the role and functions of the education system, including its relationship to the economy and to
class structure
Functionalism (/)
Marxism (/)
Functions of the education system:
1.) Functionalism
Evaluate the usefulness of functionalist views of the education system in society today (30)
P1: Explains the role of education in social stratification.
E1: Davis and Moore (1945); social stratification is based on “functional necessity” and
education serves the function of role allocating based on the talents an individual has nurtured
and displayed during education (formalised through qualifications). The most necessary roles
fulfilled are the ones rewarded the most by financial incentives. Once education has achieved in
such role allocation, organic solidarity functions properly. Thus education is vital for meritocracy
as it is the key to social mobility and improving one’s market position
E1: gans says poverty is important, as it ensures the undesired jobs are filled.
Ev1: There is a risk of social Spencerism here (so functionalism is potentially dangerous):
justifying social inequalities and displacing them as issues of (innate?) ability leads to the
assumption of under performing social groups being “less smart” a stigma that surrounds
EMG’s. I.e., Gillborn argues that this is precisely what we saw with Murray’s bell curve positing
innate intellectual differences between Whites and non-Whites based on an outdated IQism.
Thus he equates the Gifted and Talented programme (which the DFE suggested sought to
select students based on ability rather than knowledge) as a form of eugenics because it
recruited 5x more white than black Caribbean students than white. Gillborn continues to argue
that education therefore perpetuates Whiteness and conflict:
P2: Explains the importance of education in providing specialist skills.
E2: Durkheim suggested that industrialisation had changed the way solidarity was kept
(mechanical to organic) as industrialisation had separated work from the home, thus leading to
a rise in specialisation and greater stratification of the labour process. This had a consequent
impact on the education system because for the first time it meant that education had to match
these changes through educational policy aimed at specialisation. Thus we can now pick our
own a-levels, choose what university degrees we want to do, etc.. Durkheim argued that this
,specialisation was not necessarily anomic, however, because it meant that interdependence
was ever-more important (in what he calls a “viz-a-viz society”), leading to a shift from
mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity.
E2: In organic solidarity, our worth is thus determined by our value to the wider economy: our
human capital. In a deindustrialised society, Bell argues that this specialisation now lies in
academia and in knowledge, rather than in production work due to globalisation and
computerisation, allowing individuals to engage in more upskilled and specialised work. This
explains recent shifts in subjects offered within British education, such as art and design, media
subjects etc – and the emphasis on vocationalism.
Ev2: marx specialisation. He argues that workplace cooperation wherein people can complete a
minor job quickly, is bad as it favours the specialist worker over the craftsman. This leads to
unfulfilling work, as they neither see the product of their labour or get to engage in fulfilling
tasks—thus, their species essence (their true, creative relations) are undermined, leading to
workers feeling alienated.
P3: Explains the role of education as a form of secondary socialisation that promotes value
consensus.
E3: Parsons and secondary socialisation (education takes over the focal socialising):
universalistic versus particularistic. Particularistic standards are the result of primary
socialisation and universalistic is provided through the education system. Parsons suggested
that schools therefore acted as a bridge to wider society by being a society in miniature which
mirrors the real world. Eg via detentions.
E3 The 'hidden curriculum' helps pupils to understand the social norms that they need to
function in society. Durkheim believes it is part of the socialisation process, which benefits both
individuals and society. Durkheim contended that the functioning of society required a high level
of homogeneity, and this could be provided by education via highly regulated institutions.
Ev3: Explanation: bowles + ginntis: it argues the "correspondence principle" explains how the
internal organization of schools corresponds to the internal organisation of the capitalist
workforce in its structures, norms, and values. For example, the authors assert the hierarchy
system in schools reflects the structure of the labour market, with the head teacher as the
managing director, pupils fall lower down in the hierarchy. Wearing uniforms and discipline are
promoted among students from working class, as it would be in the workplace for lower levels
employees. Education provides knowledge of how to interact in the workplace and gives direct
preparation for entry into the labour market. They also believe work casts a "long shadow" in
education – education is used by the bourgeoisie to control the workforce. From their point of
view schools reproduce existing inequalities and they reject the notion that there are equal
,opportunities for all. In this way they argue that education justifies and explains social inequality
rather than consensus.
P4: creates social solidarity via secondary socialisation
E: For Durkheim, the education system performs the secondary socialisation role by Instilling
social solidarity. By learning about history, children learn to see themselves as part of a bigger
picture and people should work together for common goals. Children also learn how to get on
with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences.
E4: For instance, Rousseau argues that social cohesion can be developed through educating
history and literature of the country, and mass culture. I.e., teaching Shakespeare. This explains
the function behind Thatcher’s (secretaries’) introduction of the national curriculum, and even
today, where subjects seem to be more specialised and diverse (As shown above), this can be
seen through British schools’ reinforcement of “British Values”. Further, Durkheim suggested
that “Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of
homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the mind of the
child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that social life demands”: education provides
such homogeneity.
Ev4: Hargreaves creates competition like between workers.
2.) Marxism
Point one: education is a part of the superstructure
Explanation: According to Marx, the super structure of society is where the economic base (the
means, and consequent relations of production eg class divisions) are maintained by different
societal structures. Said societal structures are shaped by the bourgeoise, and make people
avoid questioning the relations of production.
Evidence: mayo applied Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to education, hegemony is where “a
system of class alliance in which a “hegemonic class” exercised political leadership over
“subaltern classes” by “winning them over.”
Ao2: this can be observed via the coalition governments reform to make teaching british values
compulsory. By reinforcing liberal values as the correct ones, eg representative democracy, it
thus makes liberal views seem like “common sense” which reinforces the superstructure as in
marx’s view the state is a committee for the bourgeoise.
Link: therefore, the education system reinforces the relations of the production by making them
seem like the most “british” option.
, Evaluation: Functionalists would view this as socialising universalistic standards and thus
promoting value consensus rather than conflict.
Point two: education is an ideological state apparatus
Explanation: ISA formations are ostensibly apolitical and part of civil society, rather than a formal
part of the state (i.e. as is the case in an RSA) In terms of psychology they could be described
as psychosocial, because they aim to inculcate ways of seeing and evaluating things, events
and class relations. Instead of expressing and imposing order, through violent repression, ISA
disseminate ideologies that reinforce the control of a dominant class. People tend to be
co-opted by fear of social rejection, e.g. ostracisation, ridicule and isolation. Althusser said that
the school has supplanted the church as the crucial ISA for indoctrination, which augments the
reproduction of the relations of production (i.e. the capitalist relations of exploitation) by training
the students to become sources of labour power, who work for and under capitalists.
Evidence: this is supported by willis’s the lads study. In his analysis, he utilised the term “The
teaching paradigm” which is the set of demands and incentives used by the school system.
According to this paradigm, students consent to behave obediently and in deference to their
teacher in exchange for promised credentials that will help them move upward
socioeconomically. This paradigm, which helps the teacher with authority, implies the desirability
of obedience, deference, and conformity for working-class students.
Analysis: this supports the ISA as it creates the concept that capitalist authority is consensual,
and thus should be opposed. This reproduces the relations of production althusser referenced
by reinforcing the false class consciousness of the working class.
Evaluation: however, hobbes would support this. He believes that we should accede to a social
contract with a sovereign authority to prevent social chaos. By socialising this, it ensures that
order is consistently maintained.
Point three: meritocracy is a myth
Explanation: Bourdieu argues that symbolic violence is the imposition of symbols and meanings
(eg culture upon groups, and all culture is equally arbitrary, this is conducted via pedagogic
action (the imposition of cultural arbitrary, which reflects a fields dominant group.) by pedagogic
authority (teachers) who want to keep the system that values their authority and thus reproduce
the unfair system.
Evidence: the myth of meritocracy is where the idea of the education system being egalitarian
and grants rewards upon effort is false, as the teachers will consciously maintain their power via
this.
class structure
Functionalism (/)
Marxism (/)
Functions of the education system:
1.) Functionalism
Evaluate the usefulness of functionalist views of the education system in society today (30)
P1: Explains the role of education in social stratification.
E1: Davis and Moore (1945); social stratification is based on “functional necessity” and
education serves the function of role allocating based on the talents an individual has nurtured
and displayed during education (formalised through qualifications). The most necessary roles
fulfilled are the ones rewarded the most by financial incentives. Once education has achieved in
such role allocation, organic solidarity functions properly. Thus education is vital for meritocracy
as it is the key to social mobility and improving one’s market position
E1: gans says poverty is important, as it ensures the undesired jobs are filled.
Ev1: There is a risk of social Spencerism here (so functionalism is potentially dangerous):
justifying social inequalities and displacing them as issues of (innate?) ability leads to the
assumption of under performing social groups being “less smart” a stigma that surrounds
EMG’s. I.e., Gillborn argues that this is precisely what we saw with Murray’s bell curve positing
innate intellectual differences between Whites and non-Whites based on an outdated IQism.
Thus he equates the Gifted and Talented programme (which the DFE suggested sought to
select students based on ability rather than knowledge) as a form of eugenics because it
recruited 5x more white than black Caribbean students than white. Gillborn continues to argue
that education therefore perpetuates Whiteness and conflict:
P2: Explains the importance of education in providing specialist skills.
E2: Durkheim suggested that industrialisation had changed the way solidarity was kept
(mechanical to organic) as industrialisation had separated work from the home, thus leading to
a rise in specialisation and greater stratification of the labour process. This had a consequent
impact on the education system because for the first time it meant that education had to match
these changes through educational policy aimed at specialisation. Thus we can now pick our
own a-levels, choose what university degrees we want to do, etc.. Durkheim argued that this
,specialisation was not necessarily anomic, however, because it meant that interdependence
was ever-more important (in what he calls a “viz-a-viz society”), leading to a shift from
mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity.
E2: In organic solidarity, our worth is thus determined by our value to the wider economy: our
human capital. In a deindustrialised society, Bell argues that this specialisation now lies in
academia and in knowledge, rather than in production work due to globalisation and
computerisation, allowing individuals to engage in more upskilled and specialised work. This
explains recent shifts in subjects offered within British education, such as art and design, media
subjects etc – and the emphasis on vocationalism.
Ev2: marx specialisation. He argues that workplace cooperation wherein people can complete a
minor job quickly, is bad as it favours the specialist worker over the craftsman. This leads to
unfulfilling work, as they neither see the product of their labour or get to engage in fulfilling
tasks—thus, their species essence (their true, creative relations) are undermined, leading to
workers feeling alienated.
P3: Explains the role of education as a form of secondary socialisation that promotes value
consensus.
E3: Parsons and secondary socialisation (education takes over the focal socialising):
universalistic versus particularistic. Particularistic standards are the result of primary
socialisation and universalistic is provided through the education system. Parsons suggested
that schools therefore acted as a bridge to wider society by being a society in miniature which
mirrors the real world. Eg via detentions.
E3 The 'hidden curriculum' helps pupils to understand the social norms that they need to
function in society. Durkheim believes it is part of the socialisation process, which benefits both
individuals and society. Durkheim contended that the functioning of society required a high level
of homogeneity, and this could be provided by education via highly regulated institutions.
Ev3: Explanation: bowles + ginntis: it argues the "correspondence principle" explains how the
internal organization of schools corresponds to the internal organisation of the capitalist
workforce in its structures, norms, and values. For example, the authors assert the hierarchy
system in schools reflects the structure of the labour market, with the head teacher as the
managing director, pupils fall lower down in the hierarchy. Wearing uniforms and discipline are
promoted among students from working class, as it would be in the workplace for lower levels
employees. Education provides knowledge of how to interact in the workplace and gives direct
preparation for entry into the labour market. They also believe work casts a "long shadow" in
education – education is used by the bourgeoisie to control the workforce. From their point of
view schools reproduce existing inequalities and they reject the notion that there are equal
,opportunities for all. In this way they argue that education justifies and explains social inequality
rather than consensus.
P4: creates social solidarity via secondary socialisation
E: For Durkheim, the education system performs the secondary socialisation role by Instilling
social solidarity. By learning about history, children learn to see themselves as part of a bigger
picture and people should work together for common goals. Children also learn how to get on
with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences.
E4: For instance, Rousseau argues that social cohesion can be developed through educating
history and literature of the country, and mass culture. I.e., teaching Shakespeare. This explains
the function behind Thatcher’s (secretaries’) introduction of the national curriculum, and even
today, where subjects seem to be more specialised and diverse (As shown above), this can be
seen through British schools’ reinforcement of “British Values”. Further, Durkheim suggested
that “Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of
homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the mind of the
child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that social life demands”: education provides
such homogeneity.
Ev4: Hargreaves creates competition like between workers.
2.) Marxism
Point one: education is a part of the superstructure
Explanation: According to Marx, the super structure of society is where the economic base (the
means, and consequent relations of production eg class divisions) are maintained by different
societal structures. Said societal structures are shaped by the bourgeoise, and make people
avoid questioning the relations of production.
Evidence: mayo applied Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to education, hegemony is where “a
system of class alliance in which a “hegemonic class” exercised political leadership over
“subaltern classes” by “winning them over.”
Ao2: this can be observed via the coalition governments reform to make teaching british values
compulsory. By reinforcing liberal values as the correct ones, eg representative democracy, it
thus makes liberal views seem like “common sense” which reinforces the superstructure as in
marx’s view the state is a committee for the bourgeoise.
Link: therefore, the education system reinforces the relations of the production by making them
seem like the most “british” option.
, Evaluation: Functionalists would view this as socialising universalistic standards and thus
promoting value consensus rather than conflict.
Point two: education is an ideological state apparatus
Explanation: ISA formations are ostensibly apolitical and part of civil society, rather than a formal
part of the state (i.e. as is the case in an RSA) In terms of psychology they could be described
as psychosocial, because they aim to inculcate ways of seeing and evaluating things, events
and class relations. Instead of expressing and imposing order, through violent repression, ISA
disseminate ideologies that reinforce the control of a dominant class. People tend to be
co-opted by fear of social rejection, e.g. ostracisation, ridicule and isolation. Althusser said that
the school has supplanted the church as the crucial ISA for indoctrination, which augments the
reproduction of the relations of production (i.e. the capitalist relations of exploitation) by training
the students to become sources of labour power, who work for and under capitalists.
Evidence: this is supported by willis’s the lads study. In his analysis, he utilised the term “The
teaching paradigm” which is the set of demands and incentives used by the school system.
According to this paradigm, students consent to behave obediently and in deference to their
teacher in exchange for promised credentials that will help them move upward
socioeconomically. This paradigm, which helps the teacher with authority, implies the desirability
of obedience, deference, and conformity for working-class students.
Analysis: this supports the ISA as it creates the concept that capitalist authority is consensual,
and thus should be opposed. This reproduces the relations of production althusser referenced
by reinforcing the false class consciousness of the working class.
Evaluation: however, hobbes would support this. He believes that we should accede to a social
contract with a sovereign authority to prevent social chaos. By socialising this, it ensures that
order is consistently maintained.
Point three: meritocracy is a myth
Explanation: Bourdieu argues that symbolic violence is the imposition of symbols and meanings
(eg culture upon groups, and all culture is equally arbitrary, this is conducted via pedagogic
action (the imposition of cultural arbitrary, which reflects a fields dominant group.) by pedagogic
authority (teachers) who want to keep the system that values their authority and thus reproduce
the unfair system.
Evidence: the myth of meritocracy is where the idea of the education system being egalitarian
and grants rewards upon effort is false, as the teachers will consciously maintain their power via
this.
