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CHAPTER COMMENTARY

The opening contrasting stories of Sakina from rural Nigeria and Shaun from an urban area

of the UK sets the tone for the chapter, raising issues of inequality, access to education and

schooling opportunities and again, questioning what education is and should be for in very

different social contexts. Interesting methodological issues can also be raised about these

kinds of studies and data as well as the substantive issues about the reproduction of social

inequalities and the management of social interaction and identity which Sakina and Shaun

faced.

The chapter makes a distinction between education and schooling before turning to

competing theories of education. Functionalists like Durkheim and Parsons see education as

essentially part of socialization. For functionalists, education systems do not simply teach

knowledge and train children in skills, they also inculcate central social values, often in latent

rather than manifest ways. In addition, education helps to sift the available talent so that

society’s necessary jobs are filled. Functionalist theorists saw mass education as part of a

process whereby the child moved from the family and close kin as its reference points and

where it is assessed on particularistic criteria into the wider world of shared values and

assessment against universalistic benchmarks. A kind of ‘conflict functionalism’ can be seen

in the work of Marxists such as Bowles and Gintis, who argued that indeed, schools do

prepare young people for later life and work, but in the context of an unequal capitalist

society. In this setting, mainstream schooling ‘corresponds’ to the workplace, teaching

children discipline, obedience and deference to authority figures. Hence, the system is not

meritocratic and instead of making use of the available talent in society, the education

system actually wastes it.

Both functionalists and Marxists agreed that there is a hidden curriculum in education

systems and this idea was pursued by Illich in his argument that young people are effectively

deskilled rather than upskilled. For Illich, schools are not the best place to conduct

education for life and he argued for the full scale deschooling of society in order to facilitate

genuine education and knowledge acquisition in a variety of other settings.

The next section concentrates on cultural reproduction and covers some important

theories. The importance of language in educational achievement is approached through

Bernstein's distinction between elaborated and restricted codes, which is presented as a

Classic Study. This is interpreted not as an example of cultural deprivation but rather as an

incompatibility between the restricted code of the (typically working class) child and the

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elaborated code of the school. A second (but not boxed) Classic Study, Willis’s Learning to

Labour, documents the active contribution students can make to the reproduction of the

social order and the maintenance of their place within it. By forming and becoming part of

rebellious school counter-cultures, children fail at school and thereby, albeit unwittingly, do

what the system requires them to do anyway. This example is brought up to date through

Mac an Ghaíll’s study of the production of masculinities. Macleod’s study of male gangs in

Boston, USA is included as it shows that subjective perceptions such as whether people

believe it is possible for them to succeed or get a decent job are very effective in the

production of positive and negative post-school outcomes.

Most of the early research on school sub-cultures focused on boys, but there is a body of

work relating to the experiences of girls and young women. McRobbie, Lees and other

feminist researchers found that part of the hidden curriculum was the reproduction of

‘appropriate’ feminine norms and the ‘streaming’ of girls into subjects deemed suitable for

domesticated roles, whilst Spender argued that many textbooks, perhaps unwittingly, were

replete with sexism and traditional gender roles in which women were portrayed as

secondary beings to men. The section concludes with a detailed discussion of the work of

Pierre Bourdieu on exchangeable forms of capital. The emphasis here is of course of cultural

capital, transmitted and acquired via education systems. Bourdieu’s theoretical framework

also includes the key concept of habitus, the learned disposition, such as bodily

comportment, which play a crucial part in self perception and can be observed in the studies

of macho lads in Willis and Mac an Ghaill’s research.

Turning to social divisions in education, the next section begins with a Box on the

inappropriately named British ‘public’ schools. It then moves on to examine debates on IQ

which have been central to educational thinking in various periods and across social

contexts. In turning to debates on intelligence, the chapter moves towards individual

differences. Students will probably find the argument that IQ measurements show that some

are born more intelligent than others and that this accounts for differential educational

outcomes appealing. The discussion of the ‘Bell Curve Wars’ should demonstrate how

politically loaded such arguments can be. Equally, though, the argument that intelligence

needs to be viewed as a far from one-dimensional phenomenon has a strong common-sense

appeal. We all know ‘bright but idle’ students who ‘underachieve’ and ‘reliable but

unexceptional’ students who ‘doggedly do well’. The work of Gillborn and Youndell brings

debates about labelling and self-fulfilling prophesy into the new century by considering the

ways in which the notion of ‘ability’ has replaced IQ in the rhetoric of teachers and schools, a

notion crucially shaped by the publication of schools’ league tables, where the number of

candidates receiving grades A–C is seen as a particularly significant marker, and one which

informally shapes the distribution of resources, including the best teachers, within schools.

Perhaps the notion of multiple intelligences, including the importance of emotional

intelligence, can help explain and challenge the prioritization of certain kinds of intelligence

inherent both in education policy and in the ways in which students are viewed by both

themselves and others.

Gender differentials in educational attainment are considered. Whilst in the past, concern

had centred on the underachievement of girls, it is now clear that in many developed

societies young women are outperforming young men right through to degree level. The

problem of ‘failing boys’ is being linked to broader concerns about a supposed ‘crisis of

masculinity’ in labour market conditions where there is no place for the values of ‘laddism’.

It could then be that the ‘crisis’ is really a specific working-class phenomenon. Areas of

disadvantage for women remain with few following courses in science and technology,

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which lead to some of the best-paid careers. Within higher education institutions huge

inequalities remain, with men occupying higher-grade posts and being better paid than their

female colleagues on the same grade.

Ethnicity and class remain significant factors in educational inequality. For example, taken as

a whole, young people from ethnic minority groups are not underrepresented in British

higher education, but this fact disguises large differences between ethnic groups. Young

people from the Indian and Chinese communities have high participation rates whilst both

men and women from black Caribbean groups and women from Bangladeshi and Pakistani

communities are underrepresented. Social exclusion is linked to the process of exclusions

from schools. Young men, especially young black men, are those most excluded from

schools, possibly contributing to their lack of integration into broader social life. Wright’s

studies of racism in the education system in the UK provide some evidence of racism

operating in even primary school environments.

International comparisons are difficult in the area of education as countries organize their

provision and qualifications very differently. However, one comparative measure is

purchasing power parities (PPP) which allows comparisons to be made on national education

spending relative to national GDP. Unsurprisingly, PPPs are highest in North America and

Western Europe. A further measure of education is seen as primary school enrolment and

on this measure, globally things are improving, with some 86% of the relevant age range in

primary education by 2004. The pattern is very unequal however, with sub-Saharan Africa,

South and West Asia still having some 54 million primary age children not in any form of

education. Although the global literacy rate is improving, the absolute number of illiterate

individuals is increasing as the world population grows.

The text now turns to ‘the changing face of education’ and presents a brief history of UK

education as its historical case study. The kind of mass education taken for granted in

developed nations is located as a product of nineteenth-century industrialization and

urbanization. As societies progress, the knowledge passed on becomes increasingly abstract

and qualifications become important stepping-stones. An overview of the development of

mass education in Britain is provided, introducing the key landmark changes of the Butler

Education Act, 1944, comprehensivization, and the Education Reform Act, 1988. ‘New’

Labour surprised many by retaining both grammar and grant-maintained schools (in the

form of Foundation Schools) and rejecting many traditionally left-wing arguments about

social disadvantage and educational attainment. Rather, it concentrated on teaching styles

and management within the individual school through initiatives such as the literacy and

numeracy strategies and promoting variety and competition between different types of

school such as city academies and specialist schools. Coalition government policies in the UK

have taken a central focus on returning to ‘traditional’ educational values. A ‘pupil premium’

is to be introduced, paid to schools for those in receipt of free school meals, in order to

provide extra resources to help poorer students to increase their attainment. The

government is introducing ‘free schools’, run by parents, charities, businesses, teachers or

religious groups. Critics argue that these may be attractive to wealthier middle-class parents

and will create a two-tier system in which money and the best teachers will gravitate

towards the free schools, leaving state schools as the poor relation.

All developed nations are seeing an increase in participation in post-compulsory education.

Social class background continues to have a profound effect on the chances of receiving

higher education. An increase in student numbers became part of a broader crisis in the

funding of higher education in Britain, often conceptualized as a debate between funding via

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the general tax payer because of the collective social and economic benefits of an educated

population as opposed to funding directly from the student, who will individually benefit

from increased lifetime earnings as a result of higher education. The financial crisis has

brought to the fore serious issues of how education should be financed, particularly

apparent in controversial funding cuts to universities and the introduction of larger tuition

fees for higher education in the UK.

The shift from education to learning and from schools to lifelong participation marks a major

move for developed nations within the global knowledge economy. The impact of new

information and communications technologies both reflects and informs the speed and

scope of change. Both governments and private companies continue to respond to these

changing conditions and the chapter draws to a close with a discussion of the role and place

of so-called, ‘e-universities’ in the twenty-first century.

TEACHING TOPICS

1. What is education for?

Sociology shows us that education systems in the industrial nations ensure the reproduction

of existing patterns of social inequality, in Illich’s phrase ‘to know your place and sit in it’.

Yet, even among those who know this, education has been placed at the core of movements

for equality, liberation and social transformation. This topic considers political positions on

what education should be doing, reviews current government policy and links this to

students' own aspirations and the question of the future of education.

2. Comparing educational systems

This topic links together the description of the development of various school systems with

the questions raised by the theories of schooling. The chapter offers an account of the

development of schooling in Britain and some comparisons with the organization of

schooling in France and the United States. These countries all operate under the conditions

of capitalism, yet they have developed different educational practices. Is there a

contradiction here?

3. Schools policy and social inequality

This topic returns our focus to the case studies of Shaun and Sakina and the wider

implications of education policy for the reproduction or diminution of social inequalities. It

draws together the section on the ‘Social divisions and education’ with some recent

examples of proposed education policy – offering students the opportunity to think through

issues raised in the text in a new policy context.

ACTIVITIES

Activity 1: What is education for?

Increasing numbers of people spend more and more of their lives in formal education and

training. There is general agreement that ‘education’ is a ‘good thing’. Beyond that there is

little agreement about what education is, what it is for and what it can or should achieve

both for the individual and society.

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Well, here you are taking part in it – or at least following a course in sociology, which

probably counts as education!

A. Before reading any further make a list of the following:

1. What you think you have gained from your education so far.

2. What you hope to gain from the course of study you are currently following.

3. How you think your education contributes to the well-being of society.

4. What you think an education should be about.

B. Now read the following extract. It is taken from Learning to Succeed: A Radical Look at

Education Today and a Strategy for the Future, which was the Report of the National

Commission on Education. This body, which included teachers, academics and

representatives from industry, was set up by the British Association for the Advancement of

Science and supported by the Royal Society, the British Academy and the Royal Academy of

Engineering. It was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and reported in 1993.

Economic success will underpin the prosperity of the country and therefore our

ability to improve life for everybody. Nevertheless, education, vital as it will be to

our future economic success, involves far more than the pursuit of material

rewards.

The first section of the Education Reform Act 1988, in referring to the curriculum of

schools, speaks of promoting ‘the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical

development of pupils and of society’ and of preparing pupils for the ‘opportunities,

responsibilities and experiences of adult life’. Education provides the means

whereby society transmits its values from one generation to another. Those values

include truthfulness, respect for other people, a sense of obligations due to the

community in which we live (as well as the rights derived from being members of

that community) and a caring attitude towards others. They also include the ability

to enjoy and contribute to the richness of our cultural heritage in music and drama,

in the arts, in sporting and outdoor pursuits and in the wealth of other activities that

flourish so abundantly in our country.

It is clear then that children at school should learn about the society in which they

live and how they can contribute to it. They should come to understand how

decisions are made in a democratic society and how they can learn to take part in

them through discussions and the ballot box. They need to know how Parliament

and other democratic institutions work, and the place of the law in safeguarding our

rights and freedoms. They need to understand how wealth is created. They need

also to learn how they themselves can become active members of society. They

must know what rights they have, but also what responsibilities they must bear as

good citizens.

The role of education does not end there. Good teaching will foster in students a

spirit of inquiry about the world around them. It will encourage them to think for

themselves, to be critical and to be self-critical. It is people who make the world

what it is and every young person has the opportunity to change it … the cause of

racial or religious tolerance demands positive commitment if it is to prevail; passive

acquiescence will not do. Nor can social cohesion ever be taken for granted. All

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these things are the concern of education; education is about empowerment as well

as the transmission of knowledge.

(Learning to Succeed: A Radical Look at Education Today and a Strategy for the

Future, The Report of The National Commission on Education, London: Heinemann,

1993, pp. 38–40)

1. Did the purposes of education suggested here have any similarities with your own list?

2. Do you broadly agree or disagree with these recommendations?

3. The extract talks about a society’s values. Is there only one set of values in a society?

4. The extract talks about ‘our cultural heritage’. Who is the ‘our’ in a multicultural society?

C. Now read the sections ‘The development of UK education’ (pages 904-8) and ‘The future

of education’ (pages 909-13). To find recent developments in government policy you could

visit the UK Department for Education and Employment’s website.

1. Do the policies you have read about further the kind of aims you have for education?

2. Were you able to visit the website? What issues of inequality are highlighted by tutors

assuming that students have access to the Internet?

Activity 2: Comparing educational systems

A. Re-read the section, ‘The development of UK education’ on pages 904-8 and then read

this extract, which compares the educational reforms which took place in both Britain and

Denmark during the 1980s:

Whilst many of the issues and debates in Denmark were similar to those in Britain

the final national outcomes can be seen as shaped by forces specific to the

educational traditions of the particular countries. In 1982 a Social Democratic

government committed to social reformist and social transformative policies

stressing late specialization, the erosion of subject boundaries and the promotion of

topic based and socially relevant studies, was replaced by a Liberal government

committed to the reduction of both state expenditure and the power of educational

institutions, shorter vocationally relevant courses and an emphasis upon separate

subjects. Political debates at the time also emphasised the role of education in

revitalising the economy at a time of structural economic change and the need to

develop a common core of skills and knowledge allied with the introduction of

testable educational objectives as a curricula framework. So far, then, the debates

in Britain and Denmark seem very similar; indeed in 1989 her Majesty’s Chief

Inspector of Schools was invited to visit Denmark to pass on the British experience.

In the reforms that followed, however, the deeply embedded importance of the

Naturalist consensus in Danish educational thought is clear. The idea of the ‘folk

school’ was first developed in the nineteenth century and forms one element of

what is known as the Grundtvigian element in Danish education. Named after a

Danish priest, poet and writer this tradition stresses not only a single

comprehensive institution covering the whole of the compulsory years of education

but also a strong commitment towards educational experiences which develop the

whole personality, teaching practices which are highly child-centred and a

preference for history and literature in the curriculum. Thus whereas a ‘return to

basics’ in British, especially English, political debates marks a looking backwards to

an elitist, selective and content driven curriculum, in Denmark the same appeal to

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tradition has very different implications. The changes impacted upon the folkeskole

mainly in the form of a strengthening of guidelines on the content of Danish history

and a return to the older classics of Danish literature. Foreign language and science

curricula were also strengthened. […] Danish classrooms remain among the noisiest

and most informal in Europe, as regardless of curriculum content the commitment

to student centred experiential learning remains strong.

(Sue Hemmings and Lyn Bryant, ‘Education’, in Tony Spybey (ed.), Britain in Europe,

London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 229–30)

1. Write a paragraph which contrasts the British and Danish attitudes to comprehensive

schools.

2. In what ways can the development of systems of schooling be related to economic

development?

3. How might Illich view ‘the noisiest and most informal classrooms in Europe’?

Activity 3: Schools policy and social inequality

Read the section ‘Social divisions and education’ from page 883.

A. Think about the processes by which you ended up attending the secondary school(s) that

you did.

1. Did you have strong feelings about which school you wanted to attend?

2. What factors were most important to you at that time?

3. Did your parents want the same things that you did from a secondary school?

4. Were your parents active in trying to ensure that you went to a particular school?

You might be surprised by how differently people will answer those questions – try

comparing your answers with someone from a different age group, gender, part of the

country, or socioeconomic background.

B. Now read these two extracts from news reports about inequalities in the distribution of

secondary school places:

If you have a child who is moving to secondary school next year, the chances are you

have already fallen victim to one of the many diseases of parenthood. Panicking over

schools is not limited to parents of 10-year olds though; parents of three and four-year-

olds suffer too. Finding what you think will be the right school for your child is one of the

big hurdles to be crossed as a parent. But how far would you – or could you- go to

achieve your goal? Some parents seem to stop at nothing. In many parts of England,

particularly rural areas, there might be little choice – children generally go to the nearest

school. But as ministers have found, in city areas, where there are lots of schools and at

least an appearance of choice, competition for the ‘best schools’ can be intense.

Not even senior school staff are immune. Last year [a] deputy head teacher … was given

a formal written warning after being found to have lied on a secondary school

application for her daughter […] She had been trying to secure a place for her daughter

at a popular, very over-subscribed Church of England secondary school, but was found

out during spot checks on applicants’ addresses […] For those who can afford to play the

system, there is always the house-move, which fuels the price of homes near the

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favoured school. Researchers have estimated that the top schools can raise house prices

in an area by one third. Other families move temporarily into rented properties in the

catchment area of a favoured school, often renting out their own homes.

(Angela Harrison ‘The fight for good school places’, BBC News Online. Accessed: 24th

October 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4364272.stm)

From BBC News at bbcnews.com © bbc.co.uk

The country’s leading state schools are being colonised by the middle-classes, educating

significantly fewer poor pupils that other schools and excluding less affluent children who

live nearby …

[The Sutton Trust Study] … found that the [top 200 state] schools are using increasingly

complicated admissions procedures, which include aptitude tests and interviewing

parents, to covertly select middle-class children in the expectation that they will boost

their league table rankings.

(Matthew Taylor ‘Top state schools colonised by middle classes’, Guardian Unlimited.

Accessed 10th

October 2005.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1588419,00.html)

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

(The Sutton Trust Report referred to ‘Rates of Eligibility for Free School Meals at the Top

State Schools’ is available in PDF format at: www.suttontrust.com/annualreports.asp)

1. Gerwitz et al. identify three different ways in which parents behave in the secondary

education market place: privileged/skilled choosers, semi-skilled choosers, disconnected

choosers. Which of these types are represented in the examples given in these news

stories?

2. The Guardian article directly addresses the reader as a particular kind of educational

chooser by saying ‘the chances are that you have already fallen victim to one of the

diseases of parenthood’. What does this say about Guardian readers?

3. What kind of chooser would you characterize Shaun’s mother as?

4. Why does the Sutton Trust study take ‘free school meals’ as a proxy measure for social

inequality?

DISCUSSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS

What is education for?

How is education linked to the economic development of a society?

What would happen if we deschooled society?

Can education promote social change?

What sorts of intelligence should schools try to develop?

Should personal growth be the major objective of an educational system?

Comparing educational systems

Is comprehensive education an idea that has to belong to the Left?

Why do different countries develop different education systems?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of streaming and selection?

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How will educational systems be affected by new technologies?

Schools policy and social inequality

Should parents be able to buy their children a good education?

Do policies aimed at choice necessarily benefit the middle class more than any other

group?

Can education compensate for wider social inequalities?

Is a meritocratic education system possible?

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. How are inequalities in educational outcomes related to wider social inequalities?

2. With reference to British education policies since 1870 explain why education policy is so

politically controversial.

3. Is cultural reproduction enforced by schools or created by pupils?

4. What would be gained and what would be lost if new information technologies enabled

the deschooling of society?

MAKING CONNECTIONS

What is education for?

This theme is very focused on this chapter but offers a chance to broaden out the debate

over education policy to consider the issues of power and the state from Chapter 22. It also

has clear links to issues of socialization through the life course, discussed in Chapter 9, and

with cultural reproduction within families in Chapter 10.

Comparing educational systems

This topic links to questions about the role of the state, Chapter 22. It can also link to the

issue of social capital discussed in Chapter 19.

Schools policy and social inequality

This topic has its focus on issues of class inequality and so links directly to Chapter 12,

‘Stratification and Social Class’, and Chapter 13, ‘Poverty, Social Exclusion and Welfare’.

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SAMPLE SESSION

What is education for?

Aims: To consider the relationship between personal educational aspirations and the wider

role of both education and schooling in society.

Outcome: By the end of the session students will be able to:

1. State five possible purposes of education.

2. Discuss the relationship between education as an ideal and the outcomes of

educational systems.

3. Describe two sociological analyses of the social purposes of schooling.

Preparatory tasks

1. Read the sections ‘The development of British education’ and ‘Social divisions and

education’’.

2. Make notes in answer to Tasks A, B and C questions from the Activity.

Classroom tasks

1. Tutor-led feedback from preparatory tasks. Compile list on board/flip-chart of answers

to Task A, Question 4. (10 minutes)

2. Divide class into two teams to prepare an argument either for or against the proposition

that ‘The only justification of the state funding of education is to promote the economic

well-being of that society’. (20 minutes)

3. Whole-group debate chaired by tutor. (15 minutes)

4. Tutor summing-up highlighting the distinction between education and schooling and

the variety of intended and unintended outcomes of educational systems. (10 minutes)

Assessment task

You are employed in the public relations section of a large multinational company which is

a major employer in a large town in the south of England. The company is in negotiations

with the local education authority and central government to become the sponsor of a

Foundation School. Write a press briefing of 400–500 words outlining what the company

hopes the new school will achieve.