Outline and assess the view that the role of the education system is to reproduce and transmit culture.

This essay will outline and asses the view that the view that the role of the education system is to reproduce and transmit culture.

According to Bourdieu, the major of the education system is cultural reproduction. This does involve society as a whole, as Durkheim argued, but, instead, the reproduction of the culture of the ‘dominant classes’. These groups have the power the power to ‘impose meanings and to impose them as legitimate’. They are able to define there own culture as ‘worthy of being sought and possessed’, and to establish is as the basis for knowledge in the educational system. The high value placed on dominant culture in society as a whole simply stems from the ability of the powerful to impose their definition of reality in other. The possession of dominant culture is referred to as cultural capital by Bourdieu. This is because via the education it can be translated into wealth and power. Children of dominant classes acquire skills and knowledge from pre-school which puts them in an advantage because they have the key to understanding what is being transmitted in the classroom. Bourdieu claims that, since the education system presupposes the possession of cultural capital, which few students in fact possess, there is a great deal of inefficiency in teaching. This is because working students simply do not understand what their teachers are trying to get across. This puts working class students are at disadvantage in the competition for educational credentials, the results of this competition are seen as meritocratic and therefore as legitimate. In addition, Bourdieu claims that social inequalities are legitimated by the educational credentials held by those in dominant positions. According to Bourdieu the education system attaches the