Society is made up of two social classes’ proletariat and bourgeoisie. The capital class (bourgeoisie) are the minority class and are the employers who own the means of production. They own industries such as land and factories where they make their money by exploiting the proletariat class. The proletariats (working class) sell their labour by working for the capitalists and rarely have any other source of income. Marxists believe that in education the ruling class has far more benefit than the working class.
In 1944 we saw the educational act introduced in the tripartite system. This led to education being based upon meritocracy whereby individuals achieve their status by how hard they work in school no matter what background or ascribed status they were from. This meant that there was far more equal opportunities in education of those that wanted to achieve would have to work hard to do so.
Paul Willis studied a group of 12 working-class boys in their last year and a half in school and their first few months at work. He wanted to find out why ‘working class kids get working class jobs'. He identified two groups of pupils known as the ‘lads’ and the ‘ear ‘oles’. The ‘lads’ were a group of working class boys who showed a negative attitude to academic work and also had strong racist and sexist attitudes. The ear’oles were the complete opposite of the ‘lads’ when it came to academic progress. The Ear ‘oles were looked down on by the ‘lads’ as they were the children who followed the school rules, respected their teachers, and were committed to their education. He concluded from his study that the ‘lads’ rejected school and mentally prepared themselves for a place in the workplace in a manual job. They learned to put up with boredom and had a laugh and to accept the labour of low-skill and low-pay jobs. He also found from his unstructured interviews that the working class ‘lads’ felt totally alienated within their school and education.
American Marxists Bowles and Gintis argue that capitalism requires a workforce with the kind of attitudes suited to their role as alienated and exploited workers who should prepare themselves to work hard for a low income. Bowles and Gintis also believe in a hidden curriculum within education which is not part of the national curriculum. They link schooling and work in a capitalist society whereby both schools and the workplace contain hierarchies with the boss or manager making decisions in the workplace similar to a head teacher that makes the decisions within a school with the employees and students who have to obey. This in fact shows that in some ways education mirrors the workplace.
Functionalist’s perspective on education is to have a consensus perspective. Parsons views education as being part of a meritocracy. He says Education forms secondary socialisation bridging the link between family and society. Parsons also believes that education teaches values of competition, individualism and equality. In a Meritocracy every individual is given equality of opportunity and those who want to achieve will have to work hard to get a good job. Their Achievements are based on effort and talent and therefore achieving their status. Parsons is supported in these views by Duncan and Blau who believe that a modern economy depends for its prosperity on using human capital – its workers and skills. A meritocratic education system does this best.
Davis and Moore studied role allocation. They believe that education selects talented individuals and allocates them to the most important roles and jobs within society. There are higher rewards for better paid jobs which encourages competition. Davis and Moore believe that education sifts and sorts according to students’ talent and ability. This is very different from Marxist view that achievement in education is very much influenced by social class background. Education transmits ruling class ideology.
Liberal sociologist Ivan Illich explains that forcing compulsory schooling on all children unnaturally separates academic learning from life. In effect he says “education becomes unworldly and the world becomes noneducational”. This idea contributes to a bureaucratic view of the world, where society learns to rely on experts and technology to solve our problems.