Page 40 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 3
P. 40
education
Education involves two kinds of curricula: 1. It "emancipates the child from primary
attachment" to their family and functions
• a formal curriculum that specifies what to ease children away from the affective
children are explicitly taught in school; relationships found in the family by
this includes both knowledge of particular introducing them to the instrumental
subjects, such as history or biology and relationships they will increasingly meet in
skills, such as learning to read, write or adult life.
solve mathematical problems. 2. It allows children to "internalise a level
of society’s values and norms that is a step
• an informal or “hidden” curriculum higher than those learnt within families".
(Jackson, 1968) involving the things we Through interaction with "strangers" in the
learn from the experience of attending educational system the child begins to
school, such as how to deal with strangers internalise (adopt as part of their personal
and deference to adult authority. value system) wider social values. This
process functions to loosen the hold of
School is also a place where we “learn to primary groups, such as the family, in
limit our individual desires” – to think order to gradually integrate children into
about the possible needs of others rather adult society - something that also
than our own immediate and perhaps promotes social solidarity and value
selfish needs. It’s also one of the first times consensus.
children are separated from their parent(s)
for any length and it provides both Like any institution schools involve a
opportunities (to demonstrate your talents range of roles, such as teacher and pupil,
to a wider, non-family, audience) and that are linked into a range of related roles
traumas - the need to learn, for example, called a role-set - something that further
how to deal with people who are “not extends the idea of cultural relationships
family” or authority figures such as because we become locked-into a range of
teachers. expected behaviours. A pupil, for example,
plays this role in relation to other roles
Parsons (1959) argued school plays a with a school that include:
particularly significant role in secondary
socialisation for two reasons: � other pupils in their class.
� pupils of different ages.
� their subject teachers.
� teachers of other subjects.
� caretaking staff.
� administration staff.
� parent(s) / guardian(s).
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