The Role of Education in Society: Sociological Perspectives and UK Examples
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Homework type: Essay
Added: 16.01.2026 at 9:56
Summary:
UK education: integrates society and provides skills/role-allocation, but critics (Marxist/feminist) argue it often reproduces inequality.
Emergency Revision – The Role of Education in Society
Education occupies a central place in modern British society, shaping not only individual life chances but the very fabric of the nation. Sociologists have long debated the functions that education serves—whether weaving a common social identity, preparing an effective labour force or, as some critics contend, reproducing disadvantage and division. In this essay, I will explain the main sociological perspectives on education—focusing particularly on functionalist arguments about integration and merit—while evaluating counterclaims from Marxist, feminist and other critical traditions. In doing so, I will use examples from the UK education system, including recent policy shifts, to illustrate both the achievements and limitations of British schooling. While education does carry out important integrative and economic tasks, evidence suggests it also mirrors and sometimes reinforces inequalities within society.---
Social Integration and the Creation of Shared Values
One of the most enduring functionalist claims, first articulated by Émile Durkheim, is that education promotes social cohesion. In a complex, pluralistic society such as Britain, individuals require more than just familial ties to bond them; they need shared norms, values and a sense of collective belonging. Schools foster this in multiple ways. Every morning, assemblies bring pupils together for collective rituals—singing hymns, reviewing school rules, or celebrating shared achievements. The national curriculum, as mandated since the Education Reform Act 1988, delivers a common framework of knowledge, from British history to citizenship. Subject areas such as Religious Studies or Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education promote mutual understanding among students of different backgrounds, teaching tolerance and respect.These practices aim to reduce social fragmentation—what Durkheim called “anomie”—by establishing predictable and acceptable patterns of behaviour. For instance, school rules and codes of conduct set consistent expectations, while uniform policies attempt to prevent overt displays of inequality. Nonetheless, the integrative function of education is not universal in outcome. Britain’s multicultural population means that not all young people subscribe to the same value sets: some may feel alienated by ‘mainstream’ cultural content, and schools with strong ethnic or religious identities sometimes transmit alternative worldviews. In this sense, social integration through schooling is a contested and uneven process.
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Schools as a Bridge: Moving from Family to Society
Expanding on functionalist ideas, Talcott Parsons described education as a “bridge” between the particularism of family life and the universalism of adult society. Within the family, children are valued for who they are and often judged by subjective criteria—parents’ affection or family position dictate expectations. By contrast, the world outside is governed by impersonal, objective standards: employment, citizenship, and social interaction hinge on rules applied equally to all.Schooling is the primary domain where this transition occurs. Assessment through formal testing, grading, and teacher feedback—supposedly administered without favouritism—models the principle that success should be based on merit, not birthright. Attendance registers and timetabled lessons instil habits of punctuality and responsibility. These structures are intended to prepare students for entry into the world of work, where individuals are expected to perform roles with competence and impartiality.
However, the ideal of impartiality is not always met. Research in UK schools has found evidence of bias, whether due to unconscious teacher expectations or to resource disparities between different types of schools. For example, Ofsted reports continue to highlight the effects of socio-economic background, pointing to the way in which children from disadvantaged families may struggle to adapt to middle-class codes and expectations embedded in school culture.
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Education as a Meritocracy?
Functionalists like Parsons and Davis & Moore assert that education is—or ought to be—a meritocracy: a system in which opportunities and rewards are allocated on the basis of individual ability and effort. Ideally, comprehensive schools and the national exam system (GCSEs and A-levels in England and Wales, Highers in Scotland) should offer everyone, regardless of background, a fair chance to succeed. In practice, the drive towards equal opportunity underpins much government rhetoric: successive reforms, from the phasing out of grammar schools to the introduction of the Pupil Premium, have aimed to ‘level the playing field’.Selection mechanisms are central to this vision. Exams sort students according to achievement, allowing those who excel to access higher education and the most prestigious careers. Streaming and setting within schools are justified as ways to challenge and support pupils at different levels of attainment.
Yet, sociologists have questioned whether this is more ideal than reality. The notion of meritocracy overlooks the unequal distribution of starting points: not all children begin with the same resources, cultural capital or familial support. The “myth of meritocracy,” as coined by Michael Young and echoed by later Marxist critics, reflects the persistence of structural advantage—evident in the fact that children from fee-paying schools remain overrepresented in Oxbridge admissions and elite professions.
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Skills Provision and the Economic Function of Education
A further functionalist claim is that education supplies the skills and attitudes necessary for economic participation and national prosperity. Literacy and numeracy remain the foundation, but contemporary schools are increasingly tasked with delivering technical and vocational skills (through BTECs, T-levels, and apprenticeships) as well as so-called “soft skills”—communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.There is an explicit link here to employer expectations. Recent government policy in England, for example, has encouraged the expansion of apprenticeships and the introduction of T-level qualifications to address skills shortages, especially in engineering, digital technologies and health care. University-industry collaborations, such as sponsored degrees and placement years, strive to ensure that higher education courses are tailored to actual labour market demand.
However, tensions often arise between educational content and employer needs. Critics point to the phenomenon of credential inflation, where ever-rising qualification levels are demanded for jobs that have not fundamentally changed. Meanwhile, some employers complain of school-leavers lacking maturity or workplace readiness. There are also concerns about under- and over-skilling: young people sometimes emerge with qualifications mismatched to economic opportunities, leading to wasted potential or frustration.
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Role Allocation: Sorting People Into Positions
Taking skills provision a step further, Davis and Moore (1945) argued that education functions as an objective mechanism for role allocation—deciding who should occupy which jobs within the stratified system of society. According to this view, more demanding or important roles require specialist training, motivating aspiration and competition through higher rewards. University entrance, especially to prestigious institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, or Russell Group universities, is thus framed as the final stage in a meritocratic sifting process.Exam results, UCAS points, and league tables all feed into this sorting system. The claim is that social inequality—differences in salary, status and power—are justified by this fair allocation of people to roles for which they are best suited.
But does the system actually operate fairly? In reality, access to high-reward positions in law, medicine and politics is still skewed by social background. Reports such as those issued by the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission highlight the enduring impact of attending elite schools or possessing networks and cultural resources, suggesting that schooling often legitimates rather than eliminates social inequalities.
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The Marxist Critique: Reproduction of Inequality
Marxist sociologists have powerfully challenged the integrationist account of education. Rather than equalising chances, they argue, schools more often serve to reproduce class divisions. Louis Althusser described education as an “ideological state apparatus,” transmitting the dominant values of the ruling class and securing consent to an unequal system. Pierre Bourdieu extended this by focusing on “cultural capital”—the subtle ways that middle-class culture is rewarded in school, while working-class pupils find themselves disadvantaged.Evidence from the UK is telling. The link between eligibility for free school meals (FSM) and academic performance remains stubborn: in recent years, roughly 28% of FSM-eligible pupils achieved grade 5 or above in English and maths GCSEs, compared to over 50% of their peers. Postcode lotteries in school funding and differences in parental support/cultural knowledge further disadvantage children from less privileged backgrounds.
The “hidden curriculum”—messages about obedience, punctuality and hierarchy built into school routines—mirrors workplace discipline, as Bowles and Gintis (adapted for the British context) have argued. Despite high-profile examples of mobility, class remains a persistent predictor of educational and occupational outcomes.
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Additional Critical Perspectives: Interactionism, Feminism, and Postmodernism
Beyond conflict theory, interactionist and feminist perspectives have opened up education to new angles of critique. Interactionists focus on the “micro-level” operations of schooling: the significance of teacher labelling, pupil self-fulfilling prophecies and classroom cultures. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study of teacher expectations, though originally American, is echoed in UK research— disproportionate attention to high-achieving or “well-behaved” pupils can entrench divides within a classroom. Paul Willis’s famous ethnography of working-class boys (“learning to labour”) showed how cynical, oppositional attitudes emerge in response to schooling perceived as irrelevant or hostile.Feminist researchers have exposed gendered inequalities in education. While girls now outperform boys in many academic measures across the UK, subject choice remains gendered, with boys dominating sciences and girls the arts—a legacy of both explicit and unconscious guidance from teachers and parents. The ongoing underrepresentation of women in senior educational and occupational roles (“glass ceiling” effect) demonstrates the persistence of structural and cultural barriers.
Postmodern theorists, meanwhile, point to increasing fragmentation: educational provision is less about forging a single national identity (if it ever was), and more oriented towards consumer choice, diversity of provision (academies, free schools) and marketised competition—at the cost, some would argue, of genuine social integration.
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Contemporary Policy, Social Mobility and Changing Agendas
Education policy in the UK today oscillates between two competing visions: one of equality and inclusion, the other of market-driven standards and competition. Reforms including academisation, expansion of free schools, and the introduction of the Pupil Premium for disadvantaged students have sought to address attainment gaps while also encouraging greater diversity and accountability. Government statistics reveal some narrowing of headline attainment gaps but persistent inequalities by region, ethnicity and class.League tables, Ofsted inspections, and exam reforms are intended to drive up standards, but can also lead to unintended effects—schools may prioritise students close to critical grades to boost publication scores (“gaming the system”), or avoid admitting pupils who may lower results (a phenomenon known as “cream-skimming”).
Whether these policies succeed in balancing economic efficiency with social justice remains the central question. The evidence is decidedly mixed: while some initiatives have closed gaps, others have entrenched them through new forms of selection or competition.
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Strengths and Weaknesses of the Functionalist Account
In summary, the functionalist perspective offers several important insights. It rightly highlights the role of education in integrating a diverse society, promoting citizenship and preparing individuals for social and economic participation. The links it draws between skills acquisition and national prosperity are supported by much policy and employer advocacy.Yet this approach is often too sanguine. It tends to view schooling as a level playing field, ignoring the significant ways in which wealth, culture and connections shape educational experiences and outcomes. Empowering explanations of inequality and cultural reproduction—especially those emerging from Marxism and intersectional feminist theory—are necessary to understand why opportunities remain so unequal. Furthermore, the functionalist vision of a seamless link between credentials and jobs is undermined by both underemployment and by graduates entering jobs for which they are overqualified.
A balanced account, therefore, requires synthesising macro-level structures and micro-level practices, accepting both the integrative benefits of education and its enduring complicity in reproducing social inequalities.
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