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Outline and assess the view that the main purpose of education is to encourage individual achievement whilst maintaining social solidarity.
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Outline and assess the view that the main purpose of education is to encourage individual achievement whilst maintaining social solidarity. The above statement reflects the functionalist view of the purpose of education. The following essay will outline the functionalist perspective of the role of education and identify any criticisms made of it. Education is an agent of secondary socialisation. Writing at the turn of the last century the French sociologist Emile Durkheim saw the major function of education as the transmission of society's norms and values. He maintained: "Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child from the beginning the essential similarities which collective life demands" (Durkheim, 1961) -In other words education provides the norms and collective vales for children that are needed in society. Durkheim argues that in complex industrial societies, the school...
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