The Function of EducationThe Functionalist View

The Marxist View

SCLY2:

We don't need no education.We don't need no thought control.No dark sarcasm in the classroom.Teacher, leave them kids alone.Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!All in all its just another brick in the wall.All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

We don't need no education.We don't need no thought control.No dark sarcasm in the classroom.Teachers, leave them kids alone.Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!All in all you're just another brick in the wall.All in all you're just another brick in the wall. ©Artemis Muziekuitgeverij B.v.

Why Study Education?Schools are the first organisations most of

us attend on our own.Education is the continuation of the

socialisation started in the familyThere is a close connection between the

economy and skills acquired in educationThe kind of work people do is influenced by

the kind of education they get.The issue of who does well and who doesn't

in education is a key concern of sociologists.The experience of school affects our

experiences of other organisations

A Functionalist view of EducationFunctionalists view education in terms of the

“functions” it performs in society. This implies a non conflict view of society

Functionalists believe there are four main functions of education

the transmission of cultural valuessocial controleconomic trainingsocial selection

Transmission of Cultural ValuesSociologists such as Durkheim and Parsons

emphasise this roleParsons suggests school provides a bridge

between family and society at which universal values such as; equality of opportunity, competition, individualism and achievement are promoted. The school therefore transmits the core values of society

Durkheim identifies particular subjects as important in enabling children to feel a sense of belonging to society viz. History, English, Religious Education

Cultural transmission is reinforced by other agencies - family, mass media etc.

Social ControlFunctionalists argue every society has a need to

regulate the activities of citizens to some extentSchool teaches us about acceptable and

unacceptable behaviourSchool also teaches a knowledge and acceptance

of the political and economic system in which we live

Economic TrainingFunctionalist argue that schools produce an

adequate supply of sufficiently trained labour for the modern economy

As the economy becomes more complex education must provide a labour force to meet those needs

Thus the “New Vocationalism” of the Conservatives in the 1980s and 1990s was an acknowledgement that perhaps this important function was not being adequately carried out by schools.

Social SelectionFunctionalists such as Davis and Moore suggest

that an important function of education is to allocate people to occupations which best suit their abilities

The exam system tests and sorts society’s citizens in such a way that society makes best use of its available talents

Both the talented and the less talented end up in useful jobs that contribute to the smooth running of society

An evaluation of the Functionalist viewThe functionalist position suggests that everyone

benefits from the functions carried out by the education system

Conflict theories such as the Marxist approach argue that this is not the case. Rather, education is seen as part of the apparatus that legitimises and reproduces societies inequalities and divisions

The New Right Perspective Conservative (traditionalist) political

perspective with many similarities to functionalists

A central principle is that the state cannot meet every individual’s needs and therefore people are best left to meet their own needs through the free market

They believe that some people are naturally more talented than others

Agree with meritocracy and serving the economy by preparing students for work

Believe education should socialise pupils into shared values such as competition and instil a sense of national identity

The New Right Perspective They don’t, however, believe the current

education system provides all these goals They believe the reason it fails is because it is

run by the state Politicians and bureaucrats use the power of

the state to impose their view of what kind of schools we should have

The state tends to have a ‘one size fits all’ approach imposing uniformity and disregarding local needs

Pupils, parents and employers have no say

The New Right PerspectiveThe New Rights solution to these

problems is the marketisation of educationThey believe that competition and the

laws of supply and demand will empower the consumers (parents, pupils and employers) bringing greater diversity, choice and efficiency to schools and increasing their ability to meet everyone’s needs

Chubb &Moe(1990)….Call for the introduction of a market system that

would put education in the hands of the consumers

They propose that schools should not automatically get funding from the state regardless of how well they perform

Instead each family would be given a voucher to spend on buying education from a school of their choice

This would force schools to become more supportive of parents wishes since the vouchers would be the main source of the schools income

Schools would have to compete for business, thus improving their product for the customers

Applied to nursery & pre-school provision

Two roles for the stateAlthough the New Right see the importance of market forces in education, they still believe that the state plays an important role:

Firstly, the state imposes a framework on schools within which they have to compete - league tables mean that parents can make an informed choice about their child’s education

Secondly, the state ensures that schools transmit a shared culture - by imposing a single National curriculum, they guarantee that schools socialise pupils into a single national heritage

National(ist?) CurriculumHistoryEnglishGeographyLanguagesReligious EducationSciencePE

The New Right believe that education should affirm national identity:

• The curriculum should emphasise Britain’s positive role in history and teach specifically British literature

• There should be a Christian act of worship everyday as Christianity is Britain’s main religion

• The aim is to integrate pupils into a single set of cultural values and tradition

• They are opposed to multi-cultural education that reflects the cultures of the different ethnic minority groups in British society

Criticisms of the New RightGewirtz and Ball argue that competition only

benefits the middle classes who can use their cultural and economic capital to gain access to more desirable schools

Critics argue that the real cause of failure is not state control but social inequality and inadequate funding of state schools

There is a contradiction between the New Right support for parental choice on the one hand the imposing a compulsory National Curriculum on the other hand

Marxists argue that education does not impose a shared national culture but imposes the culture of a dominant minority ruling class. It devalues the culture of the working class and ethnic minorities.

The Marxist View of

Education

Examples of the Marxist approachLouis Althusser sees the role of education as

ideologicalCapitalist values are promoted via the hidden

curriculum (informal learning)Althusser argue working class children never

come into contact with ways of thinking that challenge the status quo. Capitalism is thus portrayed as the only possible system

Through rules, routines streaming and selection working class children learn their “place” in society and are conditioned to accept failure

Bowles and GintisIn “Schooling in Capitalist Society”

Bowles and Gintis claim that schools reward conformity over intelligence and achievement

In their study of American high school students they found that the best grades were achieved by hard working obedient children rather than the creative, aggressive and independent ones

They also noted that schooling “corresponds” with boring factory line production to prepare future workers for their lot in society

Marxists and the New VocationalismMarxists have been especially critical of thisVocational schemes are interpreted as

helping legitimise class division because they promote the idea that the middle class receive education whereas the working class receive training

Youth Training Scheme (YTS) was an early vocational initiative that was criticised

Bates (1988/9) - Youth Training Scheme

She used observation in classroom and interviews with YTS students going into ‘caring’ professions with children

Students realised that there were very few jobs with children and were pushed to the ‘elderly’

Dealing with incontinence, death etc was a severe shock to many

Many students ‘survived’ and went in to this line of work

Functionalists see vocational education as a good thing – providing the skills needed by employers

Marxists see vocational education as a bad thing – it gives W/C children a second class education and an unrealistic expectation for the future

ConclusionFunctionalism is a non conflict modelMarxism is a conflict modelThe New Right borrow much from the

Functionalists but emphasise competition at all levels

They are all structuralist in their approach, paying attention to social institutions and structures over individuals

They pay little attention to the interaction between teachers and pupils or how teachers and pupils interpret what is going on in schools