Sociological Interpretations of Education

David Blackledge, Barry Hunt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000639544
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book, first published in 1985, provides a clear readable account of the principal sociological approaches to education. It is organised around the three main sociological perspectives on education: the Durkheimian and Functionalist, the Marxist and the Interpretative. It concentrates on the most important and interesting writers within each

1 Introduction

Our aim in this book is to provide a clear account of the major sociological perspectives on education. For many years we have been teaching courses in the sociology of education and have often found that students are discouraged from reading extensively in the area by the complex language and style of a number of writers. In such writing any intrinsic difficulties of the subject matter are magnified by obscurities in presentation. However, these sociologists frequently have important and interesting things to say about the role of education in modern society. What we have set out to do, therefore, is to try to present such ideas in a readily intelligible manner, accompanied by an assessment of their validity. In this way we hope to give students the confidence to approach such writers directly and thus deepen their understanding of the ideas.

Three Approaches

We have organised the book into three parts corresponding to what we see as the three major sociological approaches to education, namely (1) Durkheim and the functionalist tradition, (2) the Marxist perspective and (3) the interpretive approach. Although we have sought to give a reasonably full account of each perspective, we have not attempted to provide an exhaustive review of all of the literature. Rather, whilst trying to convey something of the range of ideas within a particular tradition of thought, we have confined ourselves to a consideration of the most important or interesting writers, or those who are most representative of a particular perspective.

For example, in Part I we discuss the work of two of the major figures in the whole field of sociology, Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. No serious outline of the sociology of education could omit Durkheim. Not only was he a 'founding father' of the discipline of sociology, but he also devoted his talents to a thorough study of education. His views on education have recently been taken up and developed by the 'modern Durkheimians'. David Hargreaves has drawn upon Durkheim's concepts of egoism, anomie and individualism in his analysis of contemporary education, whilst Basil Bernstein has employed some of Durkheim's other central ideas in his writings on educational change.

Similarly, it is important to examine the work of Talcott Parsons as he was the dominant figure in functionalist sociology in the 1950s and 1960s; indeed, his theories were required reading lor a whole generation of sociologists. The writings of Ralph Turner and Earl Hopper exemplify the approach taken by other functionalists to education. Their work also illustrates the way in which attempts have "been made to develop complex typologies of social and educational systems. Finally, the writings of loan Davies and Dennis Smith provide a good example of the type of debate that often goes on within the sociology of education — debates which ultimately lead to the development of more adequate perspectives on education.

In addition to giving an account of each of the major sociological interpretations of education, we have also provided an extensive commentary on each approach. This takes one of three forms; a 'Comments' section at the end of a chapter (as, for example, in Chapters 2 and 12); a 'Comments' section at the end of each major part of a chapter (as in Chapter 3); or a separate chapter which provides a commentary on a whole approach (as with Chapter 5 on functionalism and Chapter 9 on the Marxist perspective).

The Development of the Sociology of Education

In what follows we shall of course explain the nature of each perspective in detail. Here we want to provide some introduction to the ideas by briefly describing the development of the sociology of education.

Although some of the classical sociologists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had made important contributions to the study of education — Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), as we have seen, wrote extensively on the subject — it was not until the 1950s and early 1960s that the sociology of education emerged as a distinct area of inquiry. During these early years the work in the discipline tended to be of two types. First, there was the tradition of'political arithmetic^ This was chiefly concerned with the problem of social class and educational attainment, and studies of family and class background were combined with investigations into 11+ selection and streaming. Second, functionalist theory was used to relate education to the economy, social mobility and the political order, as well as being applied to the study of school organisation and, through role theory, to teacher-pupil interaction.

Functionalism, however, had major empirical and logical difficulties, and was felt to be politically conservative. This situation led to the development of alternative approaches in mainstream sociology, namely social action theory and phenomenology. As far as the sociology of education was concerned, it was the work of Berger and Luckmann, Dawe and Cicourel which had a major impact.¹ The result was the development of two forms of the interpretive approach. On the one hand, interpretive sociologists devoted themselves to the study of 'micro' social processes in the classroom and school. Drawing upon the insights of interactionism and ethnomethodology, in addition to phenomenology, they set about analysing in detail classroom interaction, teachers' and pupils' 'definitions of the situation' and the role of language. On the other hand, we witnessed the emergence of the 'new' sociology of education with the publication in 1971 of the volume Knowledge and Control,² which focused attention on knowledge as a social construct.

More recently, the recognition of the limitations of ethnography, combined with the re-emergence of Marxism, has produced a renewed concern with 'macro' social processes. Attention has again been focused on the relationship of education to the economy and the political order — but now with a very different interpretation of the relationship from that found in functionalist theory.

Marxists have approached the matter in one of two ways. Either they see education as assisting in the process of the 'reproduction' or maintenance of capitalist 'relations of production'; or they view education as a 'site of resistance' to the demands of the capitalist system. Pluralists and Weberians have taken issue with their analysis, arguing that Marxists have overemphasised the importance of the economy to the detriment of other factors. Furthermore, Weberian sociology has attempted to link the macro and micro approaches to education by arguing that what goes on in schools and classrooms must be related to wider social processes. The interaction of teachers and pupils certainly contributes to the development of the educational system. However, the existing social and economic structure also influences and conditions the action people take.

The Structure of the Book

Finally, we need to draw attention to certain additional features of the book's organisation. First, there is the ordering of the sections of the book. Although, as we have seen, certain forms of interpretive approach developed, chronologically, before the Marxist perspective, we shall be treating the Marxist analysis of education in advance of the interpretive. Our reason for doing this is that both the functionalist and Marxist approaches are macro in focus (as we have just noted). Despite many other differences, they both deal with the relationship of education to the wider society. They pay little attention to micro social processes of classroom interaction and they neglect the importance of the actors' definitions of the situation. There seems a certain logic, therefore, in examining such macro theories in advance of a consideration of micro interpretive approaches.

Secondly, and obviously related to this, the treatment of authors in the book is not chronological. Marxist writers are considered before the micro interpretive sociologists; and the modern Durkheimians, although writing at the same time as these two groups (the 1970s and early 1980s), are discussed in the first section of the book following our account of the work of their mentor, Emile Durkheim.

Thirdly, we need to stress that, because of our approach to the subject, a small number of authors are discussed in more than one place in the book, and the order of treatment of their work is not necessarily chronological. The most obvious example of this is David Hargreaves who, over the years, has changed his perspective on education. Hargreaves's early work was very much in the interpretive mould. Hence the prominence we give to his Interpersonal Relations and Education³ in Chapter 10. We also discuss his early empirical study of 'interaction processes and day-to-day behaviour' in a northern secondary school⁴ in Chapter 9, as it provides material which is relevant to our assessment of the Marxist tradition. In his more recent writing, however, Hargreaves has adopted a Durkheimian stance. As a result, a detailed discussion of The Challenge for the Comprehensive School⁵ appears in Chapter 3.

Notes

1. P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Allen Lane, London, 1967); A. Dawe, The Two Sociologies', British Journal of Sociology, vol. 21, no. 2 (1970); A. Cicourel, Method and Measurement in Sociology (Free Press, New York, 1964); A. Cicourel and J. Kitsuse, The Educational Decision Makers (Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1963).

2. M.F.D. Young (ed.), Knowledge and Control (Collier-Macmillan, London, 1971).

3. D. Hargreaves, Interpersonal Relations and Education, Student edition (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1975).

4. D. Hargreaves, Social Relations in a Secondary School (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1967), p. vii.

5. D. Hargreaves, The Challenge for the Comprehensive School: Culture, Curriculum and Community (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1982).

Part I
Durkheim and the Functionalist Tradition

2 Émile Durkheim

Discipline is necessary in schools; corporal punishment should be abolished; there should be a core curriculum based on science; education must teach people self-discipline; education is essential if society is to remain orderly. These are some of the conclusions Émile Durkheim reached in his study of education; and they are not just unsupported assertions but conclusions firmly based on his theory of man and society. In saying this we do not claim that Durkheim's reasoning is always accurate, or that all his ideas are well founded, but we do suggest that a study of Durkheim helps us to adopt a more rational view of what education does, and ought to do, in modern society.

Durkheim's thinking about education was based on three major aims; (1) to establish sociology as a discipline of academic standing; (2) to apply the methods of natural science, as he understood them, to the study of society; (3) to discover how an orderly society was maintained, particularly in the complex modern world. By briefly examining what Durkheim had to say about these matters, we can gain a better understanding of his educational sociology.

Sociology

To establish sociology as an academic discipline, Durkheim tries to show that its subject matter is distinct from that of other areas, particularly that of psychology. To do this he argues that 'society' is the subject matter of sociology and that the 'social' dimension of things is distinct from the 'individual' dimension. He argues that there is a qualitative difference between society and the individual, and that no study of the individual can give us an understanding of society. Copper and tin can combine to make a new substance, bronze, which is quite unlike either of its component parts. Inorganic chemicals combine to make living organisms which are quite distinct and different from them. In the same way, Durkheim argues in The Rules of Sociological Method,¹ society, although it is made up of individuals, is different and distinct from its component parts.

There are a number of ways to understand what Durkheim is trying to say. If we think of the English or French language; or of all the different forms of marriage that have existed and do exist; or of the various legal and moral codes to be found throughout the world; then it becomes clear that from studying the individual person we could never anticipate such differences or such variety. Therefore, concludes Durkheim, we must lo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Dedication
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• Part I Durkheim and the Functionalist Tradition
• Part II The Marxist Perspective
• Part III The Interpretive Approach
• Bibliography
• Index