Sociology Essay

Functionalism is a way of thinking based on Durkheim he looks at society from a large scale perspective. He looks at the parts which help makes a society stable. Societies made from a variety of different structures one of the structures is institutions. Institutions are structures that meet the needs of people such as the education system.

Durkheim talks about passing on Societies culture and building social solidarity. Education meets a key functional prerequisite by passing on new generations the central or core values and culture of society. The research method used was called armchair theorising because Durkheim didn’t actually carry out empirical research he was only analysing and expressing his opinion based on functionalist’s beliefs. However a weakness of Durkheim he jumps to the conclusion that norms and values transmitted by the education system are those of society as a whole.

Parsons sees schools as important places of secondary socialisation increasingly taking over from the family who are the primary agent of socialisation. Schools teach children their basic knowledge which will help them massively in the future it teaches them things such as boredom. Durkheim argued that schools are a social miniature is a small scale version of society as a whole that helps young children prepare for life later on this is known as secondary socialisation. He also argues that schools provide a bridge between the particularistic values and ascribed status of the family and the universalistic values and achieved status of contemporary societies which are based on the values of meritocracy. Parsons also used the armchair theorising which means his theory lacks reliability and could be biased as he is expressing his opinions based on his beliefs. A weakness is that he failed to recognise that the value consensus may be that of the ruling elite.

Shultz talked about the human capital and he suggested that a high level of spending on education and training are...