The Perspective of the Symbolic Interaction and the Conflict Perspective - Essay Example

EDUCATION AND SOCIETY Introduction There are three major theoretical perspectives in sociology, which include the functionalist perspective, the symbolic interactions perspective and the conflict perspective. Generally, Symbolic interactions focuses on the use of symbols including face-to-face interactions; Functionalism deals with the relationship between parts of the society concerning how various aspects of the society are functional whereas Conflict theory deals with scarce resources competition, and the way the rich control the weak and poor. Emile Durkheim was the founder of Functionalism (Turner, 2012, p. 9). Functionalism states that every society’s aspect is interdependent and contributes to the functioning of the whole society. The government provides education for the state’s children whereas the same citizens of the state pay tax to keep the government running. According to Emile Dhurkenim, the society is held together by cohesion or social consensus whereby the citizens concur together and work to accomplish the best for the society at- large. This essay will discuss the functionalist perspective of the central government control of curriculum content is schools (Collins, 1994, p. 17). Arguments for Central Government Control of Curriculum Content in Schools According to functionalism and Emile Durkheim, the central government should provide education for the children of the family, which then the citizens pay taxes to sustain the government’s operations. This ensures the family is dependent on the school in assisting the growing up of the children, ensuring good jobs for the children to grow and sustain their own families. Central government control of curriculum content in schools means that the government is fully in-charge of developing, facilitating and ensuring that the curriculum it comes up with is taught in the schools. The government comes up with various education policies regarding the curriculum to be taught and enforces the same. Through this direct involvement, the government ensures that it consults all the major stakeholders in the education industry in order to develop the curriculum. The policy is enforced using various strategies, ensuring the full implementation and evaluation of the curriculum, to check its functionality. All state machinery is put to task ensuring that the curriculum works in accordance to set processes and procedures by the government. This paper discusses the central government functionalist perspective on curriculum content in schools (Bundy and Mathews, 1998, p. 29). According to Durkheim research, he came up with three irrefutable facts to social sciences. Among them were the social facts that were underlying the institutions such as the family, state and education. Since all stakeholders were part of the development in the central government controlled curriculum, implementing the curriculum does not become a major challenge. The government values education and it is for the paramount reason that the central government comes up with various funding mechanisms for the curriculum since it understands that a learned population for the country is a key pillar for economical significance and empowerment. The country’s constitution entrenches education as a fundamental right for the people, making it obligatory for the government to, fully control the curriculum to be taught (Turner, 2012, p. 17). Central governments are adequately aware that education is a paramount fundamental right for its citizens and therefore it has the authority and mandate to provide education. The central government thus develops the curriculum. Here the central government controls the educational institutions indirectly. Standardization is the key element of education since the people of that particular country will be taught the same things regardless of personal status. The central government comes with a standard-based curriculum that ensures changes regarding how teachers teach and the way schools are managed. The central government builds the required capacity and provides ample implementation time, monitoring, and final curriculum evaluation (Burton and Barlett, 2007, p. 17). The central government also ensures that the curriculum development process provides reflection opportunities and curriculum revision to ensure the curriculum is effectively updated and adequately improved where necessary on a regular basis. This is a vital merit for the citizens since the curriculum is standard and offers equal opportunities regardless of status. This also ensures that after having gone through the education system of the curriculum, job opportunities are advertised using similar standards. The central government ensures that systems are systematic while providing equal opportunities to all. The central government also shoulders the costs of implementation and funding, ensuring that education is affordable to its people. The government strives to ensure that the curriculum is of international standards, opening up international job opportunities for its population. Curriculum certification is an internationally recognized process that ensures that opportunities are limitless globally. The central government also upgrades the curriculum regularly, ensuring that the curriculum graduates are abreast with current trends both locally and globally. With a uniformly structured curriculum, job opportunities are predictable for the curriculum graduates, which are also an advantage to the central government since an educated population is an asset, economically (Tilak, 2003 Pg. 37). Curriculum standardization by the central government ensures that these standards are improved from time-to-time, improving educational accomplishment by defining clearly what is supposed to be taught and the kind of performance expected. A lot of effort to develop education begins with the procedure of integrating standards within the curriculum. The process of integrating standards is a multifaceted effort that brings added dimensions to the curriculum. A central government controlled curriculum offers a plan of instruction, which indicates learning experiences that structured and student oriented. A central government controlled curriculum also ensures that goals, objectives, and standards are uniform. The main idea of a central controlled curriculum is to set clear standards for what the students learn and to use these standards academically to make additional changes in the system including employment, professional development, community and parent involvement, instructional leadership, and use of technology and other resources (Tilak, 2003, p. 46). Another paramount fact from Durkheim was the fact relating to the collective representations, or the society values and moralities. In this case, the central government controlled curriculum also provides for capacity building. Capacity building is the process of increasing individual capability in order to perform or produce better results; this enables every stakeholder to carry out their tasks to the best of their ability. The central government ensures that capacity building is a multifaceted, systematic endeavor that involves the educators, the students’ parents, students, and the stakeholders. This ensures that the central government brings together school administrators and staff in a professional learning community where they are committed to the learning and intellectual growth of students. They share a common vision, learn and work collaboratively, review, and visit other institutions of the same caliber and participate in shared decision-making (Tilak, 2003, p. 52). Teachers also have an expanded opportunity to work anywhere in the country because the curriculum is similar. Teacher promotions are also pegged on the various certification of the curriculum, ensuring transparency in the recruitment process, which also acts as a motivational tool – the more certification the teacher gets, the higher the ranking. This is also applicable in the job market where job openings and promotion are pegged on this curriculum certification. The central government creates harmony in the work place and offers various incentives for top performances including government scholarships. When the curriculum is controlled by the central government, it ensures that facilities are provided for building of schools, training centers and capacity building facilitation by the government (Tomlinson, 2005, p. 57). According to Durkeim, “the whole being greater than the sum of all its parts”. He looked at society as being a “whole living organism” where social phenomena maintained an ongoing social system (Collin, 1994 Pg. 11). Central government builds schools that are for persons who are physically well and for those who are handicapped. The central government also employs the teachers in the government schools and pays them. This is a great advantage to the population since they do not need to worry about teacher’s remuneration since their central government takes care of this. The population is empowered through this system. In addition, the central government ensures that books are available for the controlled curriculum and offers subsidies for books to make them affordable for their population (Tomlinson, 2005, p. 63). Moreover, central government controlled curriculums attain greater social equity by use of school finance reform. This ensures that education is free for all and incase the population is supposed to pay; it ensures that the fees are affordable to all. Since the central government has enough resources, it is better placed to monitor academic standards, teacher competence and curriculum quality (Tomlinson, 2005, p. 79). Financing is also a critical aspect that is undertaken by the central government when enforcing its curriculum as a policy framework. It gives various grants to the schools and scholarships to make education affordable. The central government through its control of the curriculum ensures that schools increase their effectiveness and standards are set high as institutions compete on the same level ground (Tomlinson, 2005, p. 103). Central government controlled curriculums ensure that targets are set and achieved by the schools and at the same time providing a legal framework on what should be taught and how the schools should be managed. This sets a systematic flow and order, which is enforced by various policies that are adhered to countrywide. This also ensures that the education system does not affect the students even if they transfer from one school in one region to another (Lo, LO and Yeung, 2012, p. 25). Arguments against the Central Government Control of Curriculum Content in Schools The central government should not control the curriculum content in schools since it restricts their creativity, derails teacher skills and narrows the experience of children. A Central government controlled curriculum leads to a command and control system and eventually results to it being counter-productive. Teachers should be given the freedom to be imaginative, creative and allowed to engage in a curriculum tailor-made for the students they teach. The central government has a lot of bureaucracy and this leads in slow upgrading of the curriculum in relation to current trends. This makes the curriculum lag behind since a majority of what is taught in the curriculum is outdated. This can affect the job market and places because the curriculum graduates are not equipped with the required expertise for the jobs. The upgrading process is also not very flexible since various researches have to be conducted which takes a lot of time (Lo, LO and Yeung, 2012 Pg. 37). This is also concurred by Sir John Cassells, director, National commission on Education on his research findings of 2003. Decision-making is also cumbersome since all stakeholders have to agree to make the amendments. Disagreements can easily derail a good cause and this eventually affects the student. Central government controlled curriculums lack inspiration and are therefore not challenging enough for proper grilling of the students. What is taught becomes a daily routine and this de-motivates the teachers. The students are also over drilled leading to institutions that produce students who learn tactics of just passing the exams and not being knowledgeable. The governments also micro-manages these institutions because the curriculum is controlled by the central government, thereby killing the required innovation by the students and teachers. Meddling in the institutions affairs by the central government is also evident, causing conflicts of interest (Bondi and Mathews, 1998. P. 48). “Allow teachers to create an imaginative and engaging curriculum tailor-made for the pupils they teach”. This is from “Item in the Teachers” Manifesto compiled by the TES from its reader’s contributions (2005). Central government curriculums are subject-based and are designed by experts who have varied interests in those subjects leading to completion between various subjects. Some subjects are regarded highly from the rest yet each student has a unique talent that is different from the other. This locks out diversification of ideas by the teachers and students. Teachers are stripped of their powers of discretion. Excellence in academic achievement requires more than setting standards and expecting students to achieve them. Although school effectiveness is increased through the central government curriculum control, individual schools are not given more responsibility (Bondi and Mathews, 1998, p. 79). Central government curriculums tend to be sluggish due to their bureaucracies and at times regulations and goals contradict each other. These contradictions are at times not readily adaptable to diverse local contexts. Schools administrations have limited freedom in structuring their agendas and decision making since they have to strictly follow and adhere to set procedures and policies. The teachers should have the freedom to write the schools’ curriculum since only the teachers understand the students better and not the central government. The teacher is in a better position to comprehend the requirements of an individual and therefore knows what is best. The central governments curriculum comes up with a one general humongous curriculum without factoring that each individual is different (Bondi & Mathews, 1998, p. 123). A curriculum should consist of lessons experienced that are developed through the learners’ characteristics and needs. The bond between the student and teacher is vital for effective learning and does not require any limitations (Lo, LO & Yeung, 2012, p. 23). The central government controlled curriculums are developed by experts who are not specialists in schools administrations and this makes the developed curriculum to be developed by the governments’ technocrats. Teachers are the ones who have first-hand class experience that is paramount for curriculum development. The central governments curriculum chocks healthy competition amongst various institutions that would come up with great curriculums if given the freedom to do this. A school can only become a vital centre of education if only it was given freedom in self-direction and self-determination. Schools are better in developing the curriculums since they are more stable and have the expertise. The teachers’ role is reduced to delivering what has been handed down to them from above (Bondi and Mathews, 1998, p. 73). Politics play a critical role in the development of the central government controlled curriculum leading to massive interference. Politicians ensure that their vast interests are incorporated in the curriculum so that they can gain in monetary value. This is done by ensuring that systems for implementation are done in such a way that will benefit the politicians. Where huge amounts of money are to be used by the central government in achieving the curriculum objectives, this becomes a fertile ground for corruption (Lo, LO and Yeung, 2012, p. 27). In conclusion, there are both merits for and against the central government controlling curriculum content in schools. The functionalist perspective for the central government control of the curriculum content has many advantages for the community as a whole rather than the community being given the task. Since the central government has all the resources, it is better placed to handle this humongous task. References Bondi, L and Matthews, M 1998, Education and Society: Studies in the Politics, Sociology and Geography of Education. Glascow: Routledge. Burton, D and Bartlett, S 2007, Introduction to Education Studies. Washington DC: Sage Publications. Collins, R. (1994). Four sociological traditions. New York: Oxford University Press. Hammersley, M and Hargreaves, A 2012, Curriculum Practice (RLE Edu B). Glascow: Routlege. Lo, S., Lo and Yeung, S 2012, Curriculum Change and Innovation. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Tilak, J. B 2003, Education, Society, and Development: National and International Perpectives. New Delhi: APH Publishing. Tomlinson, S 2005, Education in a post-welfare society. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Turner, S 2012, Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Moralist. Glascow: Routledge. Read More