Functionalist, Marxist and liberal views of the role of education

Overview

Recall questions on Durkheim on social solidarity and specialist skills, Parsons's school as a bridge, Davis and Moore's role allocation, Althusser's ideological state apparatus, Bowles and Gintis's correspondence principle, hidden curriculum and myth of meritocracy, Willis's lads, and the liberal view of education and the schooling it favours.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   According to Durkheim, what does education create by passing the shared culture on to each new generation?

   Model answer

   It creates social solidarity — a feeling of belonging to one community — because pupils absorb the same history, beliefs and rules and come to see themselves as part of something larger than themselves.

2. 2

   Why did Durkheim argue that a modern industrial economy could not function without schooling?

   Model answer

   A complex division of labour needs workers with specialist skills, and school is where those skills are taught so that specialists can cooperate in production.

3. 3

   Explain Parsons' idea that the school acts as a bridge between the family and wider society.

   Model answer

   In the family a child is judged by particularistic standards and holds an ascribed status, while wider society judges everyone by the same universalistic standards and rewards achieved status, and school is the first place a child is treated in that impersonal, universal way.

4. 4

   What did Davis and Moore see as the main function of education, and how do they defend unequal rewards?

   Model answer

   They saw education as role allocation, sifting and sorting pupils by ability so the ablest reach the most important positions, and they argue high rewards are needed to persuade talented people to undertake long training for demanding jobs.

5. 5

   What did Althusser mean by calling education an ideological state apparatus?

   Model answer

   He meant education maintains ruling-class power by shaping ideas rather than by force, unlike the repressive apparatus of police and army, and it does so by reproducing both labour power and an ideology that makes inequality seem natural.

6. 6

   Explain the correspondence principle put forward by Bowles and Gintis.

   Model answer

   They argue the social relationships of school mirror those of the workplace — hierarchy, obedience to authority, competition, fragmented tasks and rewards that lie outside the work itself — so schooling quietly rehearses pupils for subordinate labour.

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