The nature of
education
Functionalism: The consensus approach
Functionalism investigates institutions to consider the functions they perform
in society. The functionalist premise is that if an institution exists, then there
must be some reason for its existence. As regards education, functionalists
assume that educational institutions serve some societal need. Educational
institutions are examined for the positive contribution they make towards
maintaining society.
Education is seen as vital as regards socialization. All societies have to have
ways of socialising new members, and some societies need specialist
institutions for differentiating between people and allocating them to specific
levels of economic activity within their society - such is the case with industrial
societies.
So here are two central functions performed by educational institutions:
1. General socialisation of the whole population into the dominant culture,
values and beliefs of a society.
2. Selecting people for different types and levels of education.
These two basic intentions are suggested by Parsons. He argues that
education has the two central functions outlined above. In brief, education
meets the needs of the system by:
1. Making sure that all children have a basic commitment to their society's
values and beliefs.
2. Preparing individuals for their specific location within the social
hierarchy.
Note: Point 1 is essentially what Marxists regard as the 'hidden
curriculum'.
These two functions achieve different but overlapping goals. Transmitting
norms and values promotes social solidarity. Differentiation matches skills to
societal needs and supports society's economic needs.
The idea of differentiation derives from Durkheim. He argued that as
societies develop and become more complex they need to enhance the
division of labour and provide specialist agencies for executing this function.
Education takes over the role previously filled by the family, work and any
other social location that presented a learning environment.
At the level of individuals, industrial societies require specialists and education
is seen as providing the appropriate educational output. More generally,
Durkheim explains this change in the nature of relationships between
individuals in a society as the change from solidaristic to organic forms of
social solidarity (cohesion).
The existence of a connection between personal abilities and industrial needs
is assumed by the tendency towards meritocracy. That is, people come to fill
particular positions on the basis of achievement, rather than their ascribed
characteristics.
Note: The principal functionalist support for the existence and need for
meritocracy is Davis and Moore, 'Some Principles of Stratification'.
However, although it is true that achievement is more important in societies
such as ours, social class, gender and ethnicity remain as important 'indirect
determinants' in the sense that the quality of a person's educational
attainment can be related to these ascribed characteristics.
The concept of meritocracy tends to lead functionalists into the area of
genetics rather than culture. It is argued that some people are quite simply
'brighter' than others, and the education system picks these people out and
gives them a higher level of education. Schools are seen as neutral and
impartial screening devices.
Note: These ideas are still popular and increasingly powerful.
Clearly, it would be nonsense to deny that schools do differentiate and
allocate, but to subscribe to the functionalist position requires more than this.
Functionalists argue that this function is a good and necessary thing.
The functionalist account is an idealised one, based on the illusion that
educational attainment is based on merit. The account does not 'cash out' in
terms of observable outcomes. To believe that schooling develops talents for
the benefit of society we would need to show; first, that educational
achievement results from ability and, second, that such abilities are taken up
by the occupation system in a free market. They cannot, it is an observable
fact that educational achievement is systematically related to social factors
and that educational success is not clearly related to occupational attainment.
Functionalism - Good points
1. Structural perspective enables analysis to move beyond the level of the
classroom or individual school.
2. Links schools to systemic needs of the wider society.
3. Identifies schools as transmitters of knowledge, norms and values and
as a selecting mechanism.
Functionalism - Criticisms
1. Overstates the extent to which education serves the 'common good'.
Underestimates interests of dominant groups.
2. School is a 'black box'. Does not investigate the 'meaning' of education
for its participants.
3. Too much emphasis on power of school to shape attitudes. People
seen as 'cultural dopes'.
Marxism: The conflict approach
For Marxists, education is apart of the superstructure of society. This
superstructure is regarded as being ultimately subordinate to the base - the
economic organization of society. The economic arrangements of a society
structure the holding of wealth and capital and create social classes.
Marxists agree with functionalists that education contributes to the working of
industrial society, and economic organisation. But, since Marxists disapprove
of the organisation of society on capitalist lines, it follows that they disapprove
of education in its present form.
Louis Althusser argued that economic relations structure education so as to
reproduce these same economic relations. Education is part of the system of
the reproduction of labour power. Schooling, argued Althusser, is an
'ideological state apparatus'. Schools work to ensure that those who are to do
the work will do so co-operatively, out of a belief that the situation is just and
reasonable.
From this point of view, the failure of so many pupils in schools is not a failing
of the system (as for liberals) but actually what the schooling system is
designed to do. So working class children who opt out, or fail, or find schools
alien, are indications that schooling is working successfully. This reverses
functionalism. Education is not designed to develop human potential, but to
limit it.
Such an approach is clearly capable of fitting the evidence on patterns of
achievement. It can also help to uncover working class attitudes to education
as being realistic rather than bloody-minded. However, is the account overly
simplified? Are the working class willing fodder for the capitalists?
Incidentally, critics have argued that the performance of the educational
system in differentiating and hierarchically structuring students is not limited to
capitalist economies. Karabel and Halsey point out that the actual
performance of the educational system is remarkably similar in socialist
countries.
Marxism - Good points
1. Unveils the interests of the dominant and powerful groups in shaping
schooling.
2. Reveals the undeclared agenda of schooling. But, so do functionalists.
3. Documents resistance by students to negative labelling.
Marxism - Criticism
1. People treated as 'cultural dopes'.
2. Tends towards conspiracy theory
3. Very value laden (capitalism - no advantages?).
The hidden curriculum
'What is important about what pupils learn in school is not primarily the 'overt'
curriculum of subjects like French and Biology, but values and beliefs such as
conformity, knowing one's place, waiting one's turn, competitiveness,
individual worth and deference to authority'. The hidden curriculum teaches
pupils 'the way life is' and that education is something that is done to them
rather than something that they do. The prevailing values of society are
'picked-up' by pupils.' (Whitty and Young, 1976).
The hidden curriculum is seen as a necessary part of schooling, but it is more
of an approach than a 'thing'.
The approach encourages the asking of questions such as:




What is it necessary for?
Why does it work in particular ways?
How did it develop?
Whose interests are served by it?
The radical Marxist approach
Marxists suggest that subordination and control were the original and explicitly
stated functions of schooling but they have become hidden in recent years
behind an official educational ideology of equal opportunity and meritocracy.
Consequently, analysis of hidden curriculum takes as its starting point the
political nature of schooling and asks in whose interest it works.
Example: Bowles & Gintis (1976), Schooling in Capitalist America
Main points:




Schools act to furnish the economy with a labour force provided with
the appropriate skills, personalities and attitudes.
Schools are involved in the production of a submissive, obedient and
disciplined workforce.
This is a 'hidden' function of schooling because it is contrary to the
prevailing ideology of schooling, which views the school as a device to
promote social reform and social mobility.
The hidden curriculum operates through a 'correspondence' between
the structure of schooling and the economic system. The nature of
work and social relations fostered in the education system mirror those
in capitalist society. For example, students obey orders, students have
no control over the curriculum, students gain little intrinsic satisfaction
from work. This 'mirrors' or 'corresponds' with students' future positions
in the workforce. The worker has no control over work and experiences
little intrinsic satisfaction.