Hargreaves who is another functionalist proposes a number of changes to the school curriculum in order to create a sense of competence and belonging in pupils. He argues that pupils should have some freedom to pursue fields of study in which they have a special interest or talent. This way the pupils will develop a sense of their own worth. In addition to that there should be compulsory parts of the curriculum such as community studies that would help pupils to have a clear view of their role in society. Other compulsory parts of the curriculum that Hargreaves argues are expressive arts, crafts and sports. In putting on plays and playing in school teams like football or netball pupils would then experience satisfaction by contributing to collective enterprises, and would develop a sense of loyalty and belonging to the school., and also would learn to respect one another.
Also Durkheim believes that it is the education system that prepares pupils for adult life, by keeping to rules introduced to obey in school and respecting rules in school, which will also teach them to respect rules in general, he says ‘It is by respecting the school rules that the child learns to respect rules in general, that he develops the habit of self-control and restraints simply because he should control and restrain himself. It is a first initiation into the austerity of duty. Serious life has now begun.’
Parsons, another functionalist, saw the education system as an important mechanism for the selection of individuals for their future role in society. In his words it ‘functions to allocate these human resources within the role-structure of adult society’. So by testing the students and evaluating their results, the schools will be able to match their talents, skills and capacities to the jobs that they would be best suited to. So the school is therefore seen as the major mechanism for role allocation. Davis and Moore who are also functionalists also have a similar theory to Parsons, but they linked the education system more directly with the system of social stratification. They see social stratification as a mechanism for maintaining that the most talented and able members of society are allocated to those positions that are functionally most important for society.
The criticisms of Parsons is that he fails to give adequate consideration to the possibility that the values transmitted by the education system may be those of a ruling minority rather than a society as a whole. A criticism of Davis and Moore is that there is evidence to suggest that the influence of social stratification largely prevents the education system from efficiently grading individuals in terms of ability.
There are opinions from a Marxist’s perspective about a hidden curriculum in the role of education, and those opinions are from Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis. They believe that it isn’t the content of lessons and examinations that is important, but the form that teaching and learning take and the way that schools are organized. The hidden curriculum is what the pupils learn from attending school itself. The things which Gintis and Bowles believe the hidden curriculum is, is it helps pupils to produce a subservient workforce of uncritical, passive and docile workers. Also it encourages pupils of an acceptance of hierarchy, because the school is organized by a hierarchical principle of authority and control, the teachers give orders and the pupils obey them. This then prepares them for the workforce, by accepting things, which they have little control over, and learning to obey their supervisors or managers, which they may be working for. Another part of the hidden curriculum is the pupils learn to be motivated by rewards, just as the workforce in a capitalist society is motivated by external rewards. Bowles and Gintis also believe that another important aspect of the hidden curriculum is the fragmentation of school subjects, the pupil moves through their school day from one lesson to another and so little connection is made between the lessons, so knowledge is fragmented and compartmentalized into academic subjects. They believe that most jobs in factories and offices have been broken down into very specific tasks, carried out by separate individuals, so this makes it difficult for the employers to unite in opposition to those in authority over them.
Gintis and Bowles believe that overall the hidden curriculum produces a passive and obedient workforce, which accepts authority without question, which is motivated by external rewards, and which is fragmented. This links in with what Marxists believe to be the ruling class. Marxists believe that if this hidden curriculum can do all of this, then there will be no anarchy in the workforce and so the hierarchy who get all the benefits will not be attacked.
Bowles and Gintis also reject the view of functionalists that capitalist societies are meritocratic and deny that they can become so within a capitalist framework. They believe that class background is the most important factor influencing levels of attainment. They also believe that the children with the wealthy families will do much better and will get better qualifications than those children whose families aren’t that well off. The education system disguises this, with its myth of meritocracy. Those who are denied success blame themselves, and not the system, which has condemned them to failure.
Although, Bowles and Gintis have been criticised for ignoring the influence of the formal education. David Reynolds claims that the curriculum doesn’t seem designed to teach either the skills needed by employers, or uncritical passive behaviour, which makes workers easy to exploit.
Another Marxism point of view, Henry Giroux argues that the working class pupils are actively involved in shaping their own education. They do not accept everything they are taught, nor is their behaviour entirely determined by capitalism. Pupils draw upon their own cultures in finding ways to responding to schooling, and often these responses involve resistance to the school. He also argues that the education system possesses relative autonomy from the economic infrastructure.
Although in some respects Giroux’s work is subtler than that of Gintis and Bowles, Andy Hargreaves believes that it fails to solve the problems associated with Marxist theories of education. To Hargreaves there is a massive contradiction built into the theory of resistance and relative autonomy: it claims that education is free to develop in its own way and is influenced by numerous social groups, yet it is still determined by the economy.
So both Marxism and the functionalists have different views on society, and how education affects society, but both have structural perspectives.
