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Functionalist Perspective On Education

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The functionalist’s thinking concentrates on viewing society as a machine—meaning that everyone is a tool part that keeps the machine (society) functioning smoothly. Functionalist Perspective on education is to obtain a consensus outlook, which evolves examining society’s school system as a good source of common benefit regardless of socio economic standard. Functionalists believe that having an educated population will increase work production, thus bettering America’s economy. The learning takes place at schools, which if done correctly, will socialize its students with appropriate values, norms, and talents (Treviño173). In addition to, functionalist place a huge value on meritocracy. One’s merit and hard work will help people excel in …show more content…

New study says they shouldn’t”, author Sarah Sheffer concludes that standardized exam results are not an accurate representation of a students ability to succeed in a four year college, and that amount of colleges test opted should increase. Instead of using SAT/ACT as a sole device to measure intelligence, GPA should be utilized to rate a person’s outcome in higher education because the four years in high school will better demonstrate persistence and achievement. Sheffer states, “According to the data, if high school grades are not high, good testing does not promise college success. Students with good grades and modest testing did better in college than students with higher testing and lower high school grades.” When thinking about eliminating standardized exams, utilizing the social perspectives, all three have their perks for terminating said exam. For symbolic internationalist, eliminating standard exams will be beneficial because the negative symbol given to said exam will no longer stress students out, and bring more students who did not enroll due to the fear id taking a standard exam. For functionalist, seeing the results from students who take an entrance exams versus whose who don’t only having .6 percent of a difference, will notice that harmony will still be kept with eliminating standard exams. In an exam conducted by Hiss, he discovered “ data showed that there was a negligible difference in college performance between the two groups. Only .05 percent of a GPA point set “submitters” and “non-submitters” apart, and the difference in their graduation rates was just .6

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