Education- AQA GCSE Sociology

1. Economic role- teaches skills needed in workplace
2. Selective Role- selecting the right people for the right job
3. Social control- reinforcing norms and values
4. Political role- teaches people to be effective citizens and teaches social cohesion
5. Secondary socialisation- where norms and values are taught outside the home

Formal curriculum- the offical curriculum that is taught in school
Informal (hidden) curriculum- norms and values

Hierarchy: the head teacher is at the top and students must respect them
Competition: school encourage pupils to compete sports-wise or academically
Social control: students are reminded and taught key values
Gender role allocation: job segregation begins at school
Low satisfaction: the school day is scheduled like the workplace with meaningless activities

Education that requires a fee and aren’t funded by the government; tend to be older public schools

Education that is funded by the state or local authority; tend to be academies and comprehensive schools

1. Comprehensive
2. Nurseries
3. Specialist schools
4. Faith schools
5. Academies
6. Free schools
7. Grammar schools

1. Private schools
2. Public schools

They believe that education performs essential functions for society:
1. Social solidarity- where people see themselves as part of something bigger; taught in lessons like history
2. Society in miniature- education prepares us for wider society and how to cooperate; provides rules for interactions and prepares us for society’s rules
3. Specialist skills- where skills like teamwork and communication are taught in education; helps promote social solidarity

1. The assumption of a shared culture
2. The UK is multicultural
3. Education may inadequately teach specialised skills
4. Assumes that students will accept taught values

1. Education acts like a bridge between home and wider society
2. Education teaches meritocracy- success is based on hard work and talent

1. Students are encouraged to value achieving high grades- benefits society
2. Encouraged to believe they’re competing- high achievers are seen as deserving

Role allocation sorts people into the correct job by ability; based on meritocracy

Meritocracy is a myth and a person’s class plays into their academic success, according to Bowles and Gintis

Education is a form of social control which creates a docile set of workers for the bourgeoisie and reproduces class inequalities

where school is designed to mirror the workplace to create an obedient workforce

Businesses don’t want passive workers, but rather more creative workers and many people critique the deterministic views of Bowles and Gintis

A meritocratic system known as the tripartite system was introduced to sort students by ability into three different schools based on their results in the 11+ exam

Grammar school (for more academic students, only 20% of students went here)
Secondary Modern (more general education, 75% of students went here)
Secondary Technical (more practical based, 5% of students went here)

1. Not all students are tested to a test environment
2. Middle-class performed better on average
3. Restricted social mobility
4. Created class division

Aimed to break social barriers, for geographical and educational reasons

Parents no longer had a choice in what school they sent their child to and were expected to send their child to their local school, regardless of reputation and more academically inclined students were held back by the less able

Aimed to raise standards and give parents more choice, raised competition and marketised schools to parents

- Parentocracy (parents had more choice)
- Formula funding given to schools based on no. of students
-Prospectuses and open days
- League tables
- Businesses could sponsor schools
- Open enrolment
- More choice

- Schools engaged in cream-skimming and silt-shifting (best attract the best, worst attract the worst)
- Different types of choosers
- Pressure of league tables

They aimed to raise standards in education and choice for parents, as well as reduce inequalities they found in the previous policy

- Beacon schools
- Pupil premium (introduced by 2010 coalition govt.)
-Sure Start
-Business sponsorships
- Academies
- Faith schools
-Free schools (introduced by 2010 coalition govt.)

They introduced these policies to reduce inequality at the expense of other policies and created chaos in the educational system as a result of accountability and choice being less clear

They tend to have more cultural, material and social capital than that of working class

skills and knowledge; parental attitudes

insider knowledge, parents value education, more parentocracy

economical position and material possessions

access to tutoring, area of living, standard of living

connections and relationships

parental connections to a university

factors that affect a student’s achievement in school

factors that affect a student’s achievement out of school

Labelling and pupil subcultures, ethnocentrism

Parental attitudes

Fatalistic attitude, focus on present gratification, emphasis on the here and now and focus on collective action

Aspirational attitude, focus on deffered gratification, emphasis on the future and focus on individual achievement

inability to afford basic resources, which may negatively impact a child’s educational achievement

where someone is labelled based on a stereotype- this can be positive (where thrpe student rejects their label) or negative (where the student accepts and internalises the label, which becomes a self fufilling prophecy)

where teachers label certain students in a positive light, which encourages them, tends to be middle class

splitting students by general ability

splitting students by specific ability

-They compete with students of a similar ability and teachers can allocate resources better

Lower confidence in lower stream students, less attention for those students

sorting students by their needs- teachers tend to prioritise better students due to have limited time and resources

Certain ethnicities like Chinese, Indian and Bangladeshi tend to perform better than White British at GCSE, yet White British and Black African outperformed Pakistani, Black Carribean and Gyspy at GCSE

They may speak English as an additional language and may struggle to understand teacher or speak AAVE (Afro-Carribean only). This style of speaking isn’t recognised and only Standard English is recognised

They may have different cultural norms and values, which may lead to them feeling excluded or getting in trouble often.

Cultural deprivationists argue that the encouragement from ethnic groups is less than the white majority. For example, Afro-Carribean parents tend to be very fatalistic and pass on that viewpoint to their kids through primary socialisation.

- May not afford healthy food; more likely to be absent from school for health related reasons
-Low quality housing; more likely to develop asthma and ezcema due to mould in housing, less able to focus on homework
- Ethnic minorities 2x more likely to be unemployed; can’t afford tutoring, textbooks

The curriculum can be ethnocentric and ethnic minorities are less likely to relate to its content in lessons like history, EP, MFL etc

Females were consistently more likely to achieve grades A*-C than males, with 72% of females to 63% of males in 2013 achieving those grades

- The feminist movement taught girls to be independent and support themselves; this led to them focusing more on careers and education
- Legal changes like the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act allowed girls to be treated more fairly and be protected from discrimination
- Changing job opportunities has motivated more young girls to enter the workforce and work harder at school

- Equal opportunities policies like the GIST (girls into science and tech) and WISE (women in science and engineering) has encouraged girls to participate in sciences and technology, which tend to be male dominated
- National curriculum has allowed girls and boys to attend the same schools and have the same access to subjects

Canalisation: where parents channel children towards certain behaviours that are seen as accepted for their gender. For example, girls may be encouraged to play with dolls, whereas boys are encouraged to play with toy cars. This process reinforces gender roles

- Gender stereotyping in textbooks
- Lack of females in STEM
- Peer pressure
- Teacher bias