The Function of Education

1
The Function of Education

• The Functionalist View
• The Marxist View

2
A Functionalist view of Education

• Functionalists 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 values
• social control
• economic training
• social selection

3
Transmission of cultural Values

• Sociologists such as Durkheim and Parsons
  emphasise this role.
• Parsons 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.

4
Social Control

• Functionalists argue every society has a need to
  regulate the activities of citizens to some
  extent
• School teaches us about acceptable and
  unacceptable behaviour
• School also teaches a knowledge and acceptance of
  the political and economic system in which we live

5
Economic Training

• Functionalist 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.

6
Social Selection

• Functionalists 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 societies
  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.

7
A critique of the functionalist view

• The 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

8
Examples of the Marxist approach

• Louis Althusser sees the role of education as
  ideological.
• Capitalist 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

9
Bowles and Gintis

• In 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

10
Marxists and the new Vocationalism

• Marxists have been especially critical of this
• Vocational 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
• EG Phil Cohens critique of YTS

11
Conclusion

• Functionalism is a non conflict model
• Marxism is a conflict model
• They are both 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