Using material from item A and elsewhere, asses the view that the education system exists mainly to select and prepare young people for their future work roles

Writer Gregory Mantsios in his article “Class in America”, talks about these things, and how wide the gap is between the rich and the poor and also discusses how the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. Mantsios gives his readers the profiles and backgrounds of three hard-working Americans, two of them are white males, whose family background as well as education played a role in their success, while the other person is a black woman who is just above the poverty line despite her work as a nurse’s aide. Through these profiles, Mantsios article shows exactly how sex, race and shows how your parental and educational background of a person can play a role in the things that you achieve. Mantsios also talks about one’s performance in school and the level of school completed can suggest whether or not class that person may belong in.

According to Bynner and Joshi (1999) class differences have persisted since the late 1950’s. It can be seen that all studies carried out by various theorist came to the same conclusion that middle class pupils tend to do a lot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more exams, stay on at school for longer and are five times more likely to go to university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from nursery school to university, processes like labelling or the self fulfilling prophecy take

I think Montsios’ point that, “Class standing has a significant impact on the chance for educational achievement” (Monsios 193). I think this statement is very true, because it is very apparent that there is a huge education gap in the United States due to income. People of higher incomes can have the luxury of sending their kids to better schools, private or public, and have the ability to give them a college education without having to worry about the financial costs, while people of lower classes cannot have this luxury. This is absolutely ridiculous, because this country was founded on the idea of equality, and having an equal and free country to pursue opportunity. Just like the educational side of this, people also struggle with in the sense of survival and

Bowles and Gintis also argue that in order to prevent rebellion from those disadvantaged by the inequalities of capitalism, it is necessary to produce ideologies that explain and justify inequality as fair, natural and inevitable. If people think inequality is justified then they are less likely to challenge the capitalist system. According to Bowles and Gintis, the education system plays a key role in producing such ideologies. They describe the education system as a giant ‘myth making machine’ and focus on how education promotes the ‘myth of meritocracy’. Meritocracy refers to a system where everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve, where rewards are based on ability and effort. This means that those who gain the highest rewards and status deserve it because they are the most able and hardworking. Bowles and Gintis argue that meritocracy does not actually exist. Evidence showed that the main factor determining whether or not someone has a high income is their family and class background, not their ability or educational achievement. By

Mrs. Wente uses hyper-meritocracy to define what she believes our society is. She regards our society’s wealth to be distributed by whomever works hardest. “In the new hyper-meritocracy, people with temperate habits and Victorian values will do better than ever – and people who can’t resist temptation will do even worse.” (Wente How to Succeed in the 21st Century) In this quote she describes our society as merit based and not based on whichever social class you were born in.

People are more likely to get an education when they are laid off. With more educated people in the world we can make the world a better place. There will be more technology being made to serve human to have a better experience and make life easier. We as a society need to move forward and not stay in the past because technologies are the foundation to our future survival and needs.(conclusion?)

Malcolm X once said “education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”. From adolescence to adulthood almost every person is put through schooling. As one gets older in age, the education they obtain becomes more rigorous in order to stretch their minds far beyond two plus two or what color the sky is. The strategies of critically thinking and being able to analyze/decipher information in front is them is reinforced routinely in the educational system. With this being said, the purpose of education is to aid in enhancing one’s qualification, socialisation, and subjectification skills within the society regardless of how or where one’s education was obtained.

So what are the causes of this social class hierarchy and what can be done to stop it? The problems appear to be evident at all levels of education including early childhood, primary and secondary education and tertiary education. Studies in education across the world show that the success rates at school are greatly determined by the student’s parents. In particular, their occupational status, money they earn and education. If the child’s parents socio-economic status is not up to high society’s standards, it may influence the child’s social interaction that may cause some children to work to their full capabilities, impaction on what they may gain from their education. An example of how to help the situation of social class would be to look at Graham Holley, the chief executive of the Training and Development Agency in the United Kingdom. Mr Holley has attempted to improve the impact that teaching can have on the quality of children’s education. According to a UK journal ‘The Independent quotes, “Mr Holley called for moves to ensure the most highly qualified teachers were persuaded to teach in the country's

Supporting this statement Cohen explains the following “The best chance for children from poorer families to move up comes from expanding higher education system. But children from higher social classes are much likely to make through that system and emerge into a privilege class in adulthood” (Cohen 2015: 144) this problem of wealth inequality is connected to the conflict theory. The conflict theory states that Society is divided because inequalities in wealth, power and prestige, only benefiting some people. Privileged individuals are the ones who make a living out the power and prestige that they have in society, the power and prestige come from the social capital that only the rich have. “Belonging to a group, such as family or an exclusive club, makes it possible for people to draw from the resources held by all of its members” (Cohen 2015: 117) Let’s look at this way, rich people have the availability to stay rich because they know people who can help them either get a good job or because they simply have the money to put their kids in good schools and

When considering the manifest functions of education the most obvious one is the increasing of knowledge and abilities of individuals thus making them ready to offer their services to the workforce. Educational institutions have the responsibility of identifying individuals with the highest qualifications to fill positions that are considered to be advanced in the society. This is done by channeling students into programs that suit their abilities and academic achievements; this is commonly referred to as tracking (CliffsNotes.com). The other manifest function of education is socialization; throughout the education process students are taught their roles, particular academic subjects, and political socialization. Education is also intended to aid in the transmission of culture. The

Furthermore, Clarke indicates, “Class inequalities in income and wealth have not only persisted over time, but have deepened, both in the U.K. and Globally”. (Clarke J. 2014, p. 384).

Bowles and Gintis felt it was important to write this article, because they believe that the politics of education are better understood in terms of the need for social control in an unequal and rapidly changing economic order. This point is illustrated on page 396 when the authors say, “The unequal

In this essay, I will be writing on Jiddu Krishnamurti’s concept that the true function of education should be to prepare people for life. In addition, I will relate Jiddu Krishnamurti’s concept to my own personal life. As a result, one should agree that the true function of education should be to prepare people for life. By demonstrating the consequences of following the formulas society has given us and are expected of us to conform to, Jiddu Krishnamuti’s The Function of Education suggests that the true function of education should be to prepare people for life by allowing people to think freely and to not feel the need to conform to society.

Society is made up of macro-level institutions, meso-level organizations, and micro-level individuals, where all three levels interact with one another. For example, the education system is an institution, “a stable cluster of values, norms, statuses, and roles that develops around a basic social goal” (Basirico, Cashion, Eshleman 2014:113). The role of education as an institution is to help the younger generation prepare for the workforce by helping them to develop skillsets and to replace the older generation when they are ready to retire. For example, homework is given to the students to accompany the teachers’ lessons to help them understand the concepts. Teachers are required to administer tests to measure student’s understanding of the material. These assessments are used to help prepare students for their future goals in life.

Society holds many structures that mould human performance and produce opportunities for some, but inequalities for others (Morrall, 2009). These structures in society are organized by the hierarchies of class, ethnicity and gender (Crossman, 2016). Due to having a society based on hierarchies, social inequalities are inevitable. Social inequality refers to the ways in which a group or individual of a certain social position may receive unequal opportunities or distribution of ‘goods’ such as education, income, living conditions and healthcare (Walker, 2009). These unequal opportunities may be given to someone because of their ethnicity, gender, income, religion or social class (Walker, 2009). For example, people in a high social class will be able to pay for their children to go to a good private school for a good education, whereas lower-class or working class people will struggle to afford the same education.