Sociology A-Level Key Sociologists

Functionalist Perspectives on Education

• Emile Durkheim emphasizes two main functions of education: social solidarity and specialist skills.
• Talcott Parsons views school as a focal socializing agency, serving as a bridge between family life and the workplace, operating on meritocratic principles.
• Davis and Moore argue that education functions as a role allocation device, asserting that inequality is essential for assigning the most important roles to the most talented individuals.
• Blau and Duncan highlight that a modern economy relies on human capital for its success.

Critiques of Functionalism

• Tumin critiques Davis and Moore's theory as a circular argument, questioning how importance is assigned based on rewards and vice versa.
• The functionalist perspective advocates a value consensus, suggesting that all members of society share similar values and ideas.
• Marxists criticize functionalism for perpetuating the ideas of the ruling class and argue that education mainly transmits the cultural capital of the bourgeoisie.

Interpretivist Critique

• Wrong criticizes functionalists for having an over-socialized perspective, suggesting students are treated as passive recipients who never reject school values.

Neoliberal Critique

• Chubb and Moe claim the state education system inadequately prepares children for work, asserting that private schools provide higher quality education by being accountable to parents as consumers.

Marxist Perspectives on Education

• Althusser discusses repressive state apparatuses (police, army, courts) and ideological state apparatuses (media, religion, education) that maintain bourgeois rule, with education acting as an ideological state apparatus that reproduces class inequality.
• Bowles and Gintis found that schools reward personality traits favorable to a submissive workforce, stunting student development for capitalist roles.
• They propose the correspondence principle and highlight the existence of a hidden curriculum, arguing against the myth of meritocracy in education.

Studies on Working-Class Culture

• Willis studied 12 working-class boys, observing their anti-school subculture and how their resistance led them to menial jobs, reinforcing capitalist labor needs.
• Critics of Willis highlight that his romantic portrayal of working-class boys overlooks their anti-social behavior and that the small sample size is unrepresentative; feminists also point out the absence of female perspectives.

Language and Achievement

• Bernstein distinguishes between restricted speech code used by working-class individuals and elaborated speech code utilized by middle-class individuals.
• Douglas notes that working-class parents often place less value on education, contributing to their children's lower academic achievement.
• Bernstein and Young found that middle-class mothers are more likely to invest in educational toys, books, and activities, promoting higher levels of achievement in their children.

Test your knowledge on key sociologists in sociology education with this flashcard quiz. Focus on figures like Durkheim and Parsons, and understand their contributions to functionalist perspectives on education.