Critical Evaluation Of Education System - Essay Example

Critical Evaluation Of Education System Education is a good that is socially cherished and every individual have the right to be entitled to it. Durkheim proposes that education can have a significant role in socialization especially for the children who can gain an understanding of the common social values. It helps in “uniting a multitude of separate individuals” (Giddens, 2009, p.834). The common values they learn incorporate beliefs entering on religion, morale and self-discipline principles. The children in their personal lives can adopt the social norms, which control the society. For instance the school system, though once endangered by the uprise of individualism in France, help in “teaching mutual responsibility and the value of the collective good” (Giddens, 2009, p. 835). Gidden calls it a “society in miniature” (Giddens, 2009, p. 835), which renders regulation and reverence towards authorities. In the industrial nations, education helps in developing skills to take part in occupational lives and with division of labor system developing, education patterns were designed to serve the specific requirements of specialized occupations. This reflects the functionalist approach of Durkheim to sociology. However gender and ethnicity often decides the kind of education received by a child. For instance in economically poor families, boys are sent for education instead of their female siblings. If the provision and accessibility of education system can be equalized then the proper socializing role of education can be realized; else it might contribute to social inequalities according to the conflict theorists of education (Giddens, 2009, p. 836). The paper can help in understanding if effective socialization can be guaranteed in the present context of UK’s education system and to understand whether it performs on a merit ground. According to the functionalist view of Emile Durkheim the people of the society on the basis of their merits are assigned the different functional roles of serving the society as a whole. According to his view there is no place of the capital inheritance in an organic society. According to the functionalist view education other than enabling the creation of a ‘social solidarity’ provides individuals specific skills that are necessary for them in their future for choosing the right occupation for themselves. The theory of the functionalist prescribed four different roles to the system of education. The first function is that of meeting the essential functional prerequisite of a society that is the passage of the values of the society and its culture to the new generations. This also enables the people of the society to be united through the sharing of the same social values and the social culture shared by all. There are two different values that define the society. When a single family is considered, the children of that family are considered as individuals who are special to the family and different from the children outside the family. This is named as the particularistic value. However in the society as a whole every individual is treated as equal and not different from others with the same rules of the society applying for all. This is called the universalistic value. Education according to this theory is believed to act as the bridge between these two values of the society. The third function of education as described by the theory is the creation of a labor force for the societies that are properly trained and possess the required skills. In a modern industrialized nation there is the need for the system of ‘specialized division of labor’ for the performance of wide varieties of jobs. According to the theory of the functionalist education is the necessary requirement for the providence of these requisites. The last but not the least function of education according to the theory is the assurance that the best talented and the most skilled people would be allocated with the best and the most vital employment opportunity of the society. Thus according to the theory the classification of the labor force of the society will be merely on the basis of their individual merits, their skills and the educational qualification of the individual. (Browne, 2002, pp 191- 201; Haralambos and Holborn, 2009, pp 45 - 46) However the needs of capitalism in the organic society have been defended by the modern functionalist, namely Talcott Parsons. Thus according to the modern view the social groups are not totally defined merely on the basis of the merits of the individuals and hence the modern societies that are capitalists in nature cannot be said to follow the aspects of meritocracy completely. (Holton and Turner, 1986, p.201) The society is viewed as the system that exists on the basis of the social structures by the theory of conflict. However the purpose of the structure of the society as viewed by the conflict theory is different from the purpose viewed by the functionalist. The concept of the theory of conflict has its roots in the Marxism theory that are expressed in the writings of Karl Marx back in the 19th century. However the theory has its emergence in the times of the turmoil in the societies of the United States and Europe around fifties or sixties of the twentieth century. According to the theory of Marxism or in other words the theory of conflict the individuals in the society are taught to be grown up to prepare themselves for the roles that they need to perform in a capitalist structure of the society. The theory divides the society into different classes on the basis of the economical position of the individuals belonging to a particular class or the strata and not on the basis of their merits as per the previous theory of the functionalist. A society in which the social status of individuals living in the society is on the basis of their abilities and achievements is termed as meritocracy. The status of the social individual has been achieved by the person on the basis of his or her ability and not ascribed by the society. In case of meritocracy ethnicity, gender or differences in the backgrounds of the social class renders no obstacles in the achievement of the educational status of individuals. As per the theory of “conflict functionalism” and hidden curriculum there is more to the education system especially in capitalist nations like US than mere learning of lessons and values. The hierarchy and sounds of bells followed in the schools help them conform to the procedures and hierarchy at their workplace (Giddens, 2009, p. 837). In the above context, one might bring up the education system of Britain, which Saunders (1990, 1996) suggests is based on proper meritocracy since the rewards are given out to people on ground of merits and ability to perform and accomplish. According to Saunders, ability and endeavors serve as the main factors contributing to success in professions instead of class differences. His survey based on empirical evidence gathered from the National Child Development Study reflects that the diligent students would have higher probability of achievement despite all social backwardness and disadvantages. Hence he claims that Britain as a nation has existing inequalities in the social structure but is fair in terms of rewarding patterns in the education system. This assumption is usually common to most industrialized nations. In this context, Saunders’ viewpoint that the society performs on functionalist grounds in areas of education will hold. There is hardly any place for the conflict tradition to play any significant role. However critics like Breen and Goldthorpe (1999) criticized Saunders for bringing on bias and discrimination in his analyses. They criticized his approach, which did not consider the unemployed section of the population. These researchers used the same data set to arrive at distinctly different findings form that of Saunders. Class barriers, in their findings, have important impact on the social mobility. They inferred that “individual merit is certainly a contributing factor in determining individual’s class positions but that ‘class of origin’ remains a powerful influence” (Giddens, 2009, p. 469). In fact to achieve the same positions in class the individuals form backward sections of the society needed to show more merit compared to those from the advantageous social backdrops. A survey reported by Giddens (2009) on data collected for 16 countries other than UK leads to the inference that the journey from ‘rags to riches’ is difficult for the social communities form begin their career form a disadvantageous position in social terms. Studies in Birmingham conducted by Paul Willis in 1977 show that children of working class people generally get “working class jobs”. His study was carried on a housing estate of the labor class people in Wolverhampton in the 1970s (Browne, 2002, p.208). Research findings reveal that “young people from lower-class or ethnic minority backgrounds simply come to see that they ‘are not clever enough’ to expect to get highly paid or high status jobs in their future work lives” (Giddens, 2009, p.839). Willis brings out the impact of culture and sub culture. He shows how the regular social experiences of the labor class boys are in turn related to the positions with respect to class status in the context of the “larger capitalist economic system” (Reynolds and Herman-Kinney, 576). He uses symbolic interactionism to understand the identity formation amongst the teenage students which lead to the foundation of a school related peer culture (Reynolds and Herman-Kinney, 577). This study draws upon some basic components of Marx’s theory but suggest an improvement upon the same (Browne, 2002, p.207). He showed that young people from manual labor class backdrops often resorted to manual labor or blue collar jobs without thinking themselves as failures. Hence other factors had to be considered. Most often such students attempted to be involved in open conflicts with the authority (e.g. teachers) and gained a certain pleasure out of rebelling. Such “lads” often looked upon the school environment as a foreign place. they already are aware that in the work place they move into a similar environment with authority and hierarchy will be awaiting them, yet the idea of getting wages gives them “the adult status” (Giddens, 2009, p.843). Bourdieu who follows the theory of Marx, classifies culture capital, social capital and symbolic capital apart form economic capital which uses economic means to gain advantage over the disadvantaged sections. The degrees finally achieved are led by the cultural set up of the families and the nature of education received which finally represent the symbolic capital. The symbolic capital represents the prestige and honor which can help the people with higher positions dominate those with lower status. Again people with “high social capital may ‘know the right people’ or ‘move in the right social circles’ and be able to effectively exchange this social capital for symbolic capital” (Giddens, 2009, p.846). The latter represents reverence from the surroundings and enhanced social status. This increases the “power chances in dealings with other people” (Giddens, 2009, p.846). Hence “fair” consequences are often hindered. A true meritocracy can be produced only if these disparities in the society can be brought down. The labeling theory provides the basis of the explanation of the presence of different classes of the society the inequalities in the prospects of educational attainment that existed between individuals on the basis of gender and other ethnicities. In fact “the teacher’s interaction with pupils will be informed by their labeling of the pupils and the pupils may respond accordingly, verifying the label and fulfilling the prophecy” (Haralambos and Holborn, 2009, p.54). According to the interactionist theorists there are both positive and negative labeling associated with the streaming of students in a society which affects mainly the class pupils belonging to the lower strata of the society. These methods of stratifying incur consequences that are adverse for the prospects of the educational attainment of this lower section of the society. According to Browne (2002), “interactionist theories can be too deterministic, in the sense that once a negative label is applied, it will always have a negative effect” (Browne, 2002, p. 228). However a label such as, “thick’ or ‘waster’ might have a reverse impact because the labeled individual would try to prove the label wrong through application of hard work and educational achievement. Further with labeling of the students in their educational institutes results in encouragement of more misbehavior on the part of the students and the allocation of some students to the lower strata actually increases the probability of their failure. This also results in complex patterns of the attainment of education among the different ethnic minority groups. Moreover the interactionist theories failed to evaluate the importance of factors that are not related to the educational institute of the individuals in determining the success or the failure that the person achieved in education. However difference in the attainment of education may be because of the difference in the material well being of individuals. Materially disadvantaged group may lack the ability to provide with the required educational qualifications like the other individuals of the society. Thus the labeling theories are an important determinant of the difference in the level of the educational attainments of different individuals in the society though there are some loopholes in the methodology of the theory. (Haralambos and Holborn, 2009, pp 54, 58) Giddens (2009) report a survey which reveals that the ability to afford education in the public schools of Britain by the parents of the well off families of the society, paved the way for the student’s achievement of prosperity in their material life and secure a future career that is well paid. Data reveals that about 2300 fee-paying public schools of the country provide educational facilities to only 6% of the total student population of the country. Moreover different ethnic groups residing in the country are reported to have different probabilities of gaining education. The worst experiences in the educational attainment have been of the African Caribbean’s residing in the country. It has been mainly because of the presence of racism in the schools of Britain (Browne, 2002, pp. 211, 247; Giddens, 2009, p 849: Haralambos and Holborn, 2009, pp 59 - 60). From the above discussion, one can say that education system of Britain has the evidence of not being a meritocratic society. The difference in the educational attainment of the individuals of the society does not merely explain the existing social inequality. The relation between the educational levels of individuals in the society and their educational qualifications has been studied to be very weak. The opportunity of the attainment of education for students with same merits and abilities are different due to the differences in their origins, their ethnic characters and even gender. Thus the education system of the country can in no way be referred as a meritocratic one. The new labor government of the country elected in the year 1997 tried to evolve the educational system; however there is the need to change the mindset of individuals and the society as a whole before focusing directly on the change of the system of education of the country and remove the labeling criterion in the schools in order to bring about an equality in the distribution of culture capital, social capital and symbolic capital with respect to the education system such that the functionalist theory actually holds in its pure form. References Browne, K. (2002), Introducing Sociology, Blackwell Publishing Limited, United Kingdom Giddens, A. (2009), Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom Haralambos & Holborn, (2009), Sociology: themes and perspective, Harper Collins Publisher Limited, London Holton, R.J. & B.S. Turner (1986), Talcott Parsons on economy and society, Taylor & Francis Reynolds, L.T. & N.J. Herman-Kinney, (2003), Handbook of symbolic interactionism, Rowman Altamira. Read More