Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Functionalists view of education
- Functionalism: based on the view that society is a system of interpedendent
parts held together by a shared culture or value consensus - an agreement
among society's members abou what values are important
- each part of society e.g. the education
system. performs a function that helps to
maintain society as a whole
- Dennis Wrong - functionalists have 'over socialised' view of
people as mere puppets of society - wrongly imply that pupils
accept all they're taught and never reject school values
- Durkheim
- Social Solidarity
- society needs a sense of solidarity - members must feel
themselves to be part of a community
- without this - social life and cooperation would be impossible
beacause everyone would persue their own selfish desires
- education system creates social solidarity by transmitting society's
culture - shared beliefs and values
- it prepares us for life in wider society
- Specialist Skills
- education teaches individuals the
specialist knowledge and skills they need
to play their part in the social division of
labour
- skills can't be taught by parents - lack specialist knowledge
- Parsons
- meriotocracy
- sees school as a bridge between the family and wider society
- both school and society judge us all by the same standards - in school -
pupil judged by same standard - same exams and same pass mark e.g.
- in society and education - person's status is achieved - we
pass or fail through own efforts
- he sees school as preparing us for wider society as are both based on
meritocratic prinicples - everyone given equal opportuinity - inidivual can
achieve rewards through their own efforts
- Davis and Moore
- Role allocation
- argue that inequality is necesarry to ensure more important roles
in society are filled by the most talented people
- not everyone is equally talented so society has to offer higher rewards for higher jobs
- encourages everyone to compete for jobs and society can select the
most talented to fill these positions
- education plays a part in this process - it is where individuals show what they can do - 'sifts and sorts' us acording to our ability -
most able gain the highest qualifications which then gives them entry to the most important and highly rewarded jobs
- Tumin - circular arguement; how do we know what
job is important - highly rewarded - why highly
rewarded - because most important