critics of functionalists view on education Essay Example

critics of functionalists view on education Essay Example critics of functionalists view on education Essay critics of functionalists view on education Essay Critically evaluate the functionalist perspective on education (20 marks) Functionalists perspective on education is based on the consensus theory of equality. They tend to believe that education helps to maintain society by socialising young people with the value of achievement, competition and equality of opportunity. Education also teaches the skills to help the economy. For example, literacy, numeracy and IT for particular occupations. Role allocation is all part of this; education allocates people to the most appropriate Jobs of their talents, using xaminations and qualifications. Durkheim identified two main functions of education: creating social solidarity and teaching specialist skills. The government, or state, provides education for the children of the family, which in turn pays taxes on which the state depends to keep itself running. The family is dependent upon the school to help children grow up to have good Jobs so that they can raise and support their own families. In the process, the children become law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, who in turn support the state. If all goes well, the parts of society produce order, stability, and productivity. Functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order that exist in society, focusing on social stability and shared public values. From this perspective, disorganization in the system, such as deviant behavior, leads to change because societal components must adjust to achieve stability. When one part of the system is not working or is dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, which leads to social change. Functionalists see education as a process hat instils the shared values of society as a whole, where everyone has a chance at education and also has a chance of achieving the best Job for themselves. However Marxists argue with this and believe that education is a capitalist society only transmitting the ideology of a minority in this case the ruling class. As the capitalist society is based on inequality, they argue unlike functionalists that meritocracy does not exist, as the main factor determining whether someone is has a high income is their family and class not on how they achieved in education.

What Made Us Americans essays

What Made Us Americans essays As an American citizen, have you ever given any thought of the land that your standing on? Do you know as an American, you give part of yourself to this nations character? Well, you do. For several intellectual generations, a dispute has raged over the concept of the frontier, as articulated by Fredrick Jackson Turner in 1893. He posed his belief that the American frontier was at the root of American exceptionalism. The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics (Turner, 549). The Frontier created a new exceptional person- an American. He promoted that the American character was shaped by the continuous confrontations Americans had with an ever changing frontier that moved civilization westward. Turners conclusion about American characteristics is not because of the frontier, but of the American people who have accomplished many people dreams and made American what it is today. Turners thesis is useless as a guide for the presen t and future, because the Frontier did not make American and its people exceptional. The frontier can be used objectively to gain a knowledge about the history and process of western expansion. But many Americans would not admit to say that they are proud of what our people did to the early settlers (Indians). American Frontier experience has been involved its own environment problems, contacts with Indians, and economic and social organization. Long before the white man set foot on American soil, the American Indians, or rather the Native Americans, had been living on this land. When the Europeans came here, there were probably 10 million Indians north of present-day Mexico and they had been living here for quite some time. So, when the Europeans started to arrive in the 16th- and 17th-century they were met by Native Americans. It was the Europeans' cultural arrogance, coupled with their ...