EDUCATION

DURKHEIMS VIEWS OF EDUCATION (functionalist)   

functions of education

  • promoting social solidarity

  • teaching specialist skills

Social solidarity

definition: the ties that bind people together in society

the forms of social solidarity

  • pre industrial era - mechanical solidarity

  • modern era - organic solidarity

education ensures that solidarity isnt lost

how does education achieve this

  • passes on shaped heritage —> history, literature, music —> students understand aspects of culture

  • communal gatherings —> assemblies, prize giving —> promote values of community

  • social cohesion —> enrichment, sports, houses —> sense of unity

contemporary applications

  • Michael grove reforms curriculum beginning with history

  • compulsory teaching of brutish values

  • democracy

  • rule of law

  • individual liberty

  • mutual respects for those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith

critisisms

  • marxists: whose values and heritige are being passed on

  • ethnocentric curriculum focused on ‘little englandism’ (ball)

  • british values - marginilises some groups in society

teaching specialist skills

  • industrial revolution

  • changes in skills required for the ‘complex division of modern labour’

  • creation of state education systems to prepare next generation for employment

how does education achive this

  • core knowledge - national curriculum

  • specialist knowledge - alevel subjects

  • vocational skills - btech

  • creation of universities - red brick

contemporary applications

  • additional funding for maths students at level 3

  • teaching bursaries for shortage subjects

  • standardised assesments

  • reforms to the curriculum - global skills

critisisms

marxists

  • overqualified workforce

  • fragmentation

  • lower wages

  • reserve army of labour

high levels of youth unemployment

skills shortage in areas in the uk

girls are discoraged from certain subjects.

PARSONS VIEWS OF EDUCATION (functionalist)

parsons - secondary socialisation

  • bridge between home and society - need for value consensus

  • particularistic to universal values

  • ascribed status to achieved status

  • collectivism to individualism

how does education achieve this

  • hidden or informal curriculum

  • norms and values of school

  • assessments

  • competition between students

contemporary applications

  • school uniform policies

  • disciplinarity policies of schools

  • Ofsted - cultural capital

  • social, moral, spiritual and cultural education

criticisms

  • marxists - hidden curriculum prepares students for exploitation - transmits values of capitalism

  • most modernists - fragmented nature of society means socialisation by various agents

  • clash of working-class and middle-class values in education leads to underachivement

DAVIS AND MOORE VIEWS OF EDUCATION (functionalist)

Davis and Moore role allocation

  • society requires skilled workforce tat is fully qualified

  • certain roles require certain aptitudes

  • education prepares students for their roles based on their ability

how does education achive this

  • ‘sifts and sorts’ students based on ability

  • promotes ideas of social mobility and meritocracy

  • most able pupils end up in higher positions in society

  • lower ability end up in low-skilled positions

contemporary applications

  • streaming and setting

  • university entrance

  • subject choice - vocational and academic routes

  • wage inequalities

criticisms

  • marxists - meritocracy is a myth making machine

  • seminists - gender pay gap - feminine professions paid less

  • ‘old school tie’ netwoek

  • privately educated student are more advantaged

THE NEW RIGHT VIEWS OF EDUCATION

the new right

  • developed functionalist ideas of social solidarity and the teaching of specialists

  • additionally, parents should be given choice in their child’s education

  • LEAs are inefficient - prefer free market approach (Chubb and Moe)

how does education achieve this

  • competition between schools for results

  • increased choice for parents - open enrolment

  • increased involvement of private enterprise in education

the 1988 education reform act

introduced

  • national curriculum

  • formula funding

  • standardised testing

  • parental choice and open enrolment

further developments

  • introduction of OFSTED

  • league tables

application to contemporary education

  • standardised testing throughout school life

  • development of education markets extending from early years to higher education

  • increased privatisation of education

  • wider range of schools

evaluations

  • marketisation has been dominant approach to education for over 30 years

  • introduced selection policies that disadvantage certain social groups

Gewirtz et al - middle class advantaged as they play the system

ALTHUSSERS VIEWS OF EDUCATION (marxist)

Althusser - state apparatuses

  • the ruling class looks to control masses through different apparatuses

  • repressive state apparatus - physical control, coercion - police, military, courts

  • ideological state apparatus - control over thoughts, beliefs and ideas - education, religion and media

the ideological state apparatus

  • teaching students the necessary skills for employment

  • reproduces the dominant ideology of the ruling class

  • reproduces and legitimises inequality

how do schools achieve this

  • fragmented curriculum

  • basic skills - literacy, numeracy

  • curriculum based on ruling class values - history, literature, music

  • myth of meritocracy

contemporary applications

  • national curriculum split into distinct subjects

  • students to study for a passing grade in english and maths until the age of 18

  • changes to curriculum under coalition government

  • growth mindset

criticisms

  • functionalists views - agree with marxist ideas, but suggest that they are beneficial for society

  • limited empirical evidence for althusser’s ideas

  • postmodernists would suggest education is one way of expressing ability in contemporary society

  • deterministic

  • - more children from manual labour backgrounds going into HE that even before - still only 9%

BOWLES AND GINTIS VIEWS OF EDUCATION (marxist)

bowles and gintis

  • the long shadow of work

  • reproduction of the workforce

  • hidden curriculum

how do schools do this

  • the correspondence principle - schools mirrors the world of work

  • punctuality

  • rewards/sanctions

  • extrinsic motivations

  • division of students

  • hirearchies and power

  • privilage for conformity/status

education legitimises inequality

  • opportunity and meritocracy are myths

  • education confirms working-class pupils will end up in working class jobs

  • system gives advantages to those of middle-class backgrounds

contemporary applications

  • uniform policies

  • conservatives ‘teacher given power’

  • role of academies - closer links with work

  • apprenticeships and vocational education

criticisms

  • functionalists agree with skills for employment but suggest this is for benefit of society

  • do all students become passive and unthinking puppets

  • are the workers being produced equipped with necessary skills for employment.

BOURDIEUS VIEWS OF EDUCATION

Bourdieu

  • cultural reproduction model

  • habitus - tastes, attributes of individual

  • field - cultural framework of specific context

  • cultural capital - value a persons cultural knowledge has within a field

education as cultural reproduction

  • middle-class habitus has given symbolic capital - teachers and heads are middle class - those who write the curriculum and policies are middle class

  • working class pupils are disadvantaged and subject to symbolic violence

contemporary applications

  • Ofsted - cultural capital

  • school policies on uniform

  • curriculum based on middle -class knowledge

  • teacher judgements

support for Bourdieu

  • archer - Nike identities

  • Reay - psycho-social approach - cleft habitus

  • sullivan - students with higher cultural capital achieve higher

criticisms

  • functionalists suggest that education is meritocratic

  • socialised into value consensus - skills are needed to achieve

  • students acquire cultural capital throughout their education

WILLIS VIEWS OF EDUCATION

learning to labour (‘lads experiment’)

  • mixed methods approach - observations, interviews

  • studied the ‘lads’ - a group of working-class boys who were disruptive, misbehaved and had a negative view on education

  • anti-school subculture - praise earned from behaviour against the school ethos

conclusions

  • education was ineffective as an agent of socialisation

  • the ‘lads’ were not socialised into work, rather into wanting to leave education

  • contradicts the work of functionalists and other marxists

contemporary applications

  • anti-school subculture within contemporary education

  • crisis over the achievement of working class males

  • does being a working class male carry a label of underachievement

evaluations

  • close bonds with boys could have caused the Hawthorne effect

  • ‘choose to fail’ - is this by design of free will

  • end results - working class boys ended up working in working-class jobs - does this prove that education reproduces inequality?

FEMMINISTS VIEWS OF EDUCATION

what does the feminist perspective cover

  • achievement by gender

  • experience of different genders in education

  • gender socialisation

  • formation of gendered identities

  • gendered subject images

achievement by gender

  • historically, girls underachieved in comparison to boys - lowered expectation - gendered subject choices - career paths - socialisation into expressive roles

  • since 1980’s girls started to achieve higher than boys - rise of feminism - career aspirations - feminisation of education - educated female role models

experience of different genders in education

  • sexual harassment of girls in schools - ‘male gaze’

  • higher expectations on girls for behaviour

  • rigid controls on girls for behaviour

gender socialisation

  • girls more controlled by parents and teachers

  • girls have less freedom

  • canalisation of educational toys

  • books and imagery - lobban

formation of gender identities

  • schools reinforce traditional feminine identities

  • uniform regulations

  • sexual behaviours

  • sports

gender subject images

  • traditional make and female gender domains - STEM subjects are male dominated - humanities are female dominated

  • change in gendered images represent girls more positively

  • initiatives such as GIST and WISE

evaluations

  • despite progress many issues still remain - gender pay gap, glass ceiling

  • jackson (2010) - focus is on boys underachievement in education, rather than inequality beyond education

  • education increasingly female dominated - 80% of graduates in education are female

KEY TRENDS IN EDUCATIONAL ACHIVEMENT

educational trends

  • GCSE performance by social class, gender and ethnicity

  • attainment 8 - progress made over 8 key subjects

  • university enterence

attainment 8 data 2017/18

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FACTORS EFFECTING ACHIEVEMENT

external factors

  • material factors

  • cultural background

  • linguistic differences

  • parental attitudes and socialisation

  • racism in wider society

  • subcultural attitudes

internal factors

  • teacher-pupil interactions

  • pro and anti-school subcultures

  • setting and streaming

  • institutional racism

  • organisation of teaching, learning and assessment

  • curriculum content

interactions between internal and external

  • linguistic differences - language learned at home - language of education based upon middle-class values

  • labelling - labels applied based on family background, appearance, language and attitudes - influenced by external factors

  • habitus comes from home life

  • clashes with habitus of school, school imposes its tastes and attitudes onto students

  • curriculum content

  • parental knowledge of curriculum comes from social class that can be passed down to their children

  • racism in wider society influences stereotypical views that some teachers hold

  • lack of educational role models in society leads to underperformance in school

  • anti-school subcultures - collectivist nature of working-class replicated in subcultures

  • gender socialisation at home reinforced by gendered teachers in subjects

  • teacher expectations of girls and boys differ because of internal influences

  • feminisation of education led to fewer males choosing to go into teaching

MATERIAL DEPRIVATION (external)

what is material deprivation

  • inability to afford basic resources that impacts on a child’s educational achievement

  • douglas (1964) ‘home and the school’ - material deprivation has a cumulative effect on achievement

who suffers from material deprivation

  • measurement for material deprivation is usually receipt of free school meals

  • 4.6 million children (34%) live in poverty but only 13.6% claim FSM

  • 45%of children in minority ethnic families live in poverty

  • white and mixed ethnicity students on FSM make less progress in secondary school than their non FSM peers

how does it impact education

  • lack of availability to afford resources and hidden costs

  • overcrowded accommodation

  • part-time jobs

  • diet and nutrition

  • caring responsibilities

how does it impact education

  • 90% of schools rated requires improvement or lower in deprived areas

  • schools such as detritus - student self-esteem

  • instability in educational provision

what has the government done

  • new labour - sure start, EMA, excellence in cities, city centre academies

  • coalition - universal free school meals to year 2, pupil premium

evaluations of material deprivation

  • 2017 - 28.6% of FSM pupils achieved 5 GCSEs compared to 60.8% of those not on FSM

  • validity of measurements - many in poverty not in receipt of FSM

  • Chinese students on FSM - 77% achieved 5 GCSEs, Chinese not on FSM - 78% achieved 5 GCSEs

  • most minority ethnic groups have small gap in progress 8 scores between those on FSM and those not on FSM

  • impact of material deprivation on in-school behaviours.