The family is made up of relationships and peer groups are based on personal choice. Being a member of society however is not made up upon these principles. People have to learn to co-operate with those who are neither a relation to them nor their friends, however the school provides an environment where these skills can be learned.
Within a school the child must interact with other members of the school in terms of a fixed set of rules. This then prepares them for being a part of a society.
Functionalists believe that education is a crucial agency of socialisation. The school is a small part of society and acts as a bridge between the family and the rest of society. This is also true of Marxists views on education.
Sir David Hargreaves says how there are social relations in a school. Middle class families appear to be pro school whereas the working class families appear to be anti school. Hargreaves argues that many schools fail to produce a sense of dignity for working-class pupils. They will therefore tend to rebel and may form subcultures which reject the values of the school, and therefore of the wider society.
There are different views on education within functionalism. Although Durkheim and Hargreaves both criticize education based upon individual competition in an exam system, other functionalists see competition as a vital aspect of modern education.
Davis and Moore see education as a means of role allocation. Different occupations require different skills. To gain these skills you have to go to a school Davis and Moore see social stratification as a means of ensuring that the most talented are placed with positions which are functionally the most important for society. High rewards such as a large salary are attached with these jobs.
However to functionalist view is limited. The rest of society may not work like the school works. Marxism, interactionism and the liberals have different theories.
Functionalism and Marxism are both structural. Bowles and gintis are Marxists, they believe in the hidden curriculum. The hidden curriculum is something that pupils learn through experience rather than through lessons and exams.
A liberal view on education focuses on the individual. John Dewey said that it was the job of education to encourage individuals so that they develop their full potential. He also thought that people should learn by experience rather than being told what to do. He thought that this way the pupils will gain skills as well as knowledge.
Within the school there is inequality, some liberals hope that education will help reduce this inequality. Liberals state how the existing education system could be altered and improved.
Interactionism focuses on individual experiences like liberal. Interactionists believe that your view of yourself is produced through interaction with others. An important intertactionist concept is that of social roles. There are the roles of students and teachers within the school, these roles are not fixed in the interactionists eyes. If a pupil is unable to live up to the teachers ideal pupil then the pupil may form subcultures. Within these subcultures the role of the pupil changes, their peers reward the type of behaviour which teachers would punish the pupil.
The interactionist approach to the study of education provides a lot of information about the day-to-day life in schools. It does however have limitations, some studies do not explain why a certain adaption/behaviour occurs.
The functionalist approaches are better than interactionism and liberal for the understanding of the role of education in society because it is structural. It deals with the whole school rather than the individuals. Functionalism is therefore useful because people want to understand how education can fit in with the rest of society.