Parsons saw the educational system as an important mechanism for sorting children into their future roles in society; role allocation. Schools did this by testing individuals and matching their strengths to jobs for which they are best suited. Davis and Moore took Parsons theory of role allocation and related it to the system of social stratification, to ensure that those most talented are allocated to positions in society that are most important. They saw the education system as having a big part to play in this process.
These Functionalist views have been heavily criticised by conflict perspectives of education. Marx’s view heavily contrasted to what the Functionalist writers believe is the social purpose of education. Marx, like Durkheim, believed in the importance of education and its link with wider society. Marx was influenced by Robert Owen when drawing up the main principles of polytechnic education. He believed that polytechnic education was necessary in society to produce versatile workers. His idea of this type of education was based on the principles that there would be a high level of education available to everyone. There should also be no division between manual and mental work so therefore all work should involve aspects of both, the distinction between learning and working should be removed and everyone should play an active part in planning and decision making in society. The purpose of education, from Marx’s point of view is that it should help create all round individuals. It should not however prepare for the division in labour in society, as Marx questions the validity of the division of labour in capitalist society. This is the complete opposite to the view of Parsons who holds the view that achievement in school determines who will go on to hold a higher status in society, and that class does not have any part to play.
The American Sociologists and Economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, writing in 70’s, attacked liberal views and in particular the assumptions that Parsons made. In their book Schooling in Capitalist America, Bowles and Gintis came up with three main goals for the social role that education plays in capitalist society. The first is that education should be egalitarian, that is, it should try and overcome those inequalities that tend to arise in society naturally, both socially and historically. The second was the developmental nature of society, in which education provides pupils with the means to develop the characteristics they possess as individuals. Third, is that education has an Integrative function, and this is promoted throughout school life so that individuals can learn to integrate with one another to prepare them for there role as members of society as a whole. Bowles and Gintis go on to show that these functionalist goals of education are not really true, and that education in a capitalist society is actually reproducing social inequality. They come to the conclusion that school oppresses an individual’s development, rather than fostering it which is what the functionalists tend to believe. This oppression can be seen in many parts of the education system.
They argued that the main role of education in capitalist societies is the reproduction of labour power. They see the economy as the backbone of society, and they use the correspondence principle to explain how education exists only for those who control the workforce and those who own the means of production. They dismiss the Functionalist view that education binds society together, and they see it as a means to treat students as raw materials on a production line. Bowles and Gintis agree with Durkheim when he said schools shape individuals attitudes and values, however they claim this is only to reproduce the social relations of production in order to exploit and alienate them. They talk about the hidden curriculum which is not the lessons being taught in school, but takes place in the form of teaching and the way the school is organised. This consists of things that pupils learn through experience of attending school rather than being taught academically. Bowles and Gintis think that the concept of the hidden curriculum is important in shaping the future workforce. They also talk about differentiation as part of the correspondence between the forms of work and education, as those going into different positions in the economic hierarchy will experience different degrees of control and choice during their school years. Schools are organised in a hierarchy where the teachers give orders and have authority and the pupils must obey. This is not to prepare children for society is the functionalists would argue, but rather to encourage students to accept the hierarchy in preparation for the workplace in later life. Another aspect of the hidden curriculum is the way in which school subjects are fragmented. Bowles and Gintis relate this to the fragmentation of the workplace, for example in an office most jobs are broken down into separate tasks which are allocated to different individuals. They talk about how this means that the children are prepared for Taylorist forms of work, which believes that management should reduce workers to ‘rules, laws and formulae.’ A fragmented workforce is easier to control and it diminishes the power and knowledge of workers and this is all in the interest of the ruling class as it is a means of keeping the working class under control. Some Marxists, for example Henry Giroux and Paul Willis did go on to see how this is actually carried out in schools. They found some students actually reject school, this prepares one section of the workforce and they have in a way exploited themselves.
Bowles and Gintis disagree with Parsons view of education being meritocratic. They talk about schools reproducing inequality and this idea of pupils achieving status by merit is purely an ideology which provides a justification to the inequalities that arise in the classroom. For them, class background is the biggest factor in influencing educational attainment. Bowles and Gintis reject the Functionalist views that we all compete on equal terms and they claim that those children of the wealthy and powerful have much greater opportunities and tend to get higher qualifications whatever their abilities. They believe that education has benefits for capitalism through legitimating equality as it means that the stability of the class system is not threatened in any way. They question the role of I.Q as it is a supposedly objective way of sorting children using the idea of selection by merit. In order to explore whether the Functionalist concept of meritocracy was true, Bowles and Gintis examined a sample of individuals who all had average I.Qs. In theory all these people should have had roughly the same level of attainment, however they found a wide range of variation which led them to believe that there is no relationship between a persons I.Q and the academic qualifications they will achieve. They went on to find out that there was a direct relationship between educational attainment and family background. That was, the higher the individuals class background, the longer they remained in the education system and they had higher qualifications. Other Marxist writers have also looked at the construction of I.Q tests and how they are biased in favour of the middle class. Parsons also recognised that there was this link, yet however he claimed that although this link existed it had no part whatsoever in influencing the sorting of pupils academically. However we can see that Bowles and Gintis’ work proves him wrong. They went on to examine further links with family background and differences in income, thus concluding that the idea of meritocracy is just a myth.
After looking at the Functionalist analysis of education and comparing it to Marxist writers it is obvious that they have two very extreme views. The Functionalists can be criticised for only seeing the good aspects of what education provides for society, whereas Marxist theories do tend to be conspiratorial and they put the economy and the ruling class at the base of all there concepts. After comparing the two, we can see the huge contrasts in who they believe the education system is there to benefit, although similarities can be made between Durkheims early thoughts and those views of Bowles and Gintis. Durkheim, unlike Parsons did not believe that society had reached the point there society could reward pupils according to merit and he too acknowledged the fact the education promoted a division of labour, however not to the extent that Marxists believe. One perspective is neither more right nor wrong than the other and in order to properly examine the role of education in society today we need to take into account not only these two interpretations but also look at other approaches, such as interactionism and post modernism.
Word Count: 2007
Bibliography
GIDDENS, A. 2001. Sociology. Cambridge. Blackwell. Fourth Edition.
HARALAMBOS, M. HOLBURN, M. HEALD, R. 2000. Sociology – Themes and Perspectives. London. HarperCollins. Fifth Edition.
MORRISON, K. 1995. Marx Durkheim, Weber – Formations of Modern Thought. London. SAGE.
COLE, M. 1988. Bowles and Gintis revisited – Correspondence and contradiction in Educational Theory. Sussex. The Falmer Press.
