The Part Played by Education in Society

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The Part Played by Education in Society

• Education Topic 1

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The purpose of Education

• Today most young people spend approximately six
  hours per day in school, from aged four to at
  least sixteen
• They gain knowledge, attitudes and skills via the
  formal curriculum and the hidden curriculum

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The start of compulsory education

• Forsters Education Act 1870 brought in State
  responsibility for education of aged five to ten
  years
• 1880 Act made education compulsory for five to
  ten year olds

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Compulsory education was introduced in 1880 in
order to

• Create a more skilled workforce
• Improve the effectiveness of our armies
• Re-socialise the feckless (irresponsible) poor

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• Reduce the level of street crime
• Ward off the threat of revolution
• Provide education as a human right
• (This is a liberal view of education)

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Functionalist view of education(Parsons)

• Socialisation into core values, e.g. equality of
  opportunity
• Skills provision needed in modern industrial
  society
• Role allocation (sorting the right type of
  student for the right type of job)

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Marxists' view of education

• Education is part of the ideological state
  apparatus
• Education promotes ruling class values, (not
  common values as functionalists say)
• Education justifies and reproduces class
  inequality (it does not produce equality of
  opportunity)

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• Education contains a hidden curriculum which
  promotes ruling class values and attitudes. This
  ensures that the working class accept their own
  failure, whereas in reality it is the capitalist
  education system which causes them to fail

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Bowles and Gintis claim that

• Education reflects the needs of capitalism by
  giving pupils the appropriate skills and
  attitudes to make them good and obedient
  workers.
• There is a direct correspondence between school
  and work. E.g. teachers are the bosses who
  control learning pupils are the workers who
  have no control over their learning

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• Students are rewarded with success for their
  conformity not their intellectual ability
• Students who conform do better than those who
  challenge the system.

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Two views of education

• Functionalist view
• Education produces model citizens
• Education is part of social structure
• Does not look at behaviour in the classroom
  itself.

• Marxist view
• Education turns working class pupils into
  conformists
• Education is part of social structure
• Does not look at behaviour in the classroom
  itself.

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Criticism of both Functionalism and Marxism

• Paul Willis says that both Functionalism and
  Marxist theories are deterministic
• Both theories ignore the ability of many pupils
  to resist the education system
• Willis went into schools to observe and
• understand what actually happens inside
• the classroom which he linked this to Marxist
• theory

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Inside schools, Willis found

• a pro school subculture (the lads) and an
  anti school subculture, (the ear oles)
• The ear oles tended to be middle class and
  conformed, while the lads tended to be working
  class and rebelled by having a laff

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• having a laff was a coping strategy for the
  boredom of school. Willis said this prepared
  them for coping with boring routine jobs in adult
  life
• It was their very rebellion, (not passivity)
  which reproduced the capitalist workforce
• NB
• Today such strategies as having a laff tend
• to lead to unemployment not routine jobs

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The end

• Possible examination style question
• Discuss reasons why we have an education system