Sociology · Sociology Themes and Perspectives (Haralambos and Holborn)
Chapter 10 : Education
Table of contents75 sections
- 1.Education
- 2.Introduction
- 3.The expansion of British education
- 4.Education - functionalist perspectives
- 5.Emile Durkheim - education and social solidarity
- 6.Talcott Parsons - education and universalistic values
- 7.Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore - education and role allocation
- 8.Education, globalisation and functionalism
- 9.Education - conflict perspectives
- 10.Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis - Schooling in Capitalist America
- 11.Marxism, struggle, and the relative autonomy of education
- 12.Paul Willis - Learning to Labour
- 13.Glenn Rikowski - education, capitalism and globalisation
- 14.Education - postmodern perspectives
- 15.Robin Usher and Richard Edwards - Postmodernism and Education
- 16.Robin Usher, Ian Bryant and Rennie Johnston - postmodernism and adult education
- 17.Michael W. Apple - postmodernism, education, power and economics
- 18.Postmodernism and education - evaluation
- 19.Education - social democratic perspectives
- 20.Equality of opportunity
- 21.Economic growth
- 22.Evaluation of social democratic theory
- 23.Education - neoliberal perspectives
- 24.Education and the market
- 25.Neoliberalism, globalisation and education
- 26.Evaluation of neoliberal perspectives on education
- 27.Educational policy in the UK, 1945-97
- 28.Educational policy, 1945-79
- 29.Conservative educational policy, 1979-97
- 30.Evaluating educational policy, 1979-97
- 31.Labour educational policy, 1997-2010
- 32.The influence of social democratic perspectives
- 33.The influence of neoliberal perspectives
- 34.Evaluation of Labour's policies
- 35.Coalition educational policy, from 2010
- 36.Academies
- 37.Free schools
- 38.Further and higher education
- 39.The student premium and the social mobility strategy
- 40.Class and educational attainment
- 41.Measuring class attainment
- 42.Intelligence, class and educational attainment
- 43.David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell - 'The new IQism'
- 44.Class subcultures and educational attainment
- 45.J.W.B. Douglas - The Home and the School
- 46.Leon Feinstein - parental support and education
- 47.Gillian Evans - parents, class and education
- 48.Basil Bernstein - speech patterns
- 49.Cultural deprivation and compensatory education
- 50.Pierre Bourdieu - cultural capital and differential achievement
- 51.Stephen J. Ball, Richard Bowe and Sharon Gewirtz - cultural capital and educational choice
- 52.Stephen J. Ball - cultural, social and economic capitals
- 53.Diane Reay, Miriam David and Stephen Ball - class and higher education
- 54.Alice Sullivan - an empirical test of Bourdieu's theory
- 55.Material factors and educational attainment
- 56.Education - interactionist perspectives
- 57.Typing, labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy
- 58.Ability grouping
- 59.Student subcultures and identities
- 60.Interactionist perspectives - an evaluation
- 61.Gender and educational attainment
- 62.Gender and attainment - the evidence
- 63.Explaining girls' 'underachievement' - the 1970s and 1980s
- 64.Explaining girls' achievement
- 65.Explaining boys' 'underachievement'
- 66.Discourses of male underachievement
- 67.Ethnicity and educational attainment
- 68.GCSE
- 69.A level
- 70.Higher education
- 71.Gender, ethnicity and attainment
- 72.Social class, ethnicity and attainment
- 73.Racism and education
- 74.Summary and conclusions
- 75.Quick-Recall Box
Chapter preview
Education
Introduction
- In its broadest sense, education is an aspect of socialisation involving the acquisition of knowledge and skills, which often shapes beliefs and moral values.
- In small-scale non-literate societies (e.g., hunting and gathering bands), education was informal, learned by imitating adults during daily routines (e.g., boys hunting with fathers, girls cooking/gathering with mothers).
- In complex pre-industrial societies (e.g., medieval Europe), specialised educational institutions and teachers developed, but only for a small minority (e.g., future clergy, sons of the wealthy).
- Formal education for the masses only emerged when industrialisation was well under way.
The expansion of British education
- 1833: The state first contributed to the provision of education.
- 1870: Forster's Education Act was passed, meaning the state assumed full responsibility for free compulsory education in formal institutions staffed by full-time professionals.
- 1880: School attendance was made compulsory up to the age of 10.
- 1918: Fisher Education Act made the state responsible for secondary education, and attendance became compulsory up to the age of 14.
- 1947: The school-leaving age was raised to 15.
- 1972: The school-leaving age was raised to 16.
- Post-compulsory education expanded significantly over the 20th and 21st centuries:
- 1900: Only 1.2 per cent of 18-year-olds entered full-time further or higher education.
- 1938: This figure reached 5.8 per cent.
- 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s: The first explosion of post-compulsory education occurred.
- 1963: The Robbins Report established the principle that all those capable of benefiting from higher education should be entitled to it. This led to new universities, polytechnics, the Open University, and encouragement to stay in school sixth forms or college.
- 1992: Polytechnics were given university status.
- 1990/1: The number of higher education students in the UK was just over one million.
- 2010/11: The number of higher education students in the UK increased to 2.5 million (Social Trends, 2011; HESA, 2012).
- 2010: 84.4 per cent of 16- to 18-year-olds in England were participating in some form of education or training (DfE, 7 July 2011).
- Public…
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