Education

What Education covers

Education is examined in Paper 1, The sociology of families and education. It covers roles and functions of education, education, capitalism and the correspondence principle, class and gender differences in achievement, ethnicity, parental choice and school markets and processes within schools.

The 5 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Roles and functions of educationFormal and informal education, types of school, education and the economy, Durkheim on social cohesion, Parsons on meritocracy and universalistic standards, and home schooling.Open →
• Education, capitalism and the correspondence principleBowles and Gintis's correspondence principle, the hidden curriculum, meritocracy as a myth, Althusser, vocationalism, and functionalist, feminist and interactionist criticisms.Open →
• Class and gender differences in achievementHalsey, Heath and Ridge on class and staying on, material and cultural deprivation, cultural capital, Sue Sharpe on girls' priorities, the crisis of masculinity and the gendered curriculum.Open →
• Ethnicity, parental choice and school marketsEthnic differences in achievement and exclusion, institutional racism, Cecile Wright, marketisation and the Education Reform Act 1988, Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz, and types of state school.Open →
• Processes within schoolsStreaming, setting and mixed-ability teaching, labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy, Becker's ideal pupil, Rosenthal and Jacobson, Ball's Beachside, and Willis's counter-school culture.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Education further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Streaming vs Setting

  Streaming: grouping pupils by ability for all their subjects at once. Setting: grouping pupils by ability separately for each subject.

• Formal curriculum vs Hidden curriculum

  Formal curriculum: the official subjects and content that a school teaches. Hidden curriculum: the values and attitudes pupils pick up from how school is organised.

• Particularistic standards vs Universalistic standards

  Particularistic standards: rules applied to a child as a unique individual, as in the family. Universalistic standards: rules applied equally to everyone regardless of who they are.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is the difference between formal and informal education?

   Model answer

   Formal education is planned learning in schools, colleges and universities, with a set curriculum and qualifications. Informal education is learning that happens in everyday life, from family, friends and the media.

2. 2

   What are the main types of school in the UK?

   Model answer

   Primary schools teach children up to 11, and secondary schools teach pupils from 11 to 16 or 18. State schools are free and funded through taxation. Private schools, also called independent or fee-paying schools, charge fees and are not run by the state.

3. 3

   How does education serve the needs of the economy?

   Model answer

   Education teaches the knowledge and skills a modern economy needs, from literacy and numeracy to technical expertise. Functionalists argue that this produces a skilled, productive workforce.

4. 4

   How do functionalists think education promotes social mobility?

   Model answer

   Social mobility is movement up or down the class structure. Functionalists argue that education lets able pupils from any background gain qualifications and rise on merit.

5. 5

   How does education foster social cohesion?

   Model answer

   Social cohesion is the sense of unity that binds members of a society together. Schools build it by teaching all pupils shared values, a common history and citizenship.

6. 6

   What did Durkheim see as the main function of education?

   Model answer

   Durkheim saw education as the means of passing a society's shared norms and values from one generation to the next. Durkheim developed these ideas in lectures on moral education in early twentieth-century France.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Education revision questions

What does Education cover in AQA GCSE Sociology?

5 subtopics: roles and functions of education, education, capitalism and the correspondence principle, class and gender differences in achievement, ethnicity, parental choice and school markets and processes within schools. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Education organised?

By the AQA 8192 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.