The assumption made by the Functionalists is that the purpose of the education system is to stabilise economy through the allocation of less able workers into less skilled jobs. This is through producing a trained and highly skilled workforce.
The 80’s and 90’s saw the introduction of policies to encourage vocational education, such as TVEI, GNVQ’s, NVQ’s and work experience. Through this post-16 students are encouraged to serve the needs of an industrial society by providing a trained and highly skilled workforce with an advanced division of labour to provide the state with economic growth.
The main criticisms of the Functionalist perspective on the role of education are that it makes the assumption that all pupils start from the same point – a ‘level playing field’ - when in fact the class system means that some children begin education with the advantage of cultural capital, such advantages come from the socialisation from middle-class parents due to their knowledge of the style of language used, attitudes and manners, which means initial privileges in school. These people are aware of the importance of education, and perhaps hold the feeling that privileged positions held by the minority in the top jobs must be protected. Thus talent and hard work is not rewarded fairly, meaning that a meritocratic system is not being followed.
The functionalist theorists over emphasise the role of education in forming the identity of students by ignoring the impact of other outside factors, like the role of the family and the media. Also, they ignore the way that students react to education in ways that aren’t functional for society, like truancy and delinquency, and exaggerate the link between education and the economy, in that the New Vocationalism was developed as a response to the employers who criticised schools for not providing a skilled work force.
Furthermore, the Functionalists assume a value consensus in which everyone agrees on the same norms and values to be transmitted to future generations by schools, when in fact the norms and values of different classes, cultures and ages are all different. For example, the Marxists claim that the education promotes family values rather than sexual freedom, competitive values rather than co-operative values and conformity rather than the independence and creativity of the individual, thus proving that not all groups share the same values.
The final major criticism comes from the Interactionists, who see Functionalist views as too deterministic, as they ignore the power of what they refer to as individual ‘actors’ to interpret and negotiate their educational experience.
One of the main critics of the Functionalist perspective is the Marxists, whose theorists can be divided into two main groups: the Classical Theorists and the Neo-Marxists.
The main ides of Classical Marxism are that education benefits the ruling-class and not society as a whole, and that as part of a super-structure education reproduces and legitimises social inequality. Also they believe strongly in the ‘Myth of Meritocracy’, which they believe does not provide real equality of opportunity as the functionalists claim, as via selection, such as setting in to ability groups, the working-class are separated from the middle-class.
In 1972 Althusser argued that the socialisation role does not transmit shared values, instead it is part of an ideological state apparatus set up to create a sense of false consciousness. This is the institution of the belief that capitalism is fair, natural and inevitable, and that alternatives are impractical, and leads to that acknowledgement of this inequality in the working-class. Through this education serves the needs of capitalism, not society as the functionalists believe, by socialising children into the dominant ideology – the ruling-class norms and values – leading to an obedient workforce and the stability of capitalism.
Althusser claims that, like the Functionalists, social norms and values are endorsed through both the formal and hidden curriculum. Marxists feel the exclusion of subjects like sociology and peace studies from the national curriculum leads to narrow-minded views of society set by the ruling-classes, of what they believe too be the ‘shared’ norms and values. Through the selection, setting and examinations of the hidden curriculum working-class children are taught to accept failure as their own fault and that the inequalities of wealth are fair. Thus this results in the acceptation of the ‘Myth of Meritocracy’.
Further research by Bowles and Gintis in 1976 also argues that the hidden curriculum socialises children for work in a capitalist society. This led to the development of ‘correspondence theory’, meaning that what occurs throughout a child’s school life relates to their work life, in that working-class children find most of school routine and dull, which prepares them for work in low-skilled repetitive careers. Children are also taught the importance of obedience without questioning and so preparing students destined for low-skilled manual labour to accept power hierarchies. Finally, selection shows how different ability groups are rewarded differently and the curriculum is fragmented into separate parts in the same way that an assembly line is split into different areas, which atomises the working-class students. All this leads to the production of a passive acquiescent labour force that the ruling-class can exploit to increase profit maximisation.
With the exception of a few individuals, Marxists feel that education confirms individuals’ class status as their class of destination. Therefore education is a means of reproduction of the present class inequalities from generation to generation, and in doing this shows there is no means of upward social mobility as the Functionalists claim. As well as this, education legitimises these class inequalities through the persuasion of the working-class to recognise their lack of power and control not only at work, but in society as a whole and that it is a result of their lack of academic ability.
In evaluation, the allocation role of the education system does not offer equality of opportunity due to the selection process, which allows children from the upper class to gain advantages through private education and in the state schools the streaming of the working-class into lower sets. This streaming and selection leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy from which the working-class children begin to believe they are not as intelligent or as capable as the middle-class and so take on that role.
Marxists see the link between educational qualifications, pay and job status as a weak link. They believe that the content of what people learn in schools often has nothing directly to do with their jobs. Collins (1972) argues that most occupational skills are learned through training schemes set up by companies and practice. He claims that the demand for qualifications from certain career paths is simply a ploy to raise the status of the job, and that the qualifications required do not necessarily hold the knowledge or skill to perform the job. The need for qualifications forces the working-class into the Vocational role, for which the Marxists claim is a means for the production of ‘factory fodder’ to serve the needs of the ruling-class ands capitalism.
The final significant group to criticise the Functionalist approaches to education are the Interactionists, who instead emphasise the importance of interaction in school and in the classroom, rather than blaming educational failure on individuals, families and social class, as done by the Functionalists.
Becker 1963 states that initial labelling and stereotyping of students due to their social class, race, dress or use of language, rather than ability and intelligence, remains with them throughout school. Thus the labels communicated by teachers are internalised by pupils, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy and perhaps a ‘deviant career’. This reaction against the deterministic structural theories of the Functionalists and Marxists suggests that educational failure is due to negative reactions against labelling. Therefore the teachers and other pupils with whom you interact influence your personal ‘self concept’.
Balls study in 1981 on the topic of ‘banding’ in Beachside comprehensive found that the selection of pupils into one of three bands, according to information from primary schools, was often determined by the career of the parents. This means that the child of a manual worker was likely to be placed in a lower band than the child of a middle-class family even if their measured ability in tests were the same. This then leads to teachers having lower expectations of lower bands so that while they are enthusiastic to begin with they finally loose concentration and are forced into vocational subjects. Thus this defies the Functionalist view of an established meritocratic system within schools.
Hargreaves study in 1967 found that pupils labelled troublemakers reacted by developing an ‘anti-school subculture’ in which they achieved status by reversing mainstream school values, so that ‘bad becomes good’. In doing this they go against the Functionalist view that the hidden curriculum teaches students to accept hierarchy.
However, like the Functionalists these views can be too deterministic by assuming negative labelling always leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it can have an opposite effect like in the case of Afro-Caribbean schoolgirls.
Also, it ignores the impact of material and cultural factors outside school and other factors inside school that are beyond the teachers’ control, such as class sizes and resources. Therefore the theory helps to draw attention to some factors inside school, which explain working-class under achievement although a full explanation would also look at structural explanations as the Functionalists have.
Finally, in evaluation I feel that although the Functionalist approach to education appears slightly patchy in areas and may no fully put evidence to explanations, the Marxist, Interactionist and other criticising theories also fail to cover all areas of the matter. Therefore, although quite deterministic in it’s failure to recognise the formation of the students identity and the effects of education that are not functional to society, it is similar to other theories in its lack of scope and failure to see things from another dimension.