Last Updated on October 24, 2026 by Karl Thompson
The functionalist sociologist Émile Durkheim saw education as performing two major functions in advanced industrial societies: transmitting the shared values of society, and at the same time teaching the specialised skills needed for an economy based on a complex division of labour.
Durkheim, a French sociologist, was writing at the turn of the twentieth century (the late 19th and early 20th centuries), and he believed that schools were one of the few institutions able to help with the transition from traditional society, based on mechanical (face-to-face) solidarity, to modern society, which was much larger in scale and based on organic (more abstract) solidarity.
His ideas on education come mainly from two books, both collected and published after his death in 1917: Education and Sociology (1922; English translation 1956) and Moral Education (1925; English translation 1961). Durkheim is one of the two classic theorists behind the Functionalist perspective on education, which is part of the sociology of education module on AQA Paper 1 (7192/1).
Education and the Transmission of Shared Values
In Education and Sociology, Durkheim argued that society can only exist if there is enough similarity between its members, and that education is what keeps this similarity going. In his words, education “perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the character of the child the essential similarities which the collective life demands.”
Education does this by instilling a sense of social solidarity in the individual — a sense of belonging to wider society, a sense of commitment to working towards society’s goals, and a feeling that society is more important than the individual.
For Durkheim, the school subject that does this best is history. In Moral Education he argued that teaching history helps children to see that society is “real, alive, and powerful”, and that the present depends on what happened in the past. If history is taught effectively, it ‘comes alive’ for children, linking them to their social past and developing in them a sense of commitment to the social group.
Education and Social Rules
Durkheim argued that, in complex societies, school serves a function which cannot be fulfilled by either the family, which is based on kinship, or friendship, which is based on personal choice. Being a member of wider society involves learning to get on with and cooperate with people who are neither our kin nor our friends.
School is the only institution capable of preparing children for membership of wider society. It does this by enforcing a set of rules which apply to all children, and children learn to interact with all other children on the basis of these shared rules. It thus acts like a society in miniature.
Durkheim argued that the first element of morality is a spirit of discipline, followed by attachment to social groups and, finally, autonomy. A large part of Moral Education is about school discipline and the use of punishment. Durkheim wanted school rules to be firmly enforced, but the aim was not obedience for its own sake. He wanted children to understand why the rules existed, so that by the time they left school they would control their own behaviour — partly from fear of punishment, but mainly because they could see the harm rule-breaking did to the group as a whole. That final stage, where pupils follow rules because they understand them, is what Durkheim meant by autonomy.
Interestingly, Durkheim did not think sociology itself should be taught in schools to do this: he thought the social sciences were not yet developed enough, and saw history as the more promising subject.
Education and the Division of Labour
Durkheim argued that a second crucial function of education in an advanced industrial economy is teaching the specialised skills required for a complex division of labour.
In traditional, pre-industrial societies, skills could be passed on through the family or through direct apprenticeships, so formal education in school was not necessary. However, factory-based production in modern industrial society often involves the application of advanced scientific knowledge, which takes years of formal education to learn, so schools become much more necessary.
Another factor which makes school necessary in modern societies (according to Durkheim) is that social solidarity in industrial societies is based largely on the interdependence of specialised skills: making a single product requires a variety of specialists working together. In other words, solidarity is based on cooperation between people with very different skill sets, and school is the perfect place for children to learn to get on with people from different backgrounds.
Taking these two points together, Durkheim saw education as doing two jobs at once. It creates the similarity that society needs to hold together, but, as he put it, “full cooperation would not be possible without a certain amount of diversity”, and education “assures the persistence of this diversity by itself being diverse and specialized.”
Durkheim’s wider theory of mechanical and organic solidarity comes from his earlier book, The Division of Labour in Society (1893).
Evaluations of Durkheim’s perspective on education
- In Durkheim’s defence, schools in England are still expected to do what he described. Since 2014 they have been required to promote fundamental British Values, and the stated aim — a shared commitment to democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect — is very close to Durkheim’s idea of education creating solidarity. Whether it works is another matter; see my post on education and social control.
- Postmodern theories of education might criticise Durkheim for his assumption that society needs shared values. Britain has become much more multicultural in recent decades, and the extent to which there is a single British culture is debatable. There are whole communities which are largely cut off from mainstream culture, as evidenced in the case of ethnic segregation in Oldham.
- The Marxist perspective would be more cynical about the relationship between school and work. According to Durkheim, school is a neutral institution which simply transmits values and skills that enable the economy to run smoothly. According to Bowles and Gintis’ correspondence principle, this is a much darker process: school teaches working-class children to be passive, making them easier to exploit in later life.
- Interactionists would add that pupils do not simply absorb the values school transmits. Willis’s lads, for example, rejected the school’s values altogether — see pupil subcultures.
- Ken Robinson, in his ‘changing education paradigms‘ talk, makes a number of criticisms of the contemporary education system — he argues it’s failing too many children.
- Radical critics of schooling such as Ivan Illich would even question the view that we need schools to transmit complex skills. In Deschooling Society (1971) he suggested that we could learn work-related skills in a much more decentralised way, something which is even more possible today in the age of online learning.
How Durkheim comes up in the exam
Durkheim is examined on Paper 1 (7192/1). Social solidarity and specialist skills are two of the functions AQA credits on the November 2020 question “Outline three functions that the education system performs for society” (see my worked answer), and Durkheim is one of the sources AQA’s mark scheme lists for the June 2017 30-mark question on the role of education in transmitting ideas and values (see this 28/30 answer).
In an essay, the points that show you know Durkheim rather than functionalism in general are the society in miniature, the role of history in building attachment to society, and the idea that education creates both homogeneity and diversity.
Sociology of Education Revision Bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like 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 and Related Posts
This material is relevant to the broader sociology of education topic within A-level sociology.
Durkheim’s perspective on education is extension work to explore the Functionalist view of education in more depth.
Talcott Parsons is the second main functionalist sociologist who wrote about education, in 1959, so about half a century after Durkheim — see Talcott Parsons’ perspective on education.
Explore more of Durkheim’s theory in my Functionalist Theory in Sociology hub.
Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com
Sources
- Durkheim, É. (1956) Education and Sociology, trans. Sherwood Fox. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. (First published in French, 1922.)
- Durkheim, É. (1961) Moral Education. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. (First published in French, 1925.)
- Durkheim, É. (1893) The Division of Labour in Society.
- Illich, I. (1971) Deschooling Society.
- Haralambos, M. and Holborn, M. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives.