Theories of education

Functionalism

Durkeim:

• education prepares us for work by giving us speciaist skills.

• education creates social solidarity through value consensus

  • social solidarity: standing up for each other

  • value consensus: agreement on what is important

Social solidarity through value consensus: although school may provide values to us, they are not consistently adopted and many people (e.g. those who are bullied) will not feel part of the greater whole —> school shootings

Education provides specialist skills to prepare us for work: schools do provide students with skills (subject knowledge and some social skills) but they fall a long way short of providing all the specialist skills needed for work

Parsons:

• education is a bridge between the family and wider society.

• in the family, everyone is unique and taught particularistic values through primary socialisation

• in wider society, it is a collective where we have universalistic values due to secondary socialisation.

• education is meritocratic: everyone is fair and has equal chances

  • individual achievement: mostly judged on our own work

  • equal opportunity: same exams

• society in miniature: education is a practice on a small scale for the real world. we can make mistakes without being harmed.

Education as the bridge: this process could have significant negative effects as it removes individualism which reduces creativity and innovation

Education is meritocratic: this is easily criticised by the evidence that shows differences in educational achivement for different groups (gender, ethnicity, social class)

Education is society in miniature: likely right that education allows us to practice the skills we will need for the world of work, however, it is not always a safe environment- some people fail at school and are not given additional chances.

Davis and Moore:

• Role allocation is the idea that through education we are given the jobs that best suit our abilities e.g. good at maths —> accountant, good with people —> nurse

• This happens because we are sifted and sorted into the roels that best suit us based on our ability

• The most important jobs are the best rewarded, to encourage people to strive to achieve them.

Role allocation may not value some jobs fairly despite being essential e.g. supermarket workers, dustbin people

Marxists would criticise: the best jobs go to the Bourgeoisie not the people who are actually most suitable

Marxism

Marxists argue that all the institutions (including education) socialise society into accepting ruling-class ideology. (Bourgeoisie and Proletariat)

• Process happens slowly so typically unaware that is happening

Louis Althusser:

• ISA: ideological state apparatus (mind) - education

• RSA: repressive state apparatus (body) - government

Education is an ISA, it seeks to control your thinking so that you believe that the capitalist economy is fair and acceptable, rather than being forced into believing it.

Two functions of the ISA that education does

1. Reproduction- educations fails each new generation of working class students so they achieve the poorest grades and can only access the worst jobs

2. Legitimisation- education slowly socialises us into accepting that something unfair is fair so justifies the system (capitalist society). People who fail at school are seen as responsible for their failure even though this is really the fault of the system.

Bowles and Gintis:

The hidden curriculum- made of all the knowledge students learn that is not on the formal curriculum. It is knowldge that we receive that is not on the timetable or syllabus e.g obey authority, work hard, be on time. Through the hidden curriculum we are taught to support capitalism.

The correspondence principle- school is a mirror of the workplace.

New Right (neo-liberal)

Education is of a low standard and is inefficent because it lacks competition and choice.

• Solution: introduce competition and choice through marketization (making education like a business).

Parentocracy: give power to parents to choose school

• open enrolment: anyone can apply to any school- raises standards

• league tables: provides evidence of schools based on performace so parents can choose

• OFSTED: reports provide information to parents

Power to schools:

• performance related pay: encourage staff to work hard to improve results

• flexibility to determine pay: to retrain and recruit the best staff

• fornula funding: costs in a school can be spread more efficiently across more students. This encourages schools to compete for more students (because you get money per student) and therefore the schools must be good.

Is choice a myth?

Students from a working class background might not have the capacity to pay to travel to another school - so don’t really have a choice.

Areas around good schools are highly desirable so more expensive meaning working class families are pushed out and away from good schools.

“Sink schools”- as schools do not close, undersubscribed schools struggle on with the worst teachers and the lowest standards.