Examine the Functionalists argument that education serves the interests of both the individual and the society as a whole

Samera Iftikhar

Since the 1970’s the attendance till the age of 16 was made compulsory for education. Functionalists would agree that this education is important for the society as it implants and encourages certain values, attitudes and skills which the society requires to run smoothly. This would not only benefit society but the economy as a whole would also gain advantages from this.

Functionalists believe that there are three main aspects to look at which help in the well functioning of a society where it comes to education. The first aspect is to socialize the next generation of youth to come. Secondly providing this new generation skills to work with, and the last is the allocation of jobs and careers suited to them.

So to begin with the socialisation of the youth, serves the need for society in instilling knowledge of norms and values. This shapes the future of a more equal and diverse society. So instead of teaching individualism, they teach cohesive structure of society. This as Durkheim believed would bring people together. How this is done is by the subject of citizenship and learning about equal opportunities and religion which provides social control and democracy.

Even with this there is much criticism on this first function. When looking t norms and values being taught there may be contradictory or different norms from where they come from depending on religion and culture and an even background which means every person will not start with the same values and norms. This also doesn’t take in account that the standards put in the minds of people are from those who are powerful. Thus other opinions from the diverse culture would be unheard of, and those being transmitted in school are followed my minorities in the society. Other ways ...

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This system has been input to show the sense of achievement upon learning something. Not only does it show that gaining merits are beneficial and are used to get on life but as Parsons has realised, this also provides an insight for parents to be somehow linked with their child’s education as they would encourage them to achieve the highest and to the best of their abilities or to their own personal set standards. This also makes them competitive as they want to receive more rewards and merits. This competition is a tool for later life in pursuing higher education and in careers.

Now we come to the second function which is that education provides children with skills. These skills would first be the basics of literacy and numeracy, then slowly advancing to other subjects and higher levels of different subject paths to specialize in. This provides society with a wide range of skilled labourers to fit different occupational roles. Though for the advancement in certain areas of work and jobs; more time is needed to gain these skills. As you can see Functionalists believe that even those with just the basics of education can fulfil requirements of certain careers also important to the society as hierarchy would come into this as everyone has their place where they fit in.

Lastly we come to Role allocation the third aspect of the Functionalists view on education. They believe depending on the merit system those who achieve more will be allocated to those jobs suited to higher roles in the society. Davis and Moore saw this social stratification as important by means of allocating people to jobs best suited to them. Functionalists saw this process to be beneficial and fair to society, as equal opportunity is given to achieve merits based on their abilities. Although with this there is criticism on the meritocracy part of it being fair.

Marxists argue that instead of creating an all round benefiting society the education system is able to legitimise the inequalities or division in the society. There is also criticism led by the Internationalist’s point of view, the person may have had personal problems so could have achieved better in exams thus could of got a better or higher job as they had the ability but circumstances caused them to lose the merits they could have gained. Functionalists judge of things are on wide scale way, whereas the things found by the interactionalist approach would never be known to them. The students may have been affected by the teachers labelling of them or what they were thought of and lived up to that instead of for example reaching the full of their potential.

Overall functionalists’ ideology of the education system is that it provides the necessary tools from the time of school to benefit the society and themselves, when they are to grow up as a careers person.

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