Functionalist Perspectives on Education
LO:To be able to explain and begin to analyse the function of education from a
functionalist perspective
Key Words:
● Meritocracy
● Social solidarity
● Specialist skills
● Secondary socialisation
● Particularistic standards
● Universalistic standards
● Ascribed status
● Role allocation
Durkheim
● Social solidarity is a shared belief/value that allow for individual members of
society to feel part of a community
● Important because without it, social life and co-operation would be important
○ Individuals would just pursue their own selfish needs and fulfill their
own desires
● Education creates social solidarity by transmitting society’s culture from one
generation to the next
○ Durkheim's argument: Teaching of a country’s history instills in children
a sense of a shared heritage
● Education helps us to co-operate with people who aren’t friends or family
○ We have to interact with each other according to a set of impersonal
rules
● Education teaches us skills and specialist knowledge we need to play our part
in the social division of labour
In summary:
The function of education for Durkeim is to create social solidarity by teaching us to
co-operate with people who aren’t friends or family according to a set of impersonal
rules and to also teach specialist knowledge and skills that prepare us to play our
part in the social division of labour. Without social solidarity, we would have a state
of anomie (normlessness)
Criticisms of Durkheim:
● Postmodernist criticise Durkheim’s assumption that society needs shared
values
○ Britain is now much more multicultural and the extent that there is a
single British culture is debatable
LO:To be able to explain and begin to analyse the function of education from a
functionalist perspective
Key Words:
● Meritocracy
● Social solidarity
● Specialist skills
● Secondary socialisation
● Particularistic standards
● Universalistic standards
● Ascribed status
● Role allocation
Durkheim
● Social solidarity is a shared belief/value that allow for individual members of
society to feel part of a community
● Important because without it, social life and co-operation would be important
○ Individuals would just pursue their own selfish needs and fulfill their
own desires
● Education creates social solidarity by transmitting society’s culture from one
generation to the next
○ Durkheim's argument: Teaching of a country’s history instills in children
a sense of a shared heritage
● Education helps us to co-operate with people who aren’t friends or family
○ We have to interact with each other according to a set of impersonal
rules
● Education teaches us skills and specialist knowledge we need to play our part
in the social division of labour
In summary:
The function of education for Durkeim is to create social solidarity by teaching us to
co-operate with people who aren’t friends or family according to a set of impersonal
rules and to also teach specialist knowledge and skills that prepare us to play our
part in the social division of labour. Without social solidarity, we would have a state
of anomie (normlessness)
Criticisms of Durkheim:
● Postmodernist criticise Durkheim’s assumption that society needs shared
values
○ Britain is now much more multicultural and the extent that there is a
single British culture is debatable
