Application Of The Liberal View To Education example essay topic

The role of education is to educate individuals within society and to prepare and qualify them for work in the economy as well as helping to integrate individuals into society and teach them the norms, values and morals of society. Yet there are three sociological theories that differ greatly between them on the role of education. These are Functionalism, Marxism and Liberalism. Functionalists view the role of education as a means of socialising individuals and to integrate society, to keep society running smoothly and remain stable. Emile Durkheim, creator of the Organic Analogy, was a functionalist during the 1870's.

Durkheim believes that society can only survive if its members are committed to common social values and that education provides these to children and young people as well as raising awareness of their commitment to society. Durkheim also believed that schools teach young people that they must co-operate with their peers and be prepare to listen to and learn from their teachers. Individual pupils eventually learn to suspend their own self interests for those of society as a whole, work together and that success in education, just like in society, involves commitment to a value consensus. Similarly, Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, functionalists during the 1970's, believed that education is strongly linked to social stratification by members of society and that education 'sifts, sorts and allocates' people to their correct place in the economy and society. By rewarding the most talented and most dedicated by allowing them into the highest paid and highest status jobs, education performs the function which is always necessary to Functionalists - differentiating all members of society so that the system runs smoothly. Like the functionalists, Marxists agree that education is functional in that it maintains the dominance of certain powerful groups in society.

Unlike the functionalists, however, Marxists do not believe that it works for the benefit of all. Instead Marxists argue that the education system sustains one small group's ideas about appropriate forms of schooling and assumptions about what knowledge is. The system also maintains different levels of access to knowledge for different groups and thereby prohibits the widespread dissemination of knowledge to everyone. Bowles and Gintis, writers of 'Schooling in Capitalist America' (1976) believe in the 'Correspondence Principle', where they suggest that the hierarchy in work is similar to the hierarchy in school, particularly in the differences in social class between state school pupils and fee paying school pupils.

Bowles and Gintis also believe that schools are no longer about the teaching of a subject but the Social Principle or control of the pupils meaning that schools concentrate more on the hidden curriculum than the knowledge process. Equally, schools don't reward independence and innovation, therefore meritocracy cannot exist within our capitalist society as capitalism is based on the principle of a ruling class (the bourgeois) and a working class (the proletariat) and meritocracy would abolish the idea of the ruling class, society would be equal. According to Louis Althusser (1972), a French Marxist philosopher, the school serves to mould individuals into subjects that fit with the requirements of capitalism, they learn submission, deference and respect for the economy and their place in it. The school also works to ensure that the labour force is technically competent.

Also, according to Althusser, the ruling class within any society exercises control over and through schooling and the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). The ideologies themselves express the material interests of the ruling class, so this control over and through the ISAs maintains what is called class hegemony, or domination. Althusser is also draws attention to the powerful effects of the 'hidden curriculum' of schooling; pupils learn, he argues, a respect for the workings of capitalism, therefore, social order is maintained, and good workers are produced. The ideology of schooling is capitalism's key feature as teachers transform the minds of their pupils, therefore fulfilling one of the major social requirements for the perpetuation of capitalism, that is, the provision of a skilled and docile workforce. Liberalism is unlike either of the other views; it contrasts sharply with the individual Marxists and Functionalists views on the role of education.

The liberal view of education rests on the assumption that individuals should be free to determine their own destiny. Liberalism concentrates on the individual rather than society as a whole and that education should consider individual strengths not impose the same curriculum on everyone and presume that it would be suitable; education should bring out a persons strengths. Ivan Illich, writer of 'Be-schooling Society' (1971) says that formal schooling is failing most children and that schools over concentrate on paper qualifications, which do little or nothing in themselves. He also suggests that formal curriculum's should be abolished and set lessons made non-compulsory and that education should find children's strengths, not impose vague notions on what the government wants. Illich also suggests that the school indoctrinates pupils through the hidden curriculum and cares more about control of the pupils then their actual learning. An application of the liberal view to education was the fee-paying school created by A.S. Neill, headmaster of Summerhill School in the 1920's, created one of the first Free Schools - not in the financial sense but in the curricular sense.

Neill set the school up with no set curriculum or timetable and although he did have the teachers for the curriculum they became facilitators, which meant that instead of the teacher being the centre of learning the pupil became the centre of learning. All pupils are given equal voting rights on school policy, even exclusion, which gives them the chance to exercise their opinions and to feel responsible. In liberal views this means that the child will therefore want to learn / work and be a part of society. It appears, therefore, that Functionalism, Marxism or Liberalism does not apply completely to modern British society. Functionalism believes in meritocracy, which cannot exist while fee-paying schools do not offer equal success within the economy and maintains class inequalities as no social change is allowed.

Fletcher suggests that education should be closely linked to the economy, but the economy changes rapidly making specific skills quickly redundant. Equally, the collective consciousness does not seem to operate in Britain as many aspects divide us, such as gender, social class, ethnicity and nationality and the success in the economy of an individual is not always linked to success in school as well as the hidden curriculum being to restrictive as it does not allow society to gain a sense of self. The Marxist view that when the working class develops a class consciousness and realise that they are being exploited they will gather together to create a social revolution and overthrow capitalism and seize back the ruling class wealth and assets, does not apply to modern British society as there are very few people as the underdogs Marx describes are very few as the majority of society is fairly well off. Equally, the Liberalist view of the role of education is not applicable to modern British society as the majority of children are not yet ready for the responsibility to teach themselves, nor is society on a whole ready to accept the liberalist's views on education. For these reasons Marxism is most applicable to modern British society as it takes into account the hierarchy within society and the inability to apply meritocracy due to our capitalist society. Therefore Marxism is the theory that has the most in common with modern British society and the theory most likely to apply to our society.