This document discusses functionalist and conflict theories of education. Functionalist theories view education as promoting social cohesion and stability by transmitting culture and socializing individuals. Conflict theories see education as reproducing social inequalities by socializing students into the culture of the dominant class. The document examines theorists like Durkheim, Parsons, Marx, and Weber and their perspectives on the relationship between education and society.

1. Exam scope
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2. What I need to study f0r the exam
• Functionalist and conflict theories how they
account for educational and social inequalities
• Cultural capital and code theories and their
explanations of differential learning experiences
and outcomes for different learners
• Giddens’ structuration theory and how the
interplay of structure and agency determine
people’s educational achievement and general
destinies.

3. EDUCATION, ITS NATURE AND ROLES
Education- defined differently in different disciplines.
Definitions are informed by sociological, philosophical
and psychological interpretations of education:
Sociological- Education as socialisation/enculturation-
the transmission of culture from one generation to the
next. The influence exercised by the adult generation
on those not yet ready for social life (Durkheim, 1956).
Philosophical- Process of passing on worthwhile
content in a cognitive manner (RS. Peters, 2007).
 Psychological- Education as cognitive development,
the social construction and transmission of knowledge,
assimilation and accommodation of new schemata
(Piaget, Vygotsky).

4. Education & Schooling- A Distinction
 Schooling - an institutional process of acquiring
education/knowledge.
 Schooling as a sub-set of the educational process. Education takes
place in institutions called families, churches, schools, colleges
and universities. Schooling developed at a time when societies
were developing from being traditional to being modern. Mass
schooling developed alongside industrialization.
 Societies, the world over, now have schools whose main purposes
are explained in terms of grand perspectives-that tell overarching
stories to explain the relationship of school and society or the
nature of schooling and the purposes it serves.

5. Functionalist view (lens) of the relationship of education and society
Functionalist aka consensus or equilibrium theory.
• A type of theory which explains a social DEVELOPMENT in terms of its structure and
contribution to the operations of larger social development, institution or society (Saha,
1997)
• Concerned with functions of education for society and the relationship between education
and social change
• Functionalists believe survival of society is at stake if it fails to socialise its members in
skills and knowledge necessary for perpetuating that society

6. Durkheim’s views on education and society
• Durkheim’s primary sociological preoccupation was with social solidarity and social
order
• Concerned with the effects of the decline of rituals and community in the transition
from traditional to modern society
• Industrialisation had led to the breakdown of traditional rituals and methods of
social control which in turn led to the breakdown in social solidarity and cohesion
• Decline in the collective conscience and the rise of individualism led to a state of
‘anomie’
• Anomie is the condition of normlessness in individuals and society No
reactionary – Durkheim believed that society needed to develop new forms of
social control and cohesion that allow for the newly developed individual to exist
within a cohesive modern society

7. The functionalist view of education and society
• Education is of critical importance in creating the moral unity necessary for social
cohesion and harmony
• Schooling has important role in maintaining social order and to instil moral values
• Moral values seen as the foundation of the social order and society perpetuated
through educational institutions
• Classroom as “small societies” or agents of socialisation
• Schooling has specific roles in relation to intellectual, social, political and economic
socialisation.

8. Talcott Parsons
• Modern functionalists have their roots in the work of Parsons
• Schooling performs an important function in the development and
maintenance of society through equality of opportunity
• Inequality is functional and necessary as it ensures that the most talented
individuals fulfil the most important positions
• Modern societies differ from traditional societies in that they are
meritocratic
• Modern society differed from all previous societies and schooling has an
important role in its development and maintenance and the creation of
conditions for equality of opportunity
• Parsons identified three key functions of education in society: Socialisation
(enculturation) and selection (gate keeping function) and allocation which
are necessary to transmit culture and to allocate individuals into particular
roles..

9. Davis and Moore’s views of meritocracy
• Talent, hard work should determine the allocation of individuals to positions
rather than accidents of birth
• Education becomes a key institution in a meritocratic selection process where
social mobility should be by ability.
• This democratic liberal functionalist perspective views education as a vital
institution in a modern capitalist society
• Although considerable inequalities remain, society is characterised by
evolutionary movements
• Education is seen as bringing about difference in attainment. However, these
differences bring about new forms of inequality
• Achievement in schools have an impact on our life chances, influence our income,
status and position in the system of social stratification/ranking
• Necessary for the system to prevent conflict which may arise as a result of
differentiation
• At the same time that education causes conditions for creating “inequality” by
sorting people into subordinate and dominant positions, it also helps to legitimise
and justify this inequality.

10. Why societies have schools
 Functionalist theorists such as Durkheim and Parsons view schools as agents
of socialisation to teach cultures and values that were once taught in families
and kinship groups.
 They are important institutions for promoting social cohesion, bringing about
social stability
 With changes in the economies, schools are now a way of preparing people for
different forms of work- teaching skills and knowledge essential for
participation in the world of work and civic activities.
 Schooling is essential for a harmonious division of labour in a meritocracy. It
provides equal opportunities to people of different backgrounds to enable
them to advance themselves

11. Why societies have schools: A functionalist view
 Teach literacy skills- e.g. functional literacy such as the 3 Rs
 Teach formal, abstract and critical thinking skills
 Teach school knowledge and logical ways of thinking and problem-solving
 Provide access to written symbol systems and codified knowledge.
 Provide an environment where teaching and learning occur
 Prepare people for the world of work beyond school
 Nation building, citizenship, political cohesion
 Teach the values of society to young adults
 Individual development

12. Structural Functionalism
• Classic functionalist, Durkheim and contemporary
functionalist Parsons ,stress consensus and agreement
as important in maintaining social order and they also
understand that change is inevitable but emphasise the
evolutionary nature of change. ‘
• They acknowledge group conflict but argue that
without the common bond to unite groups society will
disintegrate’
• Therefore they examine social processes necessary for
establishing and maintaining social order

13. Continue
• Functionalists believe that in a highly integrated, well
functioning society, schools socialise students into
appropriate values and sort and select them according
to their abilities.
• Educational reform is supposed to create structures,
programmes and curricula that are technically
advanced, rational and that encourage social unity
• Schools function in the interest of the majority of
citizens in democratic societies and the functions of
education are to develop intellectual, political, social
and economic capacities.

14. Critiques of Functionalism
• Fails to recognise divergent and conflicting interests
and ideologies and tends to support interest of
dominant groups
• Relationship among schooling, skills and jobs is not
necessarily rational or fair
• Difficult to analyse interactions such a class room
dynamics of teacher-student or student-student
relationship
• Does not deal with content of educational process
• Built in assumption that change is slow and deliberate
and does not upset the balance of the system

15. Conflict theory of education and society
The conflict theory is a critique of the functionalist view. School/education is
seen as an institution that promotes social class inequality. Where functionalists
see meritocracy, conflict theorists see class inequality and differences.
Conflict theorists such as Karl Marx view schooling as part of the capitalist
system, which promotes social class inequalities.
The founding father of this theory is Karl Marx (1818-83), the German-born
philosopher, economist and sociologist .
Developed as a radical critique of functionalism especially the over-socialized
conception of man (structural determinism)).
The conflict is between the two major social classes, ruling and subject class
(bourgeoisie and proletariats, haves vs. have-nots, dominant & dominated
classes)
 Originally dubbed Marxism in honour of the founder.

16. Conflict view of education and society (continued)
 Conflict theorists (e.g. Marx, Althusser; Bowles & Gintis) see schooling as part of
the problem of social class inequality, rather than a solution to it.
They criticize the meritocratic assumption (implicit in functionalism) arguing that
schools appear to offer equal opportunities to learners hence in practice they do not.
Their contention is that schools actually reproduce social class inequalities and at the
same time these inequalities appear fair and natural as if they are a result of individual
abilities rather than social position. It is in this analysis that conflict theorists allege that
schooling functions to reproduce society and the status quo of class inequality.
Therefore it needs to be changed as part the broader social changes. Drawing from the
functionalist and conflict perspectives discussed above, the following reasons and
purposes can thus be given to account for the role of schools in society:

17. Why societies have schools: a Conflict view
• Conflict theorists such as Marx, Althusser, Bowles and Gintis, Weber, Collins
are of the view that in a capitalist society schools are mechanisms for the
continuation of social class inequality.
• Schools serve the interests of the ruling/dominant social class- they socialise
learners into the culture of the dominant social class.
• Schools are ideological state apparatuses that serve the interest of the ruling
class.
• Schools engender class inequalities

18. Conflict School
• Classic theorists are Marx and Weber –
contemporary theorists are Bernstein, Bourdieu
and others in this tradition
• As the word conflict suggests, this approach
assumes conflict or tension in society
• The conflict or struggle is between the classes i.e.
the working class and the capitalist class according
to Marx and to Weber, the tension is between
different status groups

19. Continue
• In terms of the Marxist view, the capitalists own the
means of production i.e. the machines, tools, land,
factories etc. to produce the means for survival
• The working class owns their labour power or ability to
work and can only survive by selling their labour power
to the owners of the means of production/property
• The capitalist extract surplus value/profit from
exploiting the labour power of the working class by
paying them wages that is just enough to ensure their
survival and for their reproduction

20. Karl Marx and the Labour Theory of
Value
• For Marxists profit is extracted from the hours worked
for which workers are not fully compensated i.e. if the
working day is 8 hours, the worker is compensated for
half the value of time
• The capitalist uses the productive forces (land, labour
and capital) to extract profit which is the basis for
accumulating wealth
• The owners of the means of production own this
surplus which increases their existing property but
does not create any such property for the workers who
actually produce it

21. Max Weber
• Marx and Weber understood class differently
• Weber believed economics as well as culture
played a determining role in shaping society
• Weber’s theory deals with conflict, domination
and groups struggling for wealth, power and
status
• These groups differ in property ownership,
cultural status such as which ethnic group
dominates or what power is derived from
positions in government or other organisations

22. Continue• For Weber owning or not owning property are categories into which ‘class
situations’ can be inserted – economics and culture are equally important
• Weber particularises property into possessions - anything ’useable for a
return’ such as cattle, products of ones own labour etc. Kelsh,D
• Unlike Marx, for Weber property is de-historicised - not seen as part of
relations of production rooted in the development of the productive forces
over time.
• Weber is noted for his work on the bureaucracy and for the concept of status
group relationships
• Power relationships and conflicting interests of individuals and groups
influence educational systems
• Education is one means to achieve the desired ends.

23. Continue
• Weber classifies the many class situations into four social
classes
• Two main classes under capitalism:
• working class (proletariat) all those who have to sell their
labour power to survive
• petit bourgeoisie (middle class) professionals, small
business entrepreneurs and managerial class
• the ruling class (bourgeoisie) owns the means of
production (the commanding heights of the economy)
survive through profit, rent or inheritance/interest
• These classes are unified not on the basis of a relation of
owning to the means of production but on the basis of
having in common a specific causal component of the life
chances. Kelsh, D

24. Labelling and pupil achievement
• Theorists argue that through a complex process , involving
the practises of the school’s and children’s responses
,certain pupils are propelled (Cause to move forward with
force)towards success and others towards failure
• The categorization of pupils by their teachers sets in
motion the self-fulfilling prophecy. This implies that
whether pupils are labelled as good or not so good they
may gradually be persuaded to bring their own self-image
in line with the label given by the teacher . ‘what is the
point of trying if the teacher already knows that you are a
hopeless case?’

25. Labelling Theory
• Ray Rist was interested in how everyday taken-for-
granted rituals serve to hold society together
• Provides an understanding of how everyday
practices in schools such as labelling and ability
grouping contribute to reproduction of education
and social inequalities
• Drawing on labelling theory from sociology of
deviance, he showed how teacher expectations of
students based on categories such as race, class,
gender affect student perceptions of themselves

26. Continue..,
• Showed how labelling of students became self-
fulfilling prophesies and how these labels became
life sentences
• Concluded that interactionism processes of
school resulted in educational inequality
reflecting the larger structures of society
• In reality system of public education perpetuates
what it’s committed to eradicating i.e. class
barriers which result in inequality in the school
and the economy

27. Ability Grouping
• Nell Keddie
• ability as a sorting and organising mechanism in
classroom
• Derives from student’s social, moral and
intellectual behaviour
• Teachers have notions of what a ‘good student’
is – these desirable attitudes are biased towards
the middle class as opposed to the working class
child
• Therefore necessary to unpack and
problematise the notion of ability

28. Continue
• Definitions (classifications) and evaluations of both
teachers and knowledge are socially constructed
• Knowledge is made available to students perceived to
have higher ability and denied those perceived with
lower ability
• Interpretive approach examines how teachers
perceptions of students are social constructs
• Draws attention to the danger of applying categories or
labels as if these infer true representations of reality
• Fails to recognise symbolic character of reality

29. Use of the approach
• Interpretive tradition concerned with
understanding social processes through which an
educational reality is produced
• Theorists focus on the way that knowledge is
organised, transmitted and assessed
• Focus on stratification in classroom highlights
how:
– Teachers’ expectations influence their assessment of
student performance
– Expectations along with categorisation and labelling of
students may affect their progress

30. Continue
• Focus is on interaction between groups or peers,
between teachers and students or between teachers
and principals
• Also on student attitudes and achievements; their
values of self-concept and its effect on their aspirations
• Studies look at what students should do to appear
worthy or able in the judgement of the school
• Pressures of evaluation lead students to adopt
strategies of pleasing the teacher
• Shows learners not brainwashed but can hinder
learning

31. Conclusion
• Achievement is socially constructed in the
classroom
• Students labelled accordingly
• Students accepting negative labels fail to
achieve
• Their life chances are negatively affected
perpetuating the inequalities of the larger
social system

32. Structural and cultural reproduction
• Structural and cultural reproduction theorists in the conflict or
Marxist tradition
• Bowles & Gintis in their book ‘Schooling in Capitalist America’
(1976) in their view education needs to be examined in relation
to its economic base
• ‘education is integral in the reproduction of the dominant class
structure’
• Class and power relations of economic life are reproduced in
capitalist society

33. Schooling and social class reproduction
• Analysed differences between different forms of educational
transmission (pedagogy)
• Social class differences in curriculum and pedagogy are
related to inequalities in achievement between middle class
and working class students
• Developed this approach into a systematic analysis of
pedagogic discourse and practices
• This approach concerned with production, distribution and
reproduction of official knowledge and how knowledge is
related to structurally determined power relations

34. Continue…
• Analysis of social class assumptions of pedagogic
practice is the foundation for linking micro educational
practices to macro-sociological levels of social
structure and class and power relations
• Developed a systematic structuralism theory that
describes how educational system is related to the
social division of labour
– of the relationship between society, schools, and the
individual and of
– how schooling systematically reproduces social inequality

35. Code theory
• Basil Bernstein:
 this is a term used to describe the theoretical and empirical project
of British sociologist Basin Bernstein
 Approach is a synthesis of macro and micro level approaches i.e. combines
Functionalism, Conflict and Interactionism Theories
 Attempted to produce a theory of social and educational codes (meaning
systems) and their effect on social reproduction but the Code theory
developed into a social theory examining relationship between social class,
family and the reproduction of meaning systems
 For him there were social class differences in the communication codes of
working class and middle class children ,differences that reflect the class
power relations in the social division of labour ,family and schools

36. Continue
• Distinguished between restricted codes of working class and elaborated codes of
the middle class
• Restricted codes are context dependent whereas elaborated codes are context
independent and universalistic – e.g. stories told without pictures
• Code theory controversial because it was labelled a deficit theory
• Defended as functionally related to the social division of labour where context
dependent language seen as necessary for production
• Elaborated code of the middle class necessitated by changes in the division of
labour and their new role in reproduction rather than production
• Schools require elaborated codes disadvantaging working class kids with their
restricted codes
• Argues for integration of structural class and power relations of the system
(macro-level) and the interaction of educational processes (micro-level)

37. Contribution of Pierre Bourdieu
• Examined the dynamics and impact of social
class:
– What characteristic distinguish people in the
various classes?
– Can people move from one class to another,
especially to a higher class?
– What rigidities stand in the way of movement
from one class to another

38. Class and Culture
• Class and culture often confused
• For sociologists class is the position in the hierarchy or status
• Culture is the way people express that status ,or the particular ways
in which a social group lives out and make sense of its given
circumstances and conditions of life
• Three main classes under capitalism:
 working class (proletariat) all those who have to sell their labour
power to survive
 petit bourgeoisie (middle class) professionals, small business
entrepreneurs and managerial class
 the ruling class (bourgeoisie) owns the means of production (the
commanding heights of the economy) survive through profit, rent or
inheritance/interest

39. Cultural Capital
• Culture the way people express their status or class:
“particular ways in which a social group lives out and
makes sense of its given circumstances and
conditions of life”
– Culture includes the distinctive language, ideological
behaviour patterns , attitudes and values, artefacts dress,
and shaped historical experiences of a group of people.
– Cultural capital a resource, whose social value is a
function of the prestige of the group that possesses it or;
– prestige of individuals depends on how much of what
kind of cultural capital they own

40. Continue
– Middle and upper classes possess cultural capital or
symbolic representations of cultural domination e.g.
language, ideas, knowledge of music, art and
literature which have exchange value in the
educational and cultural market place
– Cultural capital is made up of factors to which people
react in social interaction which shape the
construction of social beliefs and social realities

41. Society, culture and education
– Bourdieu attempted to test a theory of society, culture
and education that synthesizes Durkheim and Marx
• Investigated theoretical and empirical
underpinning of culture and stratification
• Sees culture as an economy and stratification in
cultural and material economy reciprocally
related
• Culture as realm of power struggle related to
struggle over the means of violence that
characterise politics

42. Symbolic Violence
• Schooling is part of symbolic process of
cultural and social reproduction
• Symbolic violence is “power which manages to
impose meanings and to impose them as
legitimate by concealing power relations
which are the basis of force”
• Although schools appear neutral they actually
advantage the upper and middle classes
through symbolic representation

43. Giddens
• THE BRITISH sociologist Anthony Giddens (1977,1974,1984) has attempted to
overcome the division between structure and action.
• Although the details of his arguments are complex ,his basic point is simple.
• Giddens claims that structure and action are two sides of the same coin. Neither
structure nor action can exist independently ; both are intimately related .
• Social action create structures ,and it is through social actions that structures are
produced and reproduced, so that they survive overtime.
• He uses the word” structuration to describe the way that structure relate to social
actions, so that certain sets of social relationships survive over space and time.

44. Structuration theory and Education
• The theory of structuration is a social theory of the creation and reproduction of society that
is based in the analysis of both structure and agents, without giving primacy to either.
• The theory was proposed by sociologist Anthony Giddens to examine social practices at the
basis of the inseparable intersection of structures and agents.
• Though the theory has received much criticism, it remains a pillar of contemporary
sociological theory.
• Giddens's theory of structuration notes that social life is more than random individual acts,
but is not merely determined by social forces.
• Structuration theory reminds us that there is a structure of opportunities that individuals
encounter at any historical time in their lives.
• For example, gender, class, race, religion, ethnicity may present different opportunities to
different people at particular times in their life course.
• As a result, as structures schools may enable some while constraining other learners on the
basis of the above factors.
• People whose structures e.g. family background disadvantage their ambitions and action are
said to constrained by their social structures. Their agency (human action) is constrained

45. Social structures and their impact
• Structures are parts of the social system that shape human behaviour. They
are a result of social practices. Giddens argues that a social system is simply
a pattern of social relations that exist over a period of time and space.
• Giddens’s ‘theory uses the notion of duality of structure to imply the fact
that human action/agency and social structure are in a relationship with
each other, and it is this relationship which produces structure and agency.
• The repetition of the acts of individual agents reproduces the structure. This
means that there is a social structure - traditions, institutions, moral codes,
and established ways of doing things;
• but it also means that these can be changed when people start to ignore
them, replace them, or reproduce them differently.

46. Rules and resources
• In social life in general ,Giddens identifies two aspects of
structure : rules and resources .
• Rules are procedures that individuals may follow in their social
life . Sometimes interpretations of these rules are written
down : for example in the form of laws or bureaucratic rules .
Such written expressions are not the rules themselves .
• the second aspect of structure ,resources ,also come into
being through human action and can be changed or
maintained by them .

47. • Allocative resources
These include raw material ,land, technology , instruments of production
and goods . For Giddens ,such resources are never just there, given by
actions . Thus land is not a resource until someone farms it or puts it to
some other use
Authoritative resources
These are non-material resources that results from some individuals being
able to dominate others . In other words ,they involve the ability to get other
to carry out a person’s wishes ,and in this way human become a resource that
other individuals may be able to use . As in other resources only exist in so far
as they are produced by human interaction . Authority is not something a
person has unless they are actually using it.

48. Agency and reproduction
• Giddens's views on structures ,systems and most actions are
closely tied in with hi idea of human actions since they are all
part of the duality of structure .
• Human agents are constantly intervening in the world by their
actions and in doing so they have the capacity to transform it /.
• Giddens seems to think that humans have basic desire for some
degree of predictability in social life.
• They have a need for what he calls “ontological security ” or
‘confidence and trust that the natural and social worlds are as
they appear to be’
• He suggests tentatively that this may be connected to the
human ‘basic security systems ‘ essentially a natural concern
with the physical survival of the body

49. Agency and transformation
• According to Giddens , the existence of mutual
knowledge , and a need for ontological security ,
tend to produce regulations in social life .
• Patterns of behaviour are repeated , and in this
way the structure of society ,the social system
and the institutions are all reproduced . however
,this whole process also involves the ever-
present possibility that society can be changed .
• agents do not have to behave ass others do, nor
do they necessarily act in accordance

50. Agency and transformation
• According to Giddens , the existence of mutual
knowledge , and a need for ontological security ,
tend to produce regulations in social life .
• Patterns of behaviour are repeated , and in this
way the structure of society ,the social system
and the institutions are all reproduced . however
,this whole process also involves the ever-
present possibility that society can be changed .
• agents do not have to behave ass others do, nor
do they necessarily act in accordance

51. The sociological imagination- C. Wright
Mills
• American sociologist, C. Wright Mills developed the concept of sociological
imagination as a way of thinking about structure, agency and history.
• Every individual has his own individual life, hopes and dreams, relationships
and decisions, career aspirations, achievements and failures.
• At the same time each person lives in a particular society at a particular
time. What happens to us often happens to other people as well. We fit
into the social categories, families, schools, churches (sometimes without
knowing it) and we experience structures of opportunities that are similar
to others like ourselves.
•
• The sociological imagination helps us to understand the relationship
between our own lives, the lives of others and the times in which we live. It
helps us to understand our personal troubles and social issues. Personal
troubles are problems that have to do with ourselves alone while social
issues are problems that have to do with broader social patterns and
opportunities.

52. glossary
 Etymologically-The study of the sources and development of words
 Paramount- Having superior power and influence
 phenomena- A remarkable development
 Contend- Have an argument about something
 Latin word, Socius-(society) and the Greek word -logos (companion).
 Socio- and -ology, which imply society and a study respectively.
 Amalgam- A combination or blend of diverse things
 Stratified- (used of society) socially hierarchical
 Discern- See or hear differences; identify a particular part or parts of a whole; detect with difficulty
 Inevitable- Incapable of being avoided or prevented
 Interactionist- A mutual or reciprocal action; interacting
 Meritocracy -A form of social system in which power goes to those with superior intellects. Or The belief that
rulers should be chosen for their superior abilities and not because of their wealth or birth
 Divergent- (Tending to move apart in different directions)
 Proletariat -A social class comprising those who do manual labour or work for wages
 ENGENDER- Give rise to; cause to happen or occur, not always intentionally