Functionalists see the role of education as being; to conduct role allocation, to provide skills and socialisation. Role allocation is very important in the eyes of functionalists, as it creates a suitable workforce for the wider society, with the correct talents, abilities and a genuine interest in what they do. Based on a meritocracy, it means pupils can excel in their best subject on their own merit and reap the rewards. It creates a happy workforce satisfied with their place in the world. This can be criticised by Marxists, saying role allocation just promotes ruling class ideology, and the people who are not naturally academic, or are not pushed so hard due to prejudice, don’t go so far which creates a circle of deprivation, where the working class stay working class, and the middle and upper classes grow into the class of their parents.
Education provides pupils with skills for later life. This comes under the ideology of equal opportunity, whereby everybody has the opportunity to succeed. With Labour governments push on improving education, many new courses and opportunities for young people have been made available, making the above statement evermore true. For example letting more and more people appeal back into sixth form with lower grades, introducing vocational qualifications at GCSE and A level, and creating a wider variety of courses available at college, making it easier for more people to achieve social mobility and move to a higher class. According to Durkheim, this creates jobs for a more specialised workforce. Although Marxists would argue this point by bringing up figures to prove certain groups underachieve such as ethnic minorities and the working class. This would show that the education system, does not have equal opportunity, that talents are not properly assessed, and that role allocation is not successful.
Parsons developed the idea that schools provide a secondary socialisation, enforcing shared values, and as Durkheim points out, develops the similarities to bind people, creating social solidarity. Here the hidden curriculum takes place, where children learn to interact with other people, to learn to respect authority, to work hard, and to make friends. Developing social skills is as vital as being educated in later life, as employers will want people who can communicate well to customers, and work well as a member of a team.
Overall the general view of functionalists is quite positive, where a harmonious working education system leads to a harmonious working society. The Marxist view is quite opposite. They see the education system as being corrupt, teaching working class children one thing, and middle class another. They see the education system as simply an institution to recreate class inequality.
Three sociologists contributed largely to the development of Marxist ideology; Althusser and Bowles& Gintis. Althusser wrote in 1972, and held the philosophy that society is a huge capitalist system. He stated “No class can hold power with only force, hearts and souls must be one over if there is to be effective control”. In the past, people accepted the inequality in life, and put it down to God’s will. Now people who have an unfair position in society put it down to their failure through the education system. But Althusser claims that the whole education system’s main role is simply to transmit the ruling class ideology. Once people accept this ideology, qualifications can be used as a tool to legitimise high positions of power. People with good qualifications, who accepted the ruling class ideology and went on to be managers, politicians and administrators, are then ‘agents of exploitation and repression’. As the people in power create the rules and ideas, they enforce this ruling class ideology to the next generation, keeping the working class suppressed and allowing the middle and upper classes to succeed.
Bowles& Gintis, writing in 1976, have the same type of ideas based on a capitalist system, but they introduce the correspondence theory. They noticed a correspondence between social relationships in the classroom and in the workplace, obedient, hardworking, conformist school children, go on to do very well in the capitalist system, as these are the people that employers are looking for. These characteristics are rewarded in school because they are required in the workplace. If social equality were to be questioned, it would threaten social stability. This is then avoided by promoting the injustice as product of the high qualifications the agents of exploitation received through the education system, which makes it legitimate. Bowles and Gintis reject the functionalist view of role allocation. They argue that students who receive high qualifications do so because of hard work and a conformist attitude. Those who reject the ruling class ideology, and the prospect of authority, don’t do so well and find it difficult to go far in the world of work.
The two views of Functionalists and Marxists represent to extreme views of conflicting opposites, Functionalists creating a very positive light, claiming that all is well with the education system and society, where as Marxists have the negative view that it is all unequal and corrupt. What these views both fail to recognise is the Interactionists approach and that we do live in a meritocracy, and if you work hard you can achieve, as they focus so hard on macro issues, they don’t see people as individuals with individual choices, and so cannot claim to have a ‘blanket explanation’ for the worlds problems.