Comparison Of Marxist And Functionalist Views On Education

Comparison Of Marxist And Functionalist Perspectives On Education Education is important in society; the structure and processes of education systems are related to the general process of socialization. All sociologists agree with this statement, but different sociologists have many views about how societies are structured, they have different views about the role of education in society. The Marxist perspective tries to explain everything about an area it has identified, such as education. It tries to look for correlation in certain field of data, to explain and understand the reasons for how things are how they are. A Marxist perspective on school would state that it was constructed and built upon the principle of a hierarchy. Hierarchy is a key idea in Marxism, as it is a structuralist perspective. The teachers are seen as in charge and the students follow any instructions put by teachers. Marxist views would also state that education is a system of social inequality, meaning that not everyone passes, schools justify this by saying that the inequality it produces is just and reasonable, and the students who have received high grades deserve them. The Functionalist perspective looks at Education as a type of sorting station in which students undergo thorough training and testing so that they are given their appropriate place in society, this all depends on how well they

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Critically Evaluate the Functionalist Perspective on Education

Critically Evaluate the Functionalist Perspective on Education For the Functionalists, education performs a positive function for all individuals in society and has a powerful influence over it. The education system serves the needs of an industrial society by providing a more advanced division of labour; socialising new generations into societies shared norms and values and, according to meritocratic criteria, allocates roles in. Education supposedly meets societies through three related economic roles; socialisation; allocation and vocational training. Firstly, Durkheim and Parsons (1956-9) stated that the education system involves the transmission of socially agreed norms and values, known as the 'Value Consensus', to future generations. This was done through both the 'formal' curriculum and the 'hidden' curriculum, and its economic role is referred to as socialisation or social control. The formal curriculum is more commonly known as the National Curriculum and so is thus the timetabled lessons the state lays out for students to undertake. However, the hidden curriculum teaches such moral lessons as the reward and punishment system, by which students must conform to and obey more authoritative persons (teachers), and installs a sense of work ethic, like punctuality and co-operation. Functionalist theorists believe that this internalisation of norms and values results

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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