Functionalism in Education

In today's society, is there is a meritocratic system. This is what functionalists believe education is. The role of education is to teach the key skills needed in adult life to pupils so they can achieve the status they want or sometimes need.

Item A describes the functionalist perspective upon education, what its role in society is. Item A outlines the core beliefs of functionalists and gives a good overview of what society sees of the contribution of functionalism towards education. Indeed, the education seems to be based on a meritocratic system and this is certainly influenced by functionalism.

Functionalists argue that education provides an essential norms and values to equip students for later life in jobs, and in wider society. They feel that schools bridge the gap between family and wider society with socialisation they bring to pupils. For example, the learning of specialist skills is critical according to Durkheim. He claimed that education passes on the norms and values in order to integrate individuals into society. As the economy has needs, certain individuals are specialists in certain areas and functionalists claim it is due to education that this occurs. This seems to be the general consensus that schools have, and is how many attract pupils and parents to their schools by setting different norms and values than others and offering the opportunity to learn different relevant skills. This is then questioned by the Marxist viewpoint of education. This is because when schools set different norms and values, Marxists see it as inequality as aspirations are different and they feel that pupils will have different starting points in their future lives.

Social solidarity is another factor that functionalists believe is needed in education. Social solidarity is where individual members must feel themselves to be a part of a single 'body' or community. Schools generally try to generate a community that parents and future pupils want to become a part. They also create a value consensus, which is a set of core values that the school community abide by. Functionalists see this benefiting student as the educational system transmits society's culture from one generation to the next. Durkheim for example argues that the teaching of a country's history instils in children a sense of a shared heritage resulting in secondary socialisation.

An issue with education from a Marxist viewpoint is that Teachers demand work from students and that they are like bosses of the pupils, this is the called the 'hidden curriculum'. Teaching students that exploitation is normal, and this very example mirrors real life, as seen in the ruling class, exploiting the proletariat population and enhancing life for the bourgeoisie, this is known as the ruling class ideology.

Functionalists also have a positive view on education by the way education