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wow. awesome stuff. is this from your teacher or exam board because its a great essay subject (i.e for students lol). i didnt take philosophy politics or anything of the sort so id be useless. its a very interesting topic though so im sure you'll enjoy it.
Reply 2
lol yep set from my teacher....completely confuzzled about where to begin and which points to make!!! any help guys ?
Reply 3
Hula129
lol yep set from my teacher....completely confuzzled about where to begin and which points to make!!! any help guys ?


nice:smile: ....lol
Well obviously private schools would be a good argument against it being a meritocracy. Money still talks. Also, overcrowded classes and a lack of good teachers means that good students do not always do as well as they can, so cannot achieve as much as a meritocracy would allow.

I'm not a sociology student, but a Politics one. If you could give a brief outline of Marxist education policies, I could tell you what I'd consider criticisms of it?
Reply 5
Wow I can't actually remember the Education stuff which I learnt last year. When criticising marxism just go on about how it is to determenistic.
Reply 6
thank you :biggrin: well...Marxists basically have a bleak outlook on education and see it as teaching The Hidden Curriculum etc. leading to a subservient workforce...accepting capitalism and basically exploitation. They also believe that the education system teaches middle class norms and values..making working class students begin to accept these norms and values and therefore dont know anything different, if that makes sense? There is also an anti-school culture presented by the marxist sociologists who see middle class boys to be rebelling against school in order to fulfill jobs considered to be "Manly" ie. physical labour....
thank you for your help!!!
i know this probably sounds like a really stupid question but what would you class as social theory....rather than sociologist perspectives...
Hula129
thank you :biggrin: well...Marxists basically have a bleak outlook on education and see it as teaching The Hidden Curriculum etc. leading to a subservient workforce...accepting capitalism and basically exploitation. They also believe that the education system teaches middle class norms and values..making working class students begin to accept these norms and values and therefore dont know anything different, if that makes sense? There is also an anti-school culture presented by the marxist sociologists who see middle class boys to be rebelling against school in order to fulfill jobs considered to be "Manly" ie. physical labour....
thank you for your help!!!
i know this probably sounds like a really stupid question but what would you class as social theory....rather than sociologist perspectives...


I have to admit, I wouldn't know where to begin critiquing that, since I generally consider Marxism to be a load of twaddle, so my criticisms would lie in everything he says! I probably sound even more stupid, since I don't know what "social theory" is :redface:
Reply 8
Hey.
I do sociology, and i did study education last year however can't remeber much :s-smilie:. But i'll try... Criticisms of Marxist view of education: they say that there is a clear divide between the working class and middle/upper class, however you could say that policies such as every child matter's etc counteract this, so ideas are not up to date. Also mixed ability etc tries to give everyone a fair chance so there is evidence to prove that some ideas are wrong.
You could also just say that they say that the middle class boys thing was only based on one research project, so they cannot use this argument over every middle class boy, because it would not be fair and also stats show its not true. Don't know if that helps you or even makes sense...I can help you with the rest if this you find this useful, just let me know :smile:
Reply 9
The social theory you could use to criticise it is marxism:
Marxists would argue that the education system impedes social change and maintains the status quo.
It reflects the ideologies of the bourgeousie.
The working class don't have the cultural capital (Bordieu) of the middle class and perhaps don't have the skills to unlock what they are being taught.
i think i respect sociology ;S. iv had a very negative view of the subject due to idiots at my college taking it but this is good stuff!
Reply 11
Thank you sooo much guys ! sooo helpful !
Reply 12
You Could Write About The Correspondance Prinnciple, That Is A Marxist Thought That Basically School Mirrors Work And The Wc Get Ready For The Non Skill Work Whereas The Mc Get Ready For The Skilled Upper Proffesional Jobs. Hope I Helped
Does it have to be an essay original poster?
Introduce what the education system is about first, then define meritocracy and say the term was initially used by Talcott Parsons and that everyone has universalistic norms.
Go on to compliment Parsons by using other theories which back his term, Emile Durkheim's social solidarity and skills for work spring to mind. As does Davis and Moore saying inequality is beneficial as it is not logical for an inept person to perform high-pressured jobs like brain surgery.
That's very brief, and you know you have to go much more in-depth than that but to counter 'education is a meritocracy' statement talk about Louis Althusser and his perspective that education is an ideological state apparatus that maintains and legitimises middle-class rules and values and disguises them in order for the working-class to conform to them and therefore feel a false class consciousness. He places a lot of empthasis on the hidden curriculum so consider how the hierarchy, competition and boredom all contradict the meritocratic approach favoured by functionalists.
Bowles and Gintis are obvious sociologists to mention, talk about their correspondence principle and how the school gets students ready for their positions based on their class. For instance, alienation in the workforce stems from the education system, a working class graduate would feel completely out of place when surrounded by the vast majority of middle class graduates. Consider hierarchy again. To assess even more, talk about Bowles and Gintis 'myth of meritocracy' and how it does not benefit the working class, evidence for this comes from Paul Willis study of 11 working class boys who see it as a 'con.' REMEMBER to criticise him though, the study is very small and is not representative of the population.
There is your basics, I hoped I helped you out and good luck! This was good revision for me as well. :smile: PM me if you need more help.