Two related questions have guided functionalist research into education:

• The first asks ‘What are the functions of education for society as a whole? Given the
functionalist view of the needs of the social system, this question leads for example, to
an assessment of the contribution made by education to the maintenance of value
consensus and social solidarity.

• The second question asks ‘What are the functional relationships between education and
other parts of the social system?’ This leads to an examination of the relationship
between education and the economic system, and a consideration of how this
relationship helps to integrate society as a whole.

Emile Durkheim – education and social solidarity

Durkheim saw education as the transmission of society’s norms and values. He maintained:

“Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity;
education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child from the beginning
the essential similarities which collective life demands.”

Without these essential similarities, cooperation, social solidarity and therefore social life itself
would be impossible. A vital task for all societies is the welding of mass of individuals into a
united whole – in other words, the creation of social solidarity. This involves a commitment to
society, a sense of belonging, and a feeling that the social unit is more important than the
individual. Durkheim argued that to become attached to society, the child must feel in it
something that is real, alive and powerful, which dominates the person and to which he also
owes the best part of himself.

Education and in particular the teaching of history, provides this link between the individual
and society. If the history of their society is brought alive to children, they will come to see that
they are part of something larger than themselves: they will develop a sense of commitment to
the social group.

Durkheim’s views can be illustrated by educational practices in the USA. There, a common
educational curriculum has helped to instill shared norms and values into a population with
diverse backgrounds. It has provided a shared language and a common history for immigrants
from every country in Europe. The American student learns about the Founding Fathers, about
the Constitution, and about Abraham Lincoln, who personifies the American values of equality
of opportunity and achievement in his journey from the humble origins of a log cabin to the
white house. By beginning their school day with an oath of allegiance to the Stars and Stripes,
the symbol of American society, the students are socialized into a commitment to society as a
whole.

Education and social rules

Durkheim argued that in complex industrial societies, the school serves a function which cannot
be provided either by the family or the peer group. Membership of the family is based on
kinship relationships; membership of the peer group on personal choice. Membership of
society as a whole is based on neither of these principles.

Individuals must learn to cooperate with those who are neither their kin nor their friends. The
school provides a context where these skills can be learned. As such, it is society in miniature, a
model of the social system. In school, the child must interact with other members of the school
community in terms of a fixed set of rules. This experience prepares him or her for interacting
with members of society as a whole in terms of society’s rules.

Durkheim believed that school rules should be strictly enforced. Punishments should reflect the
seriousness of the damage done to the social group by the offence, and it should be made clear
to transgressors why they were being punished. In this way, pupils would come to learn that it
was wrong to act against the the interests of the social group as a whole. They would learn to
exercise self-discipline, not just because they wanted to avoid punishment, but also because
they would come to see that misbehavior damaged society as a whole. Science, and particularly
social sciences like sociology, would help the child to understand the rational basis on which
society was organized.

Durkheim stated: “It is by respecting the school rules that the child learns to respect rules in
general, that he develops the habit of self-control and restraint simply because he should
control and restrain himself. It is a first initiation into the austerity of duty. Serious life has now
begun.”

Education and the division of labor

Finally, Durkheim argued that education teaches individuals specific skills necessary for their
future occupations. This function is particularly important in industrial society with tis
increasingly complex and specialized division of labor.
The relatively unspecialized division of labor in pre-industrial society meant that occupational
skills could usually be passed on from parents to children without the need for formal
education. In industrial society, social solidarity is based largely on the interdependence of
specialized skills – for example, the manufacture of a single product requires the combination
of a variety of specialists. This necessity for combination produces cooperation and social
solidarity.

Thus schools transmit both general values which provide the necessary homogeneity for social
survival and specific skills, which provide the necessary diversity for social cooperation.
Industrial society is thus united by value consensus and a specialized division of labor whereby
specialists combine to produce goods and services.

David Hargreaves – Durkheim and the modern school

Hargreaves has criticized the modern comprehensive school from a Durkheimian point o view.
He claims that contemporary schools place far too much stress on developing the individual,
and not enough on the duties and responsibilities that the individual should have towards
group life in the school.

Furthermore, Hargreaves argues that many schools fail to produce a sense of dignity for
working-class pupils. If pupils do not achieve individual success in competitive exams, they will
tend to rebel and fail to develop a sense of belonging within the school. If the school fails them
in not providing a sense of dignity and belonging, pupils may form subcultures which reject the
values of the school, and therefore of the wider society.

According to Hargreaves, these problems can be solved if greater stress is placed upon the
social role of the individual pupil within the school. Hargreaves says, ‘To acquire dignity a
person must achieve a sense of competence, of making a contribution to, and of being valued
by, the group to which he or she belongs.’ Hargreaves proposes a number of changes to the
curriculum in order to create a sense of competence and belonging:

• He argues that pupils should have some freedom to pursue fields of study in which they
have a special interest or talent. In this way all pupils will develop a sense of their own
worth.
• In addition there should be compulsory parts of the curriculum: community studies
would help pupils to have a clear view of their role in society.
 • Expressive arts, crafts and sports should also play a vital role. In putting on plays and
taking part in team games like hockey and football, pupils would experience satisfaction
by contributing to collective enterprises. They would develop a sense of loyalty to the
school and learn to respect one another for the contribution each could make to the
school.

Criticisms of Durkheim

Durkheim’s views on education are open to a number of criticisms. As Hargreaves’s work

suggests, it is far from clear that education in modern Britain succeeds in transmitting shared
values, promoting self-discipline, or cementing social solidarity. Durkheim also assumes that the
norms and values transmitted by the education system are those of society as a whole, rather
than those of a ruling elite or ruling class.

Hargreaves shows more awareness of the existence of a variety of cultures and values in
society, and points to some of the limitations of contemporary education. However,
Hargreaves’s proposals for changes in the curriculum are controversial. Many contemporary
changes in education seem designed to encourage individual competition and to train pupils for
particular vocations. It could be argued that sport and community studies are not the best
subjects to study as preparation for future working life.

Talcott Parsons – education and universalistic values

Parsons outlined what has become the accepted functionalist view of education. Writing in the
late 1950s, Parsons’ argued that, after primary socialization within the family, the school takes
over as the focal socializing agency; school acts as a bridge between the family and society as a
whole, preparing children for their adult role.

Within the family, the child is judged and treated largely in terms of particularistic standards.
Parents treat the child as their particular child rather than judger her or him in terms of
standards or yardsticks that can be applied to every individual.

However, in the wider society the individual is treated and judged in terms of universalistic
standards, which are applied to all members, regardless of their kinship ties.

Within the family, the Child’s status is ascribed: it is fixed at birth. However, in advanced
industrial society, status in adult life is largely achieved: for example, individuals achieve their
occupational status. Thus the child must move from the particularistic standards and ascribed
status of the family to the universalistic standards and achieved status of adult society.

The school prepares young people for this transition. It establishes universalistic standards, in
terms of which all pupils achieve their status. Their conduct is assessed against the yardstick of
the school rules; their achievement is measured by performance in examinations. The same
standards are applied to all students regardless of ascribed characteristics such as sex, race,
family background or class of origin. Schools operate on meritocratic principles; status is
achieved on the basis of merit or worth.

Like Durkheim, Parsons argued that the school represents society in miniature, Modern
Industrial society is increasingly based on achievement rather than ascription, on universalistic
rather than particularistic standards, on meritocratic principles which apply to all its members.
By reflecting the operation of society as a whole, the school prepares young people for their
adult roles.

Education and Value consensus

As part of this process, schools socialize young people into the basic values of society. Parsons,
like many functionalists, maintained that value consensus is essential for society to operate
effectively. In American society, schools instill two major values:

• The value of achievement

• The value of equality of opportunity

By encouraging students to strive for high levels of academic attainment and by rewarding
those who succeed, schools foster the value of achievement itself. By placing individuasl in the
same situation in the classroom and so allowing them to compete on equal terms in
examinatiosn schools foster the value of equality of opportunity.

These values have important functions in society as a whole. Advanced industrial society
requires a highly motivated, achievement-oriented workforce. This necessitates differential
reward for differential achievement, a principle which ahs been established in schools. Both the
winners and the losers will see the system as just and fair, since status is achieved in a situation
where all have an equal chance. Again, the principles that operate in the wider society are
mirrored by those of the school.

Education and selection:

Finally, Parsons saw the education system as an important mechanism for the selection of
insiciuals for their future role in society. In his words, it functions to allocate these human
resources within the role structure of adult society. Thus schools by testing and evaluating
students, match their talents, skills and capacities to the jobs for which they are best suited.
The school is therefore seen as the major mechanism for role allocation.

Criticisms of Parsons

Like Durkheim, Parsons fails to give adequate consideration to the possibility that the values
transmitted by the education system may be those of a ruling minority rather than a society as
a whole. His view that schools operate on meritocratic principles is open to question.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore – education and role allocation

Like Parsons, Davis and Moore saw education as a means of role allocation, but they linked the
educational system more directly with the system of social stratification. They see social
stratification as a mechanism for ensuring that the most talented and able members of society
are allocated to those position that are functionally most important for society. High rewards,
which act as incentives are attached to those positions. This means in theory that all will
compete for them and the most talented will win through.

The education system is an important part of this process. In Davis’s words, it is the proving
ground for ability and hence the selective agency for placing people in different statuses
according to their capacities. Thus the education system sifts, sorts and grades individuals in
terms of their talents and abilities. It rewards the most talented with high qualifications, which
in turn provide entry to those occupations that are functionally most important to society.

Criticisms

• The relationship between academic credentials and occupational reward is not

particularly close. In particular, income is only weakly linked to education attainment.
• There is considerable doubt about the proposition that the educational system grades
people in terms of ability. In Particular it has been argued that intelligence has little
effect upon education attainment.
• There is considerable evidence to suggest that the influence of social stratification
largely prevents the individuals in terms of ability.