Education scholars

Functionalist

Marxist

Durkheim - Argued that the education system provides secondary socialisation. They would argue that it passes on universal norms and values shared by wider society

Parsons - He argued that the main function of education was as a social bridge between family and wider society. He saw the classroom as a smaller scale of society in which children would be exposed to different cultures and therefore learn tolerance and how to integrate.

Davis and Moore - They believe that education sifts and sorts through students using exams and sorts through students using exams and qualifications, allocating them a fututre job that best fits their abilities. Role allocation ensures a more efficent economy: better grades = better job lower grades = low skilled jobs

Althusser - The bourgeosisie maintains power by using repressive state apparatus (Coercive power like the police and army) and ideological state apparatus (Institutions that spread bourgeosie ideology) to ensure the proletariat is in a state of false class concoisness. He argues that schools and educational institutions are part of the ideological state apparatus. They prepare working class pupils to accept a life of exploitation.

Bowels and Gintis - They identifed a corrispondance between school and the work place. Schools and work (Particularly for working class pupils and workers) both involve: uniforms, strict time keeping, heirarchy, rewards and punishment. The reason why schools act in this way is because they work directly in the intrest of the capiltalist system and the ruling class and their principle purpose is to produce the workforce. They commonly used the phrase “Work casts a long shadow over education”

Willis - He used a wide range of research methods to really try and see education from the childs point of view. He was intrested in seeing the conflict in education and why working class students went on to do working class jobs. He did the study learning to labour, he spent 18 months studying 12 working class boys. They developed an anti-school subculture which lead to a reproduction of social class inequality. They tended to value manual labour and saw academic sucsess as irrelevant.

Giroux - Willis’ theory is too deterministic. He argues that working class students are not entirely moulded by the capitalistic system and do not accept everything that they are taught.

Becker - He created labelling theory, which is where agents of social control (Police, teachers ect) enage in a process of labelling when interacting with others and meeting new people. The label is formed when someone acts in a certain way or could be formed on prejudice or bias. Labelling can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy which is where a label that you recieve influences you to act in a certain manner which agrees with that label.

he interviewed 60 highschool teachers, he concluded that teacheres were labelling the “ideal student” as working class whereas working class students were being labelled as the furthest away from ideal.

Bordieu - Children of middle class or wealthier parents are likely to have the knowledge and behaviour to help sucseed in education (and soceiety) Pupils gain a positive label from teachers by relating to them if they are from a similar class background.

Rosenthal and Jacobsen - (Pygamalion) They carried out a field experiement where they told teachers that they had identified 20% of the brightest kids where in reality these children were randomly selected. A year later they returned to the school and the children he had labelled as the brightest kids had made more progress than thoes that werent labelled. This concluded that the self-fuffiling prophecy and labelling is evident within the education system.

Ball - It was largely non-academic factors that were influencing which sets the children were in - based on primary school and teacher judgements/labels. Working class kids aew disproprtionately in lower sets and they found it demeaning, lowered their self esteem and they were apathetic (not bothered) about education, they also tended to be more disruptive.

The privitisation of state education has lead to the “cola-isation” of schools. Introducting and incorperating big brands into the lives of children at school means theyre an early consumer of the product and may later rely upon it/stay a loyal customer

Burnstein - Middle class parents socialise their children into an ‘elaborated speech code’ This language level often used by middle class kids is often similar to ones used by teachers and exam papers. This means that children with working class parents socialise their children into a ‘restricted speach code’ that fails to convey meaning.

Sugarman - Working class children are encouraged to seek only short-term goals and immediate pleasure - this is insant gratification

Douglas - Working class parents are less intrested in their childrens education which results in their children adopting this attitude

Keddie - Teachers are teaching different content to different classes ie- top set more difficult content whereas lower sets more basic content as teachers assumed they wouldnt be able to acsess higher level content. Lower sets with working class kids - teachers dissmissed their street knowledge as irrelevant

Gillborn and Youdell - (Educational triage) Middle class in top sets “Theyll be fine” - encouraged to go to university and push themselves. Combination of working class and middle class students on the C/D grade border. Emergancy help needed as schools are judged on their grades in leauge tables. Hopeless working class students.

Archer - Some working class students deliberately chose to break school dress code by embracing a street style of appearance and behaviour to solidfy their class idenity.

Edward and Davis - Parents believe that certain toys, games and activities are sutible only for particular sexes

Goards - When gcses were introduced this benefitted girls more due to their better organisational skills

Weiner - Gendered sterotypes have been removed from classrooms and textbooks

Wilkinson - Feminist ideas on equality and women having careers filtered down to girls through the media in the 80s/90s causing a shift in society

Mitosis and Browne - Teachers have lower expectations of boys and expect them to be late, untidy and disruptive

Burns and Bracey - The socialisation of boys may lead to overconfidence, they are often are surprised when an exam doesnt go well so they put it down to bad luck.

Edwards and David - Boys mature slower than girls due to primary socialisation within the family often encourages boys to be more boiserious and attention seeking. This can lead to a lack of concentration in classrooms

Mac an Ghaill - (Crisis of masculinity) This is a reaction to the changing structure of employment and the decline of traditional male working class jobs due to changes in society. This can mean that men resort to hegemonic masculine idenitites to gain status, reject education due to the feminisation of education, laddish behaviour, anti-school subcultures, competitiveness present in males across social classes and view education and qualifications as irrelevant.

Palmer - He found that half of ethnic - minority children live in low income households compared to 25% of white children. Ethnic minority parents are more likely to be unemployed or in low-paid jobs. Many ethnic minority children live in inner city areas which might have high crime rates,crowded houses, possible lack of council funding. HOWEVER this may not impact education as bangladeshi and pakistani families live in poverty and yet children from thoes families perform well in exams.

Dr Tony Sewell - African carribean children (mainly boys) suffer from a lack of positive role models and discipline he argues that absent black fathers have a negitive impact on the development of young black boys. These boys are also under the influence of negitive role models from music such as rap and drill and hyper masculine peer cultures that put pressure on boys to join anti-school subcultures

Hatcher - Schools give low priority to race issues, they fail to effectivly with racism and make little provision for teaching non-english languages

Gillborn - Marketisation gives school more scope to select pupils. This has put ethnic minority pupils at a disadvantage because schools will be more influenced by negitive sterotypes. Assesment is used to reinforce the dominant white cultures supirority.

Callaghan - (Labour) Argued that the education system was not producing pupils with the right skills that were needed for the modern economy. Comprehensives tended to result in students with all academic qualifications but most jobs require practical skills.