03 Section B Option 2, Key question 1 - Functionalism, education and work (part 1)

Education and social solidarity

Functionalists ask how education contributes to the continued working of society, rather than looking only at what an individual gains from a qualification. Functionalism is a perspective which emphasises relationships between social institutions and the contribution they make to social order. Its consensus approach highlights shared values as a basis of cooperation. Applied to education, the question is how children become able and willing to participate in a society larger than their family.

In Education and Sociology, published posthumously in 1922, Émile Durkheim argued that education develops the social commitments needed by a community. Young people learn a common basis of moral ideas and habits, while specialised education prepares them for different occupations. This is a theoretical and historical account of education's social character, rather than a survey proving that every school has the same effects. Durkheim recognised educational diversity: a common social basis does not require everyone to learn the same specialist knowledge. Durkheim's text, in an academic edition.

Consider an original teaching example: a class shares equipment during a practical task. The teacher explains why everyone must return it so the next group can work. Merely obeying because punishment is likely would be external control. Coming to regard consideration for others as a reasonable obligation means internalising a value: treating it as part of one's own outlook. Repeated experiences could make cooperation with people outside the family more familiar and dependable. That is the link between the school practice and solidarity; saying that school has rules does not yet explain it.

The formal curriculum, the officially planned knowledge and subjects, can transmit a common culture through shared language, civic knowledge or accounts of a society's past. The hidden curriculum means values and expectations learned through everyday school arrangements rather than the stated syllabus. Taking turns and accepting responsibilities could teach cooperation through experience. These are applications of the functionalist approach, not claims that every pupil accepts every message.

A common culture is also open to dispute. If an imagined school presents only one community's history as everyone's history, pupils excluded from that account may feel less belonging. This questions whether the culture transmitted is genuinely shared. It does not show that cooperation is impossible: schools might encourage a common commitment to respecting different backgrounds. The issue is what is shared, how it is taught and whose experience is recognised.

Universalistic standards and achievement

School can introduce children to judging and being judged by criteria that apply beyond a particular personal relationship. Talcott Parsons, in The School Class as a Social System (1959; reprinted in 1961), linked the classroom's socialising function to selection for adult roles. His account concerns American society and develops a functional explanation; its existence does not establish that contemporary British education actually operates fairly.

Parsons saw school as a bridge between family relationships and the wider society. Particularistic standards depend on who a person is in a particular relationship. A parent may give their own child special support because they are their child. Universalistic standards apply common criteria to everyone within the relevant category. For example, candidates taking the same assessment are meant to be judged against the same published criteria. Parsons connected schooling to achievement and equality of opportunity. Institutional summary of Parsons's account.

The distinction concerns the basis of a judgement, not whether a person is kind or strict. A loving parent may still assess a child's homework by common criteria. Equally, a school could favour a pupil because of family connections. The family/school contrast describes Parsons's proposed institutional pattern, not an exceptionless rule about every adult.

An original example makes the connection clearer. Imagine a school appointing library helpers through an advertised task that all applicants can attempt. Choosing pupils because they demonstrate the relevant skills would illustrate achievement against a common standard. Choosing the headteacher's relative regardless of performance would illustrate personal connection determining the outcome. The functionalist argument is that practising the first arrangement prepares pupils for adult institutions in which strangers must trust each other's competence.

Meritocracy means an arrangement in which positions and rewards depend on relevant ability and achievement rather than inherited privilege. It requires a real opportunity to develop and demonstrate that ability. A published examination can provide a universalistic rule while pupils have unequal access to preparation. Therefore, the statement that an assessment has common criteria is different from the statement that the system is meritocratic. Observing grades alone cannot settle the second question.

Specialist skills and role allocation

Education can connect people to work through developing capacities, identifying achievement and influencing access to occupational training. Role allocation is the process of placing people into different social positions. In the functionalist account, allocating people to work matters because a complex society depends on different activities being performed competently.

The division of labour means the specialisation of work into different tasks and occupations. It creates interdependence: people need skills and services which they do not supply themselves. Education therefore needs to develop different specialisms as well as shared commitments that allow their holders to cooperate. Teaching everyone an identical skill set would not fulfil this specialist function.

An original illustration is a hospital. Its work depends on different kinds of expertise and on people coordinating their tasks. General literacy and numeracy can support communication, while specialised courses can develop knowledge for particular occupations. Teaching a skill is not the same process as selecting who receives a post: a course could train people effectively while a recruitment decision still favours an employer's relatives.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, in Some Principles of Stratification (1945), argued that societies must fill positions and motivate their occupants to perform their duties. They linked differential rewards to a position's functional importance and the scarcity of suitably qualified personnel, including scarcity resulting from lengthy or costly training. Their paper concerns the organisation of stratification: applying it to education helps explain incentives to train and selection for work. It is not an empirical study proving that school qualifications always identify the most suitable worker. Davis and Moore's original article.

The educational mechanism has several connected steps. First, people develop knowledge and skills through teaching and practice. Second, assessment provides evidence of what they can do. Third, qualifications can allow employers or training providers to compare applicants without personally knowing each of them. Finally, access to occupations and anticipated rewards may encourage people to undertake demanding training. In a meritocratic version of this account, selection identifies relevant competence rather than family advantage. This is a proposed chain whose links must be checked, not a guarantee built into the word qualification.

For example, imagine a technician course requiring candidates to diagnose faults accurately before certification. If the tasks resemble the work and the assessment is valid, certification could help employers find people able to do the job. If the certificate merely records attendance, its usefulness as evidence of competence would be weaker. The particular relationship between learning, assessment and work therefore matters.