Depending on your personal achievement will determine how well you do. He expresses his feelings that schools prepares children from moving on from family to society and how society is meritocratic likewise within education. However as functionalists see education as society and schools based on
Examining the relationship between identity and social class Social class is the way in which society categorizes itself into different forms of genre. Social class refers to the status in which a person is given in society. Strictly speaking it is measured by how much wealth you have. Being born into a wealthier family will mean you start life in a higher class. If you are born into a poorer family you would have to work your way up the classes through employment.
“Class, or socioeconomic status (SES), permeates our social behavior and thought. Income and education correlate with job security and satisfaction, family size, political attitudes, and cultural values. Poverty is associated with a short life expectancy. Wealth correlates with elite education. Middle-class people tend to favor small families” (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2003).
Sociology Factsheet Role and Purpose of Education; 1) What are the main roles of the Education System? * The economic role- Teaching skills for work. * The selective role- Choosing the most able people for the most important jobs. * The socialisation role- Teaching norms and values. * Social Control- Teaching acceptance of rules and values.
What is social class? Social class is a term that refers to a group of people who share a similar economic situation, such as a similar occupational level, income and ownership of wealth. Often occupation, income and ownership of wealth are closely related to each other and influence the lives of individuals, for example: how much power and influence they have in society their social status their level of education their houses and cars the consumer goods bought and the lifestyle adopted their leisure activities. Social class is an important influence on people's lives. It affects everything we do and who we are.
Now people’s ideologies are influenced by the education system, which is now the main agency of control within society. People are now entitled to more choices and their acceptance comes from their experience of education. Althusser states people used to accept their position in society because they believed it to be ‘gods will’. This theory suggests that if individuals are going to accept inequality their ideologies need to be controlled and the only way to accomplish this is to become a teacher and to control the society through power. Education according to Althusser reproduces inequality by preparing pupils for work in the wider society.
5 December 2012 Social Class in the U.S Society in the United States can be divided into several different social class groups. A social class consists of those people in a community who are somewhat similar in their economic status, their attitudes and beliefs, and their educational attainments, their ways of living, the regard in which others hold them, and their power or lack of power to influence community affairs. In the United States, Americans try to avoid thinking in terms of “low class” and “high class”, but there is no escaping the fact that some people are economically and socially better off than some other people. (p.214) According to our textbook, stratification appears to be unavoidable. It is the grouping of people according to differences in income, occupation, power, privilege, manner of living and others.
Outline the functionalist perspective on the role of education Sociological functionalist have identified education as a crucial part of the socialisation process as it transmits and reinforces society’s norms and values, prepares children for adult roles and selects young people in terms of their abilities for crucial roles. This essay outlines Durkheim’s, Parsons and Davis and Moore’s perspective on how education creates an impact on the structure of society. Durkheim’s perspective on the role that education had on society was that it shapes an individual and prepares them for the ‘real world’; beyond their comfort zone. He argued that, in complex industrial societies, schools serve a function which cannot be provided by the individuals’ family nor their peer group. For us, school is a miniature version of society as it provides us with skills that we need once we enter work or when starting a family also, the experience prepares us for interacting with members of society and the rules that society has.
However Marxists would argue that social problems such as underachievement are simply aspects of a wider structure of class inequality, and unlike functionalists, they do not see the state and its policies beneficial to all members of society. In Marxists view, the state represents the ruling class, and social policies serve the interests of capitalism as opposed to society as a whole. For example Marxists would state that social policies, such as the NHS, maintain the labour force for further exploitation. From a social democratic approach, sociologists, such as Townsend, believe that sociologist
He believed that schools acted as a mini-society, people need to cooperate with other people who are neither family nor friends - teachers and pupils at school, colleagues and customers at work. In today's society, industrial economies have a complex division of labour, where production usually involves the cooperation of many different specialists. This cooperation promotes social solidarity but for it to be successful, each person must perform their role. Durkheim argued that education teaches individuals the specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social division of labour. In the USA, Talcott Parsons (1902 - 1979) developed Durkheim's ideas.