Using the material from item A and elsewhere access the contribution of Marxism to our understanding of the role of education.

Paul Willis was interested in how education helps maintain capitalism. In his study ‘Learning to labour’ he studied 12 working class boys through interviews and observations. These boys formed a counter-school culture, meaning that they rejected school, skipped lessons and messed about in the ones they went to. They saw the idea of school being meritocratic as a con and saw manual work as more masculine than non-manual work. Due to their behaviour in school they ended up in low-paid jobs. According to Willis, by restricting schools, the boys guaranteed they ended up in the lower-paid jobs capitalism needs people to perform.

Bourdieu argues that the middle class pupils achieve more that working class as both they and their parents possess more capital than the working class. These include economic capital, educational capital and cultural capital. Middle class pupils possess more cultural capital simply because their parents take them to places such as art galleries, classical music concerts and the theatre. All of these places and what they see help with their education. Middle class parents also possess cultural

Capital because they have good knowledge of the education system, which they use to get their children into the best schools. Both of these two forms of cultural capital get turned into educational capital. The economic capital the middle class have also got allows them to buy educational capital for their children, by paying for them to go to private schools.

Yet functionalists have other views to Marxists. Durkheim says that education has two main roles, creating social solidarity, which he believes education helps to create. Also Teaching specialist skills, which is our modern industrial society having a complex division of labour. Education teaches us skills so we can perform jobs that keeps the economy functioning. Parsons argues that school is a bridge between the family, wider society and work. He says that how we are treated in school prepares us from the difference between family, where we are judged by particularistic standards and status is ascribed and work, where you are judged by universalistic standards and your status is achieved. Also Davis and Moore argue that the main function of education is role allocation. They say that we must make sure that the most talented people get the most important jobs. This is why schools sift and sort pupils based on their ability. Another opposing view is feminism, who say that Marxist don’t look at gender.

Ethnicity also clearly shows that the education system isn’t equal. We can see trends in educational achievement related to ethnicity. For example Chinese and Indian students tend to achieve more, whereas Pakistani and black students tend not to achieve. This could also relate to poverty as the working class children and the black ethnic children are more likely to be in poverty. Post-modernists argue that Marxists don’t look at this. They don’t look at all at ethnicity or gender.

Contrasting with Marxists view, Liberal Feminists believe that further progress will be made by girls and so they will continue to develop. They say that also continuing to push the equal opportunity policies is dealing with sexist attitudes towards women. Radical Feminists argue that even-though girls are achieving more, the education system is still patriarchal. An example of this is girls are still sexually harassed in schools. There are also still many more male head teachers than women.

In conclusion this then relates back to how they are treated in school and will never get into the best schools, therefore will hardly ever achieve highly.