→ Marxists: education does not transmit a shared national culture as the New Right claim.

→ Instead, it transmits the culture of the dominant ruling class.

→ This can devalue the culture of the working class and minority ethnic groups.

🔥 Analysis:

Parental choice + compulsory curriculum → tension within New Right ideas.

National curriculum → dominant ruling-class culture → working-class/minority cultures devalued → education reproduces inequality rather than creating shared values.

How do Marxists view society and education?

→ Unlike functionalists, Marxists see society as based on class division and capitalist exploitation, not value consensus.

→ Capitalism is a two-class system.

→ Bourgeoisie/capitalist class: minority who own the means of production and employ workers.

→ Proletariat/working class: majority who do not own the means of production and must sell their labour power to survive.

→ Education is part of the state and helps maintain capitalism.

🔥 Analysis:

Capitalist class division → bourgeoisie exploit proletariat → class conflict → education helps maintain the capitalist system.

Why does capitalism create the potential for class conflict, according to Marx?

→ Workers own no means of production → forced to sell their labour power to capitalists.

→ Work under capitalism is poorly paid, alienating and unsatisfying.

→ Workers have little real control over their work.

→ If workers recognise their exploitation, they may demand higher wages and better working conditions.

→ They may eventually seek to abolish capitalism.

→ Marx believed the proletariat would ultimately unite to overthrow capitalism and create a classless, equal society.

🔥 Analysis:

Exploitation → workers recognise their shared position → ↑ class consciousness + conflict → potential overthrow of capitalism.

Why do Marxists argue that education helps to maintain capitalism?

→ Capitalism contains the potential for revolution because workers may recognise their exploitation.

→ However, capitalism continues because the bourgeoisie control the state.

→ Education is a key component of the state.

→ Marxists therefore see education as helping prevent revolution and maintain capitalism.

→ It helps reproduce the existing class system rather than creating a genuinely equal society.

🔥 Analysis:

Bourgeoisie control state → education helps maintain capitalist ideas/system → workers less likely to challenge capitalism → ↓ threat of revolution → capitalism reproduced.

How does Althusser (1971) explain how the state maintains the power of the bourgeoisie?

→ The state helps the ruling class maintain its dominant position.

→ It consists of two types of state apparatus:

→ Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs): maintain bourgeois rule through force or the threat of force.

→ Examples: police, courts and armed forces.

→ Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs): maintain bourgeois rule by controlling people’s ideas, values and beliefs.

→ Examples: religion, media and education.

🔥 Analysis:

Bourgeoisie control the state → RSAs control through force + ISAs control through ideas → working class is less likely to challenge capitalism → bourgeois power maintained.

Why does Althusser (1971) see education as an important Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)?

→ Education helps maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie through ideas and beliefs.

→ It performs two main functions:

→ 1. Reproduces class inequality: passes class inequality from one generation to the next by repeatedly failing working-class pupils.

→ 2. Legitimates class inequality: produces ideologies that disguise the true causes of inequality.

🔥 Analysis:

Education → reproduces + legitimates class inequality → existing class structure continues → bourgeois dominance maintained.

How does education use ideology to legitimate class inequality, according to Althusser?

→ Education produces ideas and beliefs that disguise the true causes of inequality.

→ Ideology persuades workers that inequality is inevitable.

→ It also persuades them that they deserve their subordinate position in society.

→ If workers accept these ideas → less likely to challenge or threaten capitalism.

🔥 Analysis:

Ideology → inequality appears inevitable/deserved → working class accepts subordinate position → ↓ challenge to capitalism → bourgeoisie maintain power.

How do Bowles and Gintis (1976) argue that education serves the needs of capitalism?

→ Capitalism needs a workforce with attitudes, behaviour and personality suited to being alienated and exploited workers.

→ Workers need to accept hard work, low pay and orders from above.

→ Education reproduces an obedient workforce that accepts inequality as inevitable.

→ Schools reward personality traits that produce a submissive and compliant worker.

→ 237 New York high school students were studied alongside findings from other studies.

→ Students showing obedience and discipline, e.g. punctuality, tended to gain higher grades.

→ Students showing independence and creativity tended to gain lower grades.

🔥 Analysis:

School rewards obedience + discipline → pupils develop traits suited to workplace hierarchy → obedient workforce produced → capitalist system reproduced.

How do Bowles and Gintis (1976) view the effect of education on students’ personal development?

→ They reject the idea that education primarily fosters personal development.

→ Instead, schooling stunts and distorts students’ development.

→ Schools reward conformity, obedience and discipline rather than independence and creativity.

→ This prepares pupils to accept their subordinate position in the workplace.

🔥 Analysis:

Education rewards conformity → ↓ independence/creativity → pupils become more compliant → suited to capitalist employment → class relations reproduced.

What is the correspondence principle according to Bowles and Gintis?

→ There are close parallels between schooling and work in capitalist society.

→ Both schools and workplaces are hierarchies.

→ Head teachers/bosses are at the top → make decisions and give orders.

→ Pupils/workers are at the bottom → expected to obey.

→ The relationships and structures found in education mirror or correspond to those of work.

→ Therefore, schooling takes place in “the long shadow of work”.

🔥 Analysis:

School hierarchy → mirrors workplace hierarchy → pupils become accustomed to authority → prepared for subordinate positions in the workplace.

How does the hidden curriculum operate according to Bowles and Gintis?

→ Hidden curriculum = all the “lessons” learnt at school without being directly taught.

→ The everyday organisation of school teaches pupils to accept hierarchy and competition.

→ Pupils also learn to work for extrinsic rewards.

→ These lessons correspond to the expectations of the capitalist workplace.

→ The hidden curriculum therefore prepares pupils for their future roles as workers.

🔥 Analysis:

Everyday school experience → pupils learn hierarchy + competition + extrinsic rewards → attitudes suited to workplace → obedient workforce reproduced.

How does Phil Cohen (1984) support the Marxist view of education?

→ Youth training schemes serve the needs of capitalism.

→ They teach young workers not genuine job skills, but the attitudes and values needed in a subordinate workforce.

→ They lower young workers’ aspirations.

→ This encourages them to accept low-paid work.

🔥 Analysis:

Training schemes → lower aspirations + acceptance of subordinate work → young workers accept low-paid jobs → capitalist workforce reproduced.

How do Bowles and Gintis explain the myth of meritocracy?

→ Capitalist society is based on inequality → there is a danger that the poor will see inequality as unfair and rebel.

→ Education helps prevent this by legitimating class inequality.

→ It produces ideologies that make inequality appear fair, natural and inevitable.

→ Bowles and Gintis describe education as a “giant myth-making machine”.

→ A key myth is meritocracy: the belief that everyone has equal opportunity and rewards are based on ability and effort.

→ Bowles and Gintis argue that meritocracy does not actually exist.

→ Family and class background are more important in determining income than ability or educational achievement.

🔥 Analysis:

Education promotes myth of meritocracy → inequality appears fair/deserved → working class less likely to question inequality → capitalism maintained.

How does the myth of meritocracy legitimate class inequality?

→ Meritocracy disguises the importance of family and class background in determining life chances.

→ Higher-class privileges appear to have been gained through fair competition at school.

→ This makes inequality seem legitimate and deserved.

→ Working-class people are persuaded to accept their position rather than challenge the system.

→ Therefore, the myth of meritocracy helps prevent opposition to capitalism.

🔥 Analysis:

Class background → unequal advantages → disguised by meritocracy → success appears based on ability/effort → privilege legitimised → ↓ likelihood of challenging capitalism.

How does education justify poverty, according to Bowles and Gintis?

→ Education promotes what Bowles and Gintis call the “poor-are-dumb” theory.

→ It explains poverty by blaming the individual rather than capitalism.

→ Poor people may be led to believe they are poor because they were not clever enough or did not work hard enough at school.

→ This disguises the structural causes of poverty and inequality.

→ Workers become reconciled to their exploited position.

→ This makes them less likely to rebel against capitalism.

🔥 Analysis:

Poverty → blamed on individual failure → capitalism not blamed → workers accept their position → ↓ class conflict/rebellion → capitalism reproduced.

How does Willis (1977) explain the relationship between education and capitalism?

→ Like other Marxists, Willis argues that education reproduces and legitimates class inequality.

→ Working-class pupils are prepared for jobs that are poorly paid and alienating.

→ However, unlike Bowles and Gintis, Willis argues that pupils do not simply accept capitalist ideology.

→ Working-class pupils can resist attempts to indoctrinate them.

→ Willis combines a Marxist approach with an interactionist focus on the meanings pupils give to their situation.

🔥 Analysis:

Education attempts to reproduce class inequality → pupils can resist → resistance can unintentionally lead them into the working-class jobs capitalism needs.

What did Willis (1977) find in his study of the “lads”?

→ Willis used participant observation and unstructured interviews.

→ Studied a counter-school culture of 12 working-class boys as they moved from school to work.

→ The lads formed a counter-culture opposed to school.

→ They mocked conformist boys, calling them “ear’oles”.

→ They found school boring and meaningless and rejected its rules and values.

→ Examples: smoking, drinking, disrupting lessons and truancy.

→ They rejected the school’s meritocratic ideology as a “con”.

→ They believed hard work would not allow working-class pupils to achieve middle-class jobs.

🔥 Analysis:

School values → lads reject them → counter-school culture develops → resistance to authority + rejection of meritocracy.

How does the lads’ counter-school culture ultimately help reproduce class inequality, according to Willis?

→ The lads’ anti-school culture is similar to the shopfloor culture of male manual workers.

→ Both see manual work as superior and intellectual work as inferior/effeminate.

→ The lads strongly identify with male manual work.

→ Their resistance to school ensures they fail to gain worthwhile qualifications → unskilled jobs.

→ They are accustomed to boredom and finding ways to amuse themselves → prepared for the tedium of unskilled labour.

→ Their rebellion therefore helps them “slot into” the poorly paid, low-skilled jobs capitalism needs.

→ Irony: resistance to school ideology → ultimately reproduces the class position that capitalism requires.

🔥 Analysis:

Anti-school resistance → ↓ qualifications → unskilled manual work → working-class position reproduced → capitalism gets the workforce it needs.

What are the main strengths and postmodernist criticisms of Marxist approaches to education?

→ Marxists expose the “myth of meritocracy”.

→ They show how education can act as an Ideological State Apparatus, serving capitalism.

→ Education can reproduce and legitimate class inequality.

→ Postmodernists criticise Bowles and Gintis’ correspondence principle.

→ Today’s post-Fordist economy requires a different type of workforce from the one described by Marxists.

→ Postmodernists argue education now reproduces diversity rather than inequality.

🔥 Analysis:

Marxists → education reproduces class inequality → postmodernists argue social/economic change → education now reflects greater diversity → correspondence principle may be outdated.

How do Willis and Bowles & Gintis differ in their explanations of pupils’ responses to education?

→ Bowles & Gintis: take a deterministic view.

→ Assume pupils have little/no free will and passively accept capitalist indoctrination.

→ This fails to explain why many pupils reject school values.

→ Willis: rejects the idea that schools simply “brainwash” pupils.

→ Combines Marxism + interactionism to show that pupils can resist school values.

→ However, this resistance can still lead pupils into working-class jobs.

🔥 Analysis:

Bowles & Gintis → passive acceptance → workforce reproduced.

Willis → active resistance → pupils still enter working-class jobs → class inequality reproduced despite resistance.→ Bowles & Gintis: take a deterministic view.

→ Assume pupils have little/no free will and passively accept capitalist indoctrination.

→ This fails to explain why many pupils reject school values.

→ Willis: rejects the idea that schools simply “brainwash” pupils.

→ Combines Marxism + interactionism to show that pupils can resist school values.

→ However, this resistance can still lead pupils into working-class jobs.

🔥 Analysis:

Bowles & Gintis → passive acceptance → workforce reproduced.

Willis → active resistance → pupils still enter working-class jobs → class inequality reproduced despite resistance.

What are the main criticisms of Willis’ (1977) study?

→ Critics argue Willis romanticises the “lads”, presenting them as working-class heroes.

→ This overlooks their anti-social behaviour and sexist attitudes.

→ Study involved only 12 boys in one school.

→ Small-scale sample is unlikely to be representative of other pupils’ experiences.

→ Therefore, it is risky to generalise Willis’ findings.

🔥 Analysis:

Small + unrepresentative sample → limited ability to generalise → weak evidence for explaining all working-class pupils’ experiences.

How do Morrow & Torres (1998) and feminists criticise Marxist approaches to education?

→ Morrow & Torres (1998): Marxists take a “class first” approach.

→ This treats class as the key inequality → ignores other forms.

→ Society is now more diverse → ethnicity, gender and sexuality are also important.

→ Sociologists should examine how education reproduces and legitimates all forms of inequality and how they interact.

→ Madeleine MacDonald (1980): Bowles & Gintis ignore how schools reproduce patriarchy as well as capitalism.

→ Angela McRobbie (1978): females are largely absent from Willis’ study.

→ However, Willis’ work has stimulated research into other inequalities.

→ Paul Connolly (1998) explores how education reproduces both ethnic and gender inequalities.

🔥 Analysis:

Class inequality → not the only form of inequality → gender + ethnicity + sexuality also shape education → a complete explanation must examine how different inequalities interact.