Using material from item A and elsewhere, asses the view that the education system exists mainly to select and prepare young people for their future work roles

Everyone has an equal right to an education (Warnock, 1975), what each individual chooses to do with their education is up to them. Education should be liberating, having the capacity to involve students in the pure joy of learning and increasing their capacity to think. Why get educated if education does not serve any instrumental purpose (Marples, 2010). Society would suffer without individuals trained in the required skills to undertake work that maintains humanity. The most obvious function of

Outline and assess the view that the role of education system is to justify and reproduce social inequalities (50)

Writer Gregory Mantsios in his article “Class in America”, talks about these things, and how wide the gap is between the rich and the poor and also discusses how the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. Mantsios gives his readers the profiles and backgrounds of three hard-working Americans, two of them are white males, whose family background as well as education played a role in their success, while the other person is a black woman who is just above the poverty line despite her work as a nurse’s aide. Through these profiles, Mantsios article shows exactly how sex, race and shows how your parental and educational background of a person can play a role in the things that you achieve. Mantsios also talks about one’s performance in school and the level of school completed can suggest whether or not class that person may belong in.

According to Bynner and Joshi (1999) class differences have persisted since the late 1950’s. It can be seen that all studies carried out by various theorist came to the same conclusion that middle class pupils tend to do a lot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more exams, stay on at school for longer and are five times more likely to go to university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from nursery school to university, processes like labelling or the self fulfilling prophecy take

I think Montsios’ point that, “Class standing has a significant impact on the chance for educational achievement” (Monsios 193). I think this statement is very true, because it is very apparent that there is a huge education gap in the United States due to income. People of higher incomes can have the luxury of sending their kids to better schools, private or public, and have the ability to give them a college education without having to worry about the financial costs, while people of lower classes cannot have this luxury. This is absolutely ridiculous, because this country was founded on the idea of equality, and having an equal and free country to pursue opportunity. Just like the educational side of this, people also struggle with in the sense of survival and

Malcolm X once said “education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”. From adolescence to adulthood almost every person is put through schooling. As one gets older in age, the education they obtain becomes more rigorous in order to stretch their minds far beyond two plus two or what color the sky is. The strategies of critically thinking and being able to analyze/decipher information in front is them is reinforced routinely in the educational system. With this being said, the purpose of education is to aid in enhancing one’s qualification, socialisation, and subjectification skills within the society regardless of how or where one’s education was obtained.

Bowles and Gintis also argue that in order to prevent rebellion from those disadvantaged by the inequalities of capitalism, it is necessary to produce ideologies that explain and justify inequality as fair, natural and inevitable. If people think inequality is justified then they are less likely to challenge the capitalist system. According to Bowles and Gintis, the education system plays a key role in producing such ideologies. They describe the education system as a giant ‘myth making machine’ and focus on how education promotes the ‘myth of meritocracy’. Meritocracy refers to a system where everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve, where rewards are based on ability and effort. This means that those who gain the highest rewards and status deserve it because they are the most able and hardworking. Bowles and Gintis argue that meritocracy does not actually exist. Evidence showed that the main factor determining whether or not someone has a high income is their family and class background, not their ability or educational achievement. By

Mrs. Wente uses hyper-meritocracy to define what she believes our society is. She regards our society’s wealth to be distributed by whomever works hardest. “In the new hyper-meritocracy, people with temperate habits and Victorian values will do better than ever – and people who can’t resist temptation will do even worse.” (Wente How to Succeed in the 21st Century) In this quote she describes our society as merit based and not based on whichever social class you were born in.

People are more likely to get an education when they are laid off. With more educated people in the world we can make the world a better place. There will be more technology being made to serve human to have a better experience and make life easier. We as a society need to move forward and not stay in the past because technologies are the foundation to our future survival and needs.(conclusion?)

Supporting this statement Cohen explains the following “The best chance for children from poorer families to move up comes from expanding higher education system. But children from higher social classes are much likely to make through that system and emerge into a privilege class in adulthood” (Cohen 2015: 144) this problem of wealth inequality is connected to the conflict theory. The conflict theory states that Society is divided because inequalities in wealth, power and prestige, only benefiting some people. Privileged individuals are the ones who make a living out the power and prestige that they have in society, the power and prestige come from the social capital that only the rich have. “Belonging to a group, such as family or an exclusive club, makes it possible for people to draw from the resources held by all of its members” (Cohen 2015: 117) Let’s look at this way, rich people have the availability to stay rich because they know people who can help them either get a good job or because they simply have the money to put their kids in good schools and

Furthermore, Clarke indicates, “Class inequalities in income and wealth have not only persisted over time, but have deepened, both in the U.K. and Globally”. (Clarke J. 2014, p. 384).

Education can bring these individual talents to the surface. Having these talents developed by the way of the educational system, a person is more likely to become a productive member of society. Without these gifts and talents of individuals, answers in the medical, environmental, and social fields could remain mute and unexplored. Education has the responsibilities to bring out the best in each individual. The needs of society are continually changing. Therefore, education must also continue to change in order to productive responsible members of society.

When considering the manifest functions of education the most obvious one is the increasing of knowledge and abilities of individuals thus making them ready to offer their services to the workforce. Educational institutions have the responsibility of identifying individuals with the highest qualifications to fill positions that are considered to be advanced in the society. This is done by channeling students into programs that suit their abilities and academic achievements; this is commonly referred to as tracking (CliffsNotes.com). The other manifest function of education is socialization; throughout the education process students are taught their roles, particular academic subjects, and political socialization. Education is also intended to aid in the transmission of culture. The

Society is made up of macro-level institutions, meso-level organizations, and micro-level individuals, where all three levels interact with one another. For example, the education system is an institution, “a stable cluster of values, norms, statuses, and roles that develops around a basic social goal” (Basirico, Cashion, Eshleman 2014:113). The role of education as an institution is to help the younger generation prepare for the workforce by helping them to develop skillsets and to replace the older generation when they are ready to retire. For example, homework is given to the students to accompany the teachers’ lessons to help them understand the concepts. Teachers are required to administer tests to measure student’s understanding of the material. These assessments are used to help prepare students for their future goals in life.

In the function of education, Jiddu Krishnamurti argues that the true function of education should be to prepare people for life. This should be achieved by making people feel free so that they can think freely and will not feel the need to conform to society. This is because he believes that society is corrupt, violent, and oppressive and if people do not think freely, they will also be corrupt, violent, and oppressive. As a result, people must think freely so that they can revolt against everything that is wrong with society and thus change society. However, education is typically used to prepare people for a career. This causes most people to become frightened, as they get older, because they have so many responsibilities and are unable to think freely. Therefore, Jiddu Krishnamurti argues that it is necessary for people to