Education creates an enabling culture. University qualifications generally lead to better-paid jobs and higher social class positions. Quite expectedly, teachers and even students look down on vocational qualifications as ‘inferior’ or a second-rate option compared to more traditional academic subjects and courses. Those from working-class backgrounds are more likely to enrol in vocational subjects and courses; reinforcing divisions between social classes.
Sociological perspectives on education offer different explanations of the role of the education system in society. The focus here is on functionalism and Marxism, which try to understand the role of education in other social institutions, such as the economy (the world of work and production).
The functionalist perspective on education follows the same principles as all functionalist approaches to the study of society. It is concerned with the functions or role of education for society as a whole. In particular, it refers to the contribution to maintaining social stability through the development of value consensus, social harmony and cohesion. It examines the links between education and other social institutions, such as the family and the workplace. Two important writers on education from a functionalist perspective have been Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and American functionalist Talcott Parsons. They identified four basic functions of education:
Education meets a key functional prerequisite by passing on to new generations the “central” or “core” values and culture of a society. This is achieved by both the ‘hidden curriculum’ and the actual subjects learnt at school (the curriculum), for example through subjects like citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). This unites or ‘glues’ people together by giving them shared values and a shared culture.
Functionalists see the expansion of education as necessary for a properly trained, qualified and flexible labour force
Durkheim argued that schools are a “society in miniature”—a small-scale version of society as a whole that prepares young people for life in the wider adult society.
Parsons sees school as an important unit of secondary socialisation, increasingly taking over from the family as children grow older. He argues schools provide a bridge between the “particularistic” values and ascribed status of the family, and the “universalistic,” meritocratic values and achieved the status of contemporary industrial societies.
Children’s status in the family is ascribed and they are judged in terms of particularistic values. For example, their status is ascribed as a child and not an adult, or as a younger rather than an older brother or sister, and they are treated as special individuals and judged differently from everyone else outside the family. However, wider adult industrial society is meritocratic. People have to earn their status positions according to their achievements, such as talent, skill, or educational qualifications.
Functionalists see the expansion of schooling and higher education as necessary to provide a properly trained, qualified and flexible labour force to undertake the wide range of different jobs which arise from the specialized division of labour in modern industrialized society. They argue the education system prepares this labour force and makes sure the best and most qualified people end up in the jobs requiring the greatest skills and responsibilities.
For functionalists, like Davis and Moore (1945), the education system is a means of selecting or shifting people for different levels of the job market, and ensuring the most talented and qualified individuals are allocated to the most important jobs. By grading people through streaming and test and exam results, the education system is a major method of role allocation fitting the most suitable people into the hierarchy of unequal positions in society.
In a meritocratic society, access to jobs, and the inequalities of wealth, status and power, depend mainly on educational qualifications and other skills and talents.
Marxist perspectives on education emphasize the way the education system reproduces existing social class inequalities and passes them on from one generation to the next. At the same time, it does this by giving the impression that those who fail in education do so because of their lack of ability and effort, and have only themselves to blame. In this way, people are encouraged to accept the positions they find themselves in after schooling, despite the disadvantages arising from social backgrounds that create inequalities in educational success.
French Marxist Althusser (1971) saw the main role of education in a capitalist society as the reproduction of an efficient and obedient labour force. This involves two aspects:
* The reproduction of the necessary technical skills;
* The reproduction of ruling class ideology.
Althusser argues that to prevent the working class from rebelling against their exploitation, the ruling class must try to win their hearts and minds by persuading them to accept the ruling class ideology. This process of persuasion is carried out by several ideological state apparatuses, such as the family, the mass media, the law, religion and the education system. Althusser argues that in contemporary Western societies, the main ideological state apparatus is the education system.
The writer is former Director National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) Government of Pakistan, a political analyst, and public policy expert,. He is also author of the books, 9/11 Pakistan and Existential Question for Pakistan