Outline some of the function that the education system may perform (12)
Functionalists have a consensus perspective on society. Functionalists see society as a living organism, in which everything has to work together and in order to keep it alive. They believe that society should have shared values of which they are based on and socialised to.
The sociologist Durkheim studied 3 concepts of functionalism in education; the first of these is specialist skills. It consists of employing the most skilled people, into the most skilled and difficult jobs and so that their skills can be passed onto the next generation. This concept however can be criticised by the fact that specialist skills don’t always mean that the brightest students get the best jobs, and the fact that these jobs have been ‘graded’ and then socialised to, even though without binmen (for example) the world would be much more difficult.
My other Durkheim concept is that of society in miniature. (In education) Durkheim portrays that school replicates society, just on a smaller scale thus helping students to integrate into the society of the real world much more easily. This can be linked with specialist skills as the cleverer students go on to achieve educational rewards, much like they would in the real world for example with wages.
Similarly, Davis and Moore, who also came up with 3 concepts on functionalism in education, they are role allocation, sifting and sorting and stratification. Role allocation judge’s people on the talents that they have, different talents allow people to have different jobs and roles in society, which should mean that most people end up with their most suited job. This can however be criticised by the fact that people of a certain intelligence don’t always get a job that matches their intelligence.
The functionalist views on education are criticised by those of the new