The new right view believes that there is a solution for these problems. This is that schools should be part of the marketing business to create an ‘education market’. Chubb and moe believe that the education system has failed to create equal opportunities, teach pupil skills needed for the economy and deliver high quality education like the private schools.
However, they also came up with a solution to these problems, proposing a system in which each family gets a voucher to spend on schooling. The aim of this is to encourage schools to improve and meet expectations of the consumers, as the vouchers will be their only income. This would also create competition in order to attract customers.
This new right also believe that education should affirm the national identity. The aim is to interrogate pupils into a single set of traditional and cultural values. As a result, the new Right also oppose multi-cultural education that reflects the cultures od the different minority groups in Britain.
1. Education forms The School, and it is seen as a ‘bridge’ between the family and ‘the world of work’. It’s open to an equal opportunity for everybody so that they are liable to attain to their ability or performance and their effort to become ‘’inward mobile’. The structure and processes of education systems are related to the general process of socialisation. Functionalist views are based on that society is a system of interdependent parts held together by a shared culture or consensus. They believe that like a human body, with each part helping us to stay alive, every part of society performs functions that help keep society running effectively.
Functionalists think of education as a positive function for all individuals in society, which has a powerful influence over it. The aims of education in functionalism are to maintain social stability, keep society in consensus and resolve any conflict. Parsons argued that schools act as a bridge between the family and a wide society within the role of education being to promote universal values such as achievement, individuation, competition and equal opportunities. Education is the main secondary agent of socialisation, family being the primary agent. In advanced industrial society we are judged in terms of achieved status and universalistic values. That is to say we are judged in terms of what we achieve and schools prepare us for this. At school, our conduct is measured against the universal school rules and our status is achieved through examination. Parsons claims that education reinforces norms and values, such as individual achievement is rewarded with praise, good grades and a good job.
Durkheim and Parsons saw education as an essential agency of socialisation whose function is to transmit common values to the next generation. Education according to Emilie Durkheim (1903) consists of two main functions, creating social solidarity and teaching specialist skills. Social solidarity is the sense of being part of a group or society. Functionalists believe this is key to making education run accordingly as without social solidarity people would only self-indulge in their own desires. Education helps to create social solidarity as it helps transmit societies culture, beliefs and values from ‘generation to generation ‘keeping society running correspondingly. Schools also act in preparing children for society in real life by teaching the concepts of working together with people you do not always no. This links with working as in work you have to work coherently with people who you will not know hence socialising them correctly. The interactionist Dennis Wrong (1961), however, argues that functionalists have an ‘over-socialises view’ of people as mere puppets of society. Functionalists wrongly imply that pupils that pupils passively accept all they are taught and never reject the school’s values.
Specialist skills are having the necessary skills to perform their role in education to the ‘bride way’ towards working life. Education helps children prepare for this through teaching children in different a range of subjects which they will then come to specialise in the subjects they are good in which will in turn help them earn money in society in later life. Education also according to functionalists gives all children an equal opportunity to develop on their own individual talents also known as meritocracy which is achieving through your own effort. Davis and Moore (1945) argue that schools also perform a second function; that of selecting and allocating pupils to their future work roles. By assessing individual’ aptitudes and abilities, schools help to match them to the job they are best suited to. However the new right criticise this and claim that the state education system fails to prepare young people adequately for work. This is because state control discourages efficiency, competition and choice.
Ultimately, to some extent functionalism has contributed to our understanding of the role of education as it helps us understand that education is a vital social functions, acts as a bridge between the family and the world of work, gives everyone an equal chance of discovering and developing their talents and shifts and sorts individuals. However, there are many comebacks for these ideas such as the Marxist stating that education is a capitalist society only transmits the ideology of a minority- the ruling class and Dennis Wrong arguing that the functionalists have an ‘over-socialised view’ of the people as mere puppets of society. Functionalism is only one perspective and there are many different evaluations of it however it cannot be denied that it has contributed vastly to our understanding for the role of education.
by
212176 (student)
