Last Updated on October 24, 2026 by Karl Thompson
A summary of the main sociological perspectives on the role of education in society — Functionalism, the social democratic perspective, Marxism, feminism, interactionism, the New Right, late modernism and postmodernism. For each one you’ll find the key ideas, the supporting evidence and the main criticisms.
Perspectives on the role of education are usually the first topic in the sociology of education module, examined on AQA Paper 1 (7192/1). Use the grid to compare the perspectives at a glance, then the sections below it for the detail you need to evaluate one perspective using another.
Sociological perspectives on education: the summary grid
| Perspective | What education does | Key sociologists | Main criticism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Functionalism | Performs positive functions for society: social solidarity, skills for work, a bridge from family to society, role allocation | Durkheim, Parsons, Davis and Moore | Education is not meritocratic: class background still shapes results |
| Social democratic | Can create equality of opportunity and economic growth, if the state invests in it and opens it up to all | Halsey, Schultz | Spending more does not guarantee better results or more equality |
| Marxism | Reproduces and legitimates class inequality and prepares a passive workforce for capitalism | Althusser, Bowles and Gintis, Willis | Too deterministic: pupils are not passive, and some resist |
| Feminism | Reproduces gender inequality through the curriculum, teacher expectations and subject choice | Liberal and radical feminists | Girls now outperform boys at school, so is education still patriarchal? |
| Interactionism | Shapes pupils through classroom interaction: labelling, the self-fulfilling prophecy and subcultures | Becker, Rist, Rosenthal and Jacobson | Ignores the wider structures of class and power that shape the labels |
| The New Right | Should raise standards through competition and choice, and prepare pupils for work | Chubb and Moe | Markets benefit middle-class parents, who are best placed to choose |
| Late modernism | Must help people adapt to rapid change and globalisation, with the state playing an active role | New Labour policy | Expensive, and Marxists say it cannot reduce class inequality |
| Postmodernism | Should be diverse and flexible; a single, standardised system stifles creativity | Ken Robinson (as a critic of standardised schooling) | A diverse, choice-based system may increase inequality |
You can also test yourself on which perspective says what with the quiz on my Functionalist perspective on education post.
The Functionalist Perspective on Education
Key ideas
- Education performs positive functions for the individual and society
- Creating social solidarity (value consensus) through teaching the same subjects
- Teaching skills necessary for work, needed for a complex division of labour
- Acting as a bridge between home and society, from particularistic to universalistic values
- Role allocation and meritocracy
Supporting evidence for Functionalism
- Most pupils attend school most of the time: the overall absence rate in England was 6.78% in 2024/25
- Role allocation: in 2024, 67.9% of graduates were in high-skilled jobs, against 23.7% of non-graduates, and their median salary was £42,000 against £30,500
- Schools do try to foster solidarity, through PSHE and by promoting British Values
- Education is more work-focused today, with more vocational courses and apprenticeships
- Schooling is more meritocratic than in the 19th century
Criticisms
- Marxists: the education system is not meritocratic, e.g. private schools benefit the wealthy
- Functionalism ignores the negative sides of school: not all pupils succeed, and nearly one in five (18%) was persistently absent in 2024/25
- Negative in-school processes like subcultures, bullying and teacher labelling
- Postmodernists argue that ‘teaching to the test’ kills creativity
- Functionalism reflects the views of the powerful: the education system tends to work for them (they can send their children to private schools), and the theory suggests there is nothing to criticise
More detail: The Functionalist Perspective on Education, plus Durkheim and Parsons.
The Social Democratic Perspective on Education
Key ideas
- The state should invest heavily in education
- Education should create genuine equality of opportunity, so that talent is not wasted
- A fairer system also helps the economy: skills and knowledge are ‘human capital’ (Schultz)
- Associated with the move from the tripartite system to comprehensive schools from the 1960s
Supporting evidence
- Studies in the 1950s found working-class children were far less likely than middle-class children to win grammar school places
- Policies in this tradition continue today, such as extra Pupil Premium funding for disadvantaged pupils
Criticisms
- The New Right: higher spending does not guarantee higher standards
- Marxists: comprehensives still reproduce class inequality, for example through setting and streaming
- Alison Wolf (2002) questions whether spending more on education really drives economic growth
More detail: Social Democratic Perspectives on Education.
The Marxist Perspective on Education
Key ideas
- Traditional Marxists see the education system as working in the interests of ruling-class elites. It performs three functions for these elites:
- it reproduces class inequality
- it legitimates class inequality
- it works in the interests of capitalist employers, through the correspondence principle
- Althusser: education is an ideological state apparatus
- Neo-Marxism — Paul Willis: a classic piece of participant observation of 12 ‘lads’ who formed a counter-school culture. They rejected the school’s authority and turned up to ‘have a laff’ (which goes against the correspondence principle), but they still ended up in working-class jobs (which supports the reproduction of class inequality)
Supporting evidence for Marxism
- Reproduction of inequality: on average, the richer your parents, the better you do in education. In 2025/26, 27.5% of disadvantaged pupils in England got grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 54.3% of other pupils
- Legitimation of inequality: pupils are generally not taught how unequal the education system is — they are taught that if they do badly, it is down to them and their lack of effort
- Ideological state apparatus: schools have increased their ability to monitor and control pupils (see education and social control)
Criticisms
- Many critical subjects are taught at school and university, including sociology
- It is deterministic: not every pupil passively accepts authority (see Paul Willis)
- Some pupils from poor backgrounds ‘beat the odds’ and go on to achieve highly
- The growth of the creative industries suggests school does not pacify all pupils
- The nature of work and the class structure have changed, possibly making Marxism less relevant today
More detail: The Marxist Perspective on Education, and how the two compare: Functionalism vs Marxism.
The Feminist Perspective on Education
Key ideas
- Education has traditionally reproduced gender inequality and patriarchy
- The hidden curriculum, teacher expectations and careers advice steer girls and boys towards different subjects, and from there into different jobs
- Liberal feminists focus on equal opportunities policies; radical feminists argue the system is still patriarchal underneath
Supporting evidence
- Subject choice is still strongly gendered at GCSE, A-level and university
- Girls’ higher attainment at school does not carry through into equal pay at work
Criticisms
- Girls now outperform boys on most measures at school, which is hard to square with a patriarchal system
- Some argue the bigger problem today is boys’ underachievement
More detail: The Feminist Perspective on Education and gender and in-school factors.
The Interactionist Perspective on Education
Key ideas
- Focuses on what happens inside schools and classrooms, rather than on the role of education in society as a whole
- Teachers label pupils, and labels can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
- Pupils who are labelled as failures may form anti-school subcultures
Supporting evidence
- Becker (1952): teachers judged pupils against a middle-class ‘ideal pupil’
- Rist (1970): a kindergarten teacher grouped her class within eight days, on the basis of social class
- Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968): teachers’ expectations affected pupils’ progress
Criticisms
- Labels don’t always stick: pupils can reject them
- It ignores the wider structures of class, gender and ethnicity that shape teachers’ labels in the first place
- Later studies found the effects of teacher expectations are real but smaller than Rosenthal and Jacobson suggested
More detail: Labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy and pupil subcultures.
The Neoliberal and New Right Views of Education
Key ideas
- Created an ‘education market’: schools compete with each other for pupils, and parents are given the choice of school, helped by league tables
- The state provides a framework to ensure all schools teach the same thing: the National Curriculum
- Schools should teach subjects that prepare pupils for work: new vocationalism
Supporting evidence for the New Right
- Exam results rose steadily through the 1990s and 2000s, after the market reforms of the 1988 Education Reform Act
- Their policies have been applied internationally, and countries are compared in the PISA league tables
- Countries with very competitive education systems tend to do well in those tables: in PISA 2022, Singapore came top in maths, reading and science
Criticisms
- Competition between schools benefited the middle classes, while working-class families, ethnic minorities and rural communities ended up with less effective choice
- Vocational education was often poor
- There is a contradiction between wanting schools to be free to compete and imposing a national framework that restricts them
- The National Curriculum has been criticised for being ethnocentric and too restrictive on teachers and schools
More detail: The New Right View of Education and the neoliberal perspective on education.
The Late Modern Perspective on Education
Key ideas
- Government needs to spend more on education to respond to the rapid pace of change brought about by globalisation
- People need to re-skill more often, and government should play a role in managing this
- New Labour’s policies: the purpose of school should be to raise standards, improve equality of opportunity, and promote diversity and equality
Supporting evidence for late modernism
- All developed economies have governments that spend large amounts of money on education, suggesting more state education (not less, as neoliberals suggest) is good
- It is difficult to see what other institution could teach about diversity
- Social democrats and late modernists argue that equality of opportunity improved under New Labour
New Labour’s education policies are probably best described as late modern.
Criticisms
- Postmodernists argue that government attempts to ‘engineer’ pupils to fit society kill creativity
- Marxists argue that whatever state education does, it can never reduce class inequalities — we need to abolish global capitalism, not adapt to it!
- Late modern, New Labour ideas about education are expensive. Neoliberals say we can no longer afford to spend huge sums on education
The Postmodern View of Education
Key ideas
- Opposed to universalising education systems
- Sees modernist education as oppressive to many pupils, especially minority groups
- Believes the ‘factory production-line’ mentality of education kills creativity
- Forms of education which fit a postmodern agenda include home education, liberal forms of education, adult education and lifelong learning, and education outside formal education (leisure)
Supporting evidence
- Many people agree that schools kill creativity (Ken Robinson, Suli Breaks)
- Sue Palmer: teaching to the test has made school miserable and stressful for many pupils
- Do we really want an education system more like the most competitive ones in the PISA tables?
- The National Curriculum has been criticised as ethnocentric, potentially oppressive to minority groups
Criticisms
- Late modernists: we need schools to promote tolerance of diversity
- Neoliberals: we need a competitive system to drive up standards, to compete in a global free market
- Marxists: home education would lead to greater inequality, because not all parents are equally able to provide it — if we leave education to parents, middle-class children will benefit most and working-class children will fall even further behind
- Liberal forms of education may result in the ‘survival of the fittest’
More detail: Postmodernism and Education.
[FOLD-IN] The section below comes from https://revisesociology.com/2016/03/19/revision-video-sociological-perspectives-education/, which will 301 here. Delete this box before publishing.
Video: Functionalist, Marxist and New Right perspectives on education
A brief video I put together to help revise the Functionalist, Marxist and New Right perspectives on education — basically just some key points and evaluations for each. The slide show goes through each perspective three times, and each repeat has less information, so you can test yourself as you go. It’s deliberately designed to be ‘no frills’!
Using the grid in the exam
This post focuses on the knowledge; you also need to be able to apply it. In a 30-mark essay on Paper 1, the grid’s last column is your evaluation: the best answers use one perspective to criticise another. For practice, see my answer to the June 2017 question on the role of education in transmitting ideas and values, and my essays and exams page for the kinds of question that come up.
Sociology of Education Revision Bundle
You can buy a printable colour PDF version of the grid as part of my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.
Signposting/ Find out More
This post has been written primarily for students revising for their A-level sociology exams, specifically the education topic, which appears on Paper 1 (7192/1).
Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com
Pre-post update perspectives on education summary grids, in colour!
