1. SIGN UP FOR TUTORIALS Please go to this website:
Tutorial attendance is compulsory

2. Education Consider ‘macro’ or structuralist approaches Today:
- Background
- Functionalist Theories
Critical views re Hidden Curriculum
Tomorrow:
- Bernstein, Bourdieu

3. Structuralist Approaches
Last term – more on individuals/groups
Now – more structural - institutions, power relations, inequalities etc
E.g. – consider – on education:
functions/roles of schools, Unis
power relations – who shapes educational institutions? Who gains from them?

4. Historical Background
Education in Britain:
Compulsory since 1870s/1880
Leaving age up from 10 to 16
Mass higher/further education –
2000 – Scotland: 32% in universities, 19% in colleges

5. Continuing Inequalities
Fee-paying schools keep advantages
70% rich kids enter University; under 10% in poorest areas
Ethnic minorities – schools fail young black males
Females – higher grades, but career inequalities

6. Functionalists - Durkheim
Education promotes social solidarity, social system
ED - French, early 20thC
Education:
- promotes group commitment
learn rules, procedures
teaches special skills for complex, industrial society

7. Functionalists - Parsons
1950s, US sociologist
Education socialises children
Schools are:
Universalistic
Pro achievement
Meritocratic
And enable ‘role allocation’
Different rewards seen as fair
Education promotes democracy, modernisation

8. Criticisms Schools don’t transmit shared norms, solidarity?
Power issues: Who gains? Dominant classes?
Schools not meritocratic or pro-achievement?
Need more critical focus on inequalities

9. Illich ‘Hidden Curriculum’ Schools:
- teach key values, promote social order
BUT: promote passivity, conformity
produce obedient consumers
public lack influence over what is taught
Pro ‘deschooling’, ‘learning webs’

10. Bowles & Gintis US Marxists
‘Correspondence Principle’ (education and work are similar worlds)
‘Hidden curriculum’ produces:
Obedient workers
Accept hierarchies
External rewards as normal
Fragmented subjects – world makes little sense

11. Bowles & Gintis Schools legitimise inequality
Pupil results: Class/family more influential than IQ
Criticisms?
Employers don’t control schooling?
Formal curriculum?
Children not passive (Willis)?
Potent critique of inequalities

12. Gender Girls long excluded from higher education
Post-war – greater participation
But ‘hidden curriculum’ - gender-role expectations – e.g. boys in science
Recent studies: girls ‘out-perform’ boys
But – differences remain
- glass ceiling
e.g. Unis and female pay!

13. Summary Consider structural aspects of education
Functionalists: benefits social system
Illich: many negative effects, notably passivity
Bowles/Gintis: sustains exploitative system
Gender: school and gender inequalities

14. SIGN UP FOR TUTORIALS Please go to this website:
Tutorial attendance is compulsory
End of this class – I need 7-8 class reps. Please volunteer and come to the front at end of lecture

15. Education - Inequalities
Structuralist theories of Education:
Bernstein
Bourdieu
Educational inequalities rooted in class divisions

16. Bernstein Class differences linked to language
Two ‘speech patterns’/Codes:
Elaborated - Restricted
Middle-class - Working-class
Codes linked to classes and educational success

17. Bernstein Elaborated codes – universalistic Meanings explicit
Longer, complex sentences
Context free
Restricted codes – particularistic
Meanings implicit
Fewer words, simpler sentences
Context bound – situational, know other speakers

18. Bernstein Middle classes: elaborated codes need in work e.g. sales
person-centred relationships in family
Working classes:
restricted codes
positional relationships in family

19. Bernstein Education: Emphasises elaborated codes for success
Suits middle-class children
Working-class kids learn elaborated codes, not as familiar for them
They need to change how see world to succeed in school
Overall – BB ties education to class/language

20. Bourdieu Critiqued reproduction of class divisions through education
Key concept – ‘Cultural Capital’
varied forms e.g. educational certificates, knowledge of arts and world, cultural ‘tastes’, etc.
cultural resources dividing groups
can use for economic gain
helps success in work, social life

21. Bourdieu Dominant classes claim more cultural capital
Lower classes have less experience, ‘out of place’
Children of dominant classes enter school with CC, where CC is appreciated

22. Bourdieu Dominant classes set educational standards
Schools emphasise symbolic (e.g. talking) not practical (making) – favours dominant
As move up educationally - pupils from dominated classes eased out
Dominant classes – their children claim ‘better ability’

23. Bourdieu Inequalities seem fair – education is ‘open’, ‘free’
Lower-class children – failure is ‘their fault’
Some succeed, promoting ‘fairness’ illusion
Recent times: Mass education:
Lower-class dilemma:
Gain devalued certificates OR
Stay outside and ‘fail’

24. Critical Views Bernstein/Bourdieu: - Crude division of classes?
Bernstein exaggerates limited speech of working classes?
Bourdieu ignores lower class advances? Offers no scope for change?
BUT: overall – structuralist accounts explain continuing inequalities, strong fit re theory and evidence