Social Functions of Schools: Impact on Work, Citizenship, and Society

Posted on Dec 17, 2024 in Social sciences

Social Functions of Schools

Schools play a crucial role in society, fulfilling several key functions:

  1. Cultural Transmission and Socialization: Schools are instrumental in transmitting culture and socializing new generations, fostering social cohesion.
  2. Citizenship Training and Legitimacy: They contribute to the formation of responsible citizens and reinforce the legitimacy of the state or political system.
  3. Selection and Training for Work: Schools play a vital role in preparing individuals for the workforce, aligning with the needs of the economy.
  4. Social Mobility: Education is a key factor in facilitating social mobility within the social stratification system.
  5. Custody of Children and Youth: Schools provide a safe and structured environment for children and youth, impacting the family unit.

Other functions, independent of the primary ones, include:

  • Alleviating unemployment by delaying the entry of young people into the workforce.
  • Forming a national consciousness, particularly evident in newly independent nations where education is used to develop a skilled workforce and promote economic development.
  • Religious indoctrination, where schools have historically been used to transmit the ideology of dominant powers.

Preparing for Work

Functionalists believe that technological innovation leads to increasingly complex jobs, requiring higher levels of training, which schools provide. The theory of human capital posits that education is an investment, and individuals’ opportunities and income are a function of their labor productivity, influenced by their skills and educational investments. These perspectives suggest that schools can ensure equal opportunities. However, these interpretations have been challenged by sociologists of education, who raise four main objections:

  1. Technological innovation does not always lead to more complex tasks; many innovations simplify jobs.
  2. Most people perform jobs unrelated to the specific knowledge acquired in school, relying instead on ad hoc training.
  3. The long duration of working life makes it difficult for schools to predict specific job requirements decades in advance.
  4. The association between educational level and income tends to diminish when controlling for other variables like chance or social origin.

Correspondence Theory

An alternative approach, the correspondence theory by Bowles and Gintis (1985), suggests that schools’ connection to the workforce is primarily through non-cognitive learning, such as skills and attitudes. This theory is based on:

  • The isomorphism of relations of production (authority, hierarchy, division of tasks) and social relations in education.
  • The equivalence of social relations across different levels of the occupational structure and the corresponding levels and branches of schooling.
  • The importance of non-cognitive traits in determining success and educational guidance.

Bowles and Gintis propose five correspondences between school curriculum and organization of production in a capitalist economy:

  1. Hierarchy between teachers and students mirrors the hierarchy in the workplace.
  2. Lack of student control over their work corresponds to worker alienation.
  3. The grading system (seeking positive ratings) corresponds to extrinsic motivation in work (working for wages).
  4. The organization of schedules and courses corresponds to the production of habits for different positions in the social division of labor.
  5. Different educational levels correspond to levels in the employment structure.

The Formation of Citizens

Schools play a significant role in shaping citizens. Political education in democratic states occurs through:

  • Direct instruction: Through humanities and social studies, as well as specific subjects or areas.
  • Indirect instruction: Through the “hidden curriculum,” including national day celebrations, symbolic representations of the state, and the presence of national symbols.

Currently, schools are incorporating practical teachings like driver education, health education, and information campaigns on drugs or disease prevention. These functions can be viewed as:

  • Promoting balanced growth and citizen awareness in areas like ecology, sexuality, and hygiene.
  • Tools for outreach campaigns supporting specific government policies and social engineering techniques.

Citizen formation extends beyond transmitting messages. School participation teaches students to behave as members of collectives, transitioning from particular roles to universalist roles. However, school participation differs from political participation, as students have limited formal rights compared to adults.

Mariano Fernández Enguita (1992) highlights the “learning of the split” in schools, where society is divided into:

  • The political sphere: Where all individuals have equal rights in principle.
  • The economic sphere: Where property rights take precedence, and rights are unequally distributed.

Integration into Other Institutions: Patriarchy and Consumption

Patriarchy, the dominant model of family organization, extends its influence beyond the family structure. Schools are based on three lines of authority:

  • The teacher represents society, the adult group, and knowledge.
  • The student represents the individual, the non-adult, and the learner.
  • The teacher, as a representative of society, knowledge, and adulthood, exerts control over students.

In a society where work often provides little satisfaction, consumption becomes a source of:

  • Alternative freedom: Offering choices unlike the constraints of work.
  • Personal identity: Providing opportunities to project a desired image.
  • A sense of equality: Though illusory, consumption can temporarily erase social distinctions.
  • Distinction: Allowing individuals to differentiate themselves through consumption patterns.

Equality of Opportunity and Social Mobility

Reformist parties and governments have emphasized equal educational opportunities as a starting point for social equality, implementing measures such as:

  • Extension and generalization of free compulsory education.
  • Scholarship policies to mitigate “opportunity costs” and encourage post-compulsory studies.
  • Compensatory education policies to address social deficits in access to education.

However, education can also contribute to social inequality:

  1. Theories of reproduction suggest that education reproduces the social structure through the reproduction of culture and social conditions of production.
  2. The educational system has mechanisms of social distinction, including:
  • Horizontal distinctions: Such as the public/private school divide, where private education often provides greater cultural capital.
  • Vertical distinctions: Where higher education allows for further differentiation through advanced degrees.
Social Foundations of Curriculum

Theory of Social Reproduction

Althusser argues that the capitalist system requires the reproduction of material conditions and labor. This is achieved through:

  1. The Repressive State Apparatus (RSA): Exercising institutional violence through the military, police, or prisons.
  2. The Ideological State Apparatus (ISA): Operating through ideology and suggestion, but also secondarily through repression.

The school system is the dominant ISA in capitalist societies, contributing to the reproduction of submission and acceptance of the existing order. The curriculum converts the dominant ideology into school content, providing each sector of the population with the ideology suited to their role in class society (Althusser, 1974).

Theory of Cultural Reproduction

Bourdieu’s Cultural Reproduction

Bourdieu argues that the school system inculcates a “habitus” that reproduces the dominant cultural arbitrary. This involves:

  • The school system transmitting the cultural arbitrary of the ruling class through various mechanisms.
  • The use of symbolic violence in teaching to transmit a cultural capital.
  • Cultural arbitrariness being implicit in any culture, making it relative and not universal.
  • Habitus referring to the internalization of the principles of a cultural arbitrary, enabling its reproduction.

Habitus integrates past experiences and structures perceptions, appreciations, and actions. Similar living conditions lead to similar habitus, resulting in a certain homogeneity of practices.

Bernstein’s Cultural Reproduction

Bernstein’s analysis can be summarized as follows:

  1. Children internalize the social structure from the time they start talking.
  2. Language influences the organization of thought and feeling.

Bernstein identifies two types of language organization:

  1. Formal or public language: More complex syntax, richer vocabulary, and sensitivity to distinctions.
  2. Common language: Narrower, more descriptive, less analytical, with personal aspects prevailing.

He emphasizes the interweaving of language and social structure through linguistic codes, which correspond to particular ways of understanding and relating to reality. There are two types of language codes:

  1. Restricted code: Imperfect syntax, particular meanings, less symbolic expression, characteristic of the working class, leading to school failure.
  2. Elaborated code: More complex syntax, associated with formal logical thinking, characteristic of the middle classes, leading to school success.

Types of Interaction

Interactions in the classroom occur between:

a) Teacher and students: Maintaining discipline, providing explanations.

b) Students and teacher: Asking questions, requesting to intervene.

c) Students with each other: Passing messages, asking for help, joking.

The study of interactions should occur within a theoretical framework, as interaction is a tool for analyzing the social construction of knowledge.

The Pygmalion Effect

Rosenthal and Jacobson’s work in the 1960s showed that teachers’ expectations of students significantly impact school performance. The central idea was the self-fulfilling prophecy. Students whose teachers expected great progress did indeed show improvement. While subsequent studies have not always replicated these results, the model remains influential among behavioral psychologists.

Labeling Theory

Labeling theory, developed by Howard S. Becker and transferred to education by Rist (1990), suggests that defining individuals or groups as “deviant” has unintended consequences. Deviation arises from the interaction between the labeler and the labeled. The process involves:

  1. The commission of an action by the labeled.
  2. The interpretation of this action as deviant by the labeler.
  3. The reaction of the labeled to the assigned label.

Labeling theory helps understand the types of students teachers consider prone to success or failure. Hargreaves (1976) notes that factors influencing the acceptance of a label include:

  1. The frequency of labeling.
  2. The value granted to the teacher who labels.
  3. Support from other teachers.
  4. The public nature of labeling.

The staff room plays a role in establishing and disseminating consensus among teachers regarding student labels. However, not all labeling leads to a negative outcome; it can also serve as a deterrent and standardization.

Differentiation and Polarization

Differentiation is the process of separating and sorting students based on academic and attitudinal criteria. Polarization is the result of differentiation, where students group themselves in opposition to the dominant school culture, forming anti-school subcultures.

The Functional Concept of Profession

The term “profession” carries a social burden, implying belonging to a privileged sector of society. The features of a profession include:

  1. Providing services to clients and society, covering basic needs.
  2. Being chosen for altruistic reasons rather than economic ones.
  3. Being the main activity of the practitioner, performed full-time with self-management.
  4. Having a corporate organization that regulates the collective and is involved in training standards.
  5. Having a professional subculture with its own ideology, terminology, and practices.
  6. Having a high social status and legal recognition of that status.