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Assess the Functionalist View of the Role of Education

In: Social Issues

Submitted By jono10
Words 1367
Pages 6
Introduction
Assess the role of education form the functionalist perspective Functionalists believe that education performs very important roles for individuals, the economy and the wider social structure. It provides secondary socialisation, passing on shared culture enables individuals to develop their potential and regulates their behaviour. Functionalists argue that education has three broad; socialisation where education helps to maintain society by socialising young people in to key cultural values, such as achievement, individualism, equality of opportunity, social solidarity and democracy. The second one is skills provision in which education teaches the skills required by a modern industrial society. These may be general skills that everyone needs such as literacy and numeracy or the specific skills needed for particular occupations. And the final function is role allocation, where education allocates people to the most appropriate jobs for their talents using examination and qualifications. This is seen to be fair because there is equality of opportunity, everyone has the chance to achieve success in society on the basis of their ability. ...read more.
Middle
Educational mechanisms such as grades, examinations, references and qualifications are used to sort individuals. Society is this a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for intelligence, ability and effort. Functional importance is decided by length and specialist training required for particular occupations. It is claimed that to be a brain surgeon, for example takes much more talent, education and training than to be a nurse. Therefore in order to ensure that people are prepared to undertake long and expensive training, the rewards offered must be substantially greater for surgeons than for nurses. "A medical education is a burdensome and expensive that virtually none would undertake it if the

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