Roles and Functions of Education
What Is Education For?
Sociologists study education not just as a place where skills are taught, but as a social institution that shapes values, reproduces inequality and connects individuals to the wider society. Competing perspectives give very different answers to the question of what education is for — and whose interests it serves.
Functionalists argue that education performs three key functions for society: serving the needs of the economy, facilitating social mobility, and fostering social cohesion.
Durkheim: Transmission of Norms and Values
Functionalism begins from the assumption that social institutions exist because they serve a purpose. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim argued that education is the primary institution through which society transmits its values and norms to the next generation. Without this transmission, social solidarity — the glue that holds society together — would break down.
Durkheim identified two main functions of education. First, education creates social solidarity: by teaching a shared history, language and culture, schools turn individual children into citizens who feel they belong to the same community. Second, education teaches specialist skills that the economy needs — mathematics, literacy, technical knowledge — so that individuals can contribute to the division of labour in an industrialised society.
Parsons: Meritocracy and Achieved Status
American sociologist Talcott Parsons extended Durkheim’s analysis. Parsons argued that schools act as a “bridge” between the family and the wider society. In the family, a child is judged on particularistic standards — rules that apply only to that specific child, based on who they are. In wider society, however, people are judged on universalistic standards: the same rules apply to everyone, regardless of family background.
Parsons argued that schools prepare children for this shift by operating on meritocratic principles. In a meritocracy, exam results reflect genuine ability and effort. Students who work hard earn high grades and go on to high-status, well-paid jobs; those who do not earn lower grades and take less rewarding positions. The result is achieved status: people’s place in society reflects their own efforts, not their family background.
Students sometimes assume that a meritocracy means everyone ends up equal. It does not. Meritocracy means that unequal outcomes are fair because they reflect differences in effort and talent rather than background. Parsons’s point is that the inequality that results from a meritocracy is legitimate — it is earned. Critics from other perspectives challenge whether schools actually operate on meritocratic principles in practice.
The Marxist Critique: Education Serves Capitalism
Marxist sociologists challenge the functionalist view. From a Marxist perspective, education does not serve society as a whole but primarily serves the ruling class — the bourgeoisie. Rather than fostering genuine social cohesion, education reproduces the existing class hierarchy by disguising inequality as the result of individual merit.
Marxists argue that the “social solidarity” Durkheim describes is better understood as ideological control: schools teach working-class children to accept their subordinate position as natural and deserved. The hidden curriculum — the unwritten lessons about conformity, obedience and hierarchy — prepares working-class pupils for lives of routine employment. The claim that education facilitates social mobility is, for Marxists, largely a myth.
The Feminist Critique: A Gendered Institution
Feminist sociologists argue that the functionalist account ignores patriarchy. Historically, education was designed by and for men, preparing boys for paid work and public life while preparing girls for domestic roles. Even after formal barriers to entry were removed, feminists argue that schools continue to reproduce gender inequality through a gendered curriculum, teacher expectations and informal socialisation.
Functionalist: Education transmits shared values, creates social solidarity, teaches specialist skills and allocates roles meritocratically. Named theorists: Durkheim (social cohesion and specialist skills), Parsons (meritocracy and achieved status).
Marxist: Education reproduces class inequality, socialises workers into accepting exploitation, and presents ruling-class ideology as neutral common sense. The appearance of meritocracy legitimises an unequal system.
Feminist: Education reproduces gender inequality by channelling girls and boys into different subjects and career paths, reflecting and reinforcing a patriarchal society.
Interactionist: Rather than focusing on macro-level functions, interactionists examine how teacher expectations, labelling and pupil interactions shape individual outcomes within schools — a small-scale focus that functionalists and Marxists tend to overlook.
Parsons argued that schools bridge family and society by shifting children from particularistic standards (rules specific to the family) to universalistic standards (the same rules applied to everyone). This shift teaches children to compete on equal terms — the basis of a meritocracy.