Last Updated on October 24, 2026 by Karl Thompson
The American sociologist Talcott Parsons outlined what is commonly accepted as the Functionalist view of education in modern societies in his 1959 article ‘The School Class as a Social System’. Parsons argued that school:
- Acts as a bridge between the family and wider society
- Replaces the particularistic standards of the family with the universalistic standards of wider society
- Socialises young people into the core values of achievement and equality of opportunity
- Selects and allocates individuals to their future roles in society
Parsons is the second of the two classic functionalists you need to know for the Functionalist perspective on education, alongside Émile Durkheim. This topic is part of the sociology of education module, examined on AQA Paper 1 (7192/1).
Particularistic and universalistic standards: definitions
Particularistic standards are rules and judgements that apply to one particular person because of who they are. Parents judge their own child this way. Universalistic standards are rules and judgements that apply to everyone in the same way, regardless of who they are. Exams and the law work like this.
| The family | School and wider society | |
|---|---|---|
| How you are judged | Particularistic standards: judged as this particular child | Universalistic standards: judged by the same rules as everyone else |
| Where your status comes from | Ascribed: fixed by birth | Achieved: earned through your own efforts |
| Example | Parents relax a rule because they know their child finds something hard | Everyone sits the same exam paper, marked against the same mark scheme |
Particularistic and Universalistic Values
Parsons argued that, after primary socialisation within the family, the school class takes over as ‘the focal socializing agency’: school acts as a bridge between family and society as a whole, preparing children for their adult roles in society.
Within the family, the child is judged by particularistic standards. Parents treat the child as their own, unique, special child, rather than judging him or her by universal standards that are applied to every individual.
However, in the wider society the individual is treated and judged in terms of universalistic standards, which are applied to all members, regardless of their kinship ties.
Within the family, the child’s status is ascribed: it is fixed by birth. However, in advanced industrial society, status in adult life is largely achieved: for example, individuals achieve their occupational skills. Thus it is necessary that the child moves from the particularistic standards and ascribed status of the family to the universalistic standards and achieved status of adult society.
The school prepares people for this transition. It establishes universalistic standards, in terms of which all pupils achieve their status. Their conduct is assessed against the yardstick of the school rules; their achievement is measured by performance in examinations. The same standards are applied to all pupils regardless of ascribed characteristics such as sex, ethnicity, family background or class of origin. Schools operate on meritocratic principles: status is achieved on the basis of merit (or worth).
This echoes Durkheim’s idea of school as a society in miniature. Modern industrial society is increasingly based on achievement rather than ascription, on universalistic rather than particularistic standards, and on meritocratic principles which apply to all its members. By reflecting the operation of society as a whole, the school prepares young people for their adult roles.
Education: Meritocracy and Value Consensus
Parsons argued that a further main function of schools was to socialise young people into the basic values of society. Parsons, like many functionalists, maintained that value consensus is essential for society to operate effectively. In American society, school instils two major values:
- The value of achievement
- The value of equality of opportunity
By encouraging students to strive for high levels of academic attainment, and by rewarding those who succeed, schools foster the value of achievement itself. By placing individuals in the same situation in the classroom and so allowing them to compete on equal terms in examinations, schools foster the value of equality of opportunity.
These values have important functions in society as a whole. Advanced industrial society requires a highly motivated, highly skilled workforce. This necessitates differential reward for differential achievement, a principle which has been established in schools.
Both the winners (the high achievers) and the losers (the low achievers) will see the system as just and fair, since status is achieved in a situation where all have an equal chance. Again, the principles that operate in the wider society are mirrored in the school.
Ultimately Parsons believed that the education system was meritocratic, and because of this it created value consensus in an unequal society.
Education and Selection
Finally, Parsons saw the educational system as an important mechanism for the selection of individuals for their future role in society. In his words, it ‘functions to allocate these human resources within the role-structure of the adult society’, which makes the school class ‘an agency of “manpower” allocation’. Thus schools, by testing and evaluating students, match their talents, skills and capacities to the jobs for which they are best suited. The school is therefore seen as the major mechanism for role allocation.
The fullest functionalist account of why this sorting matters — why some jobs need the most talented people and carry the highest rewards — comes from Davis and Moore (1945), covered in the role allocation section of the Functionalist perspective on education post.
Evaluations of Parsons
The best-known criticisms of Parsons come from Marxism, but interactionists, Bourdieu and feminists all question whether schools really apply universalistic standards. There is something to be said in his defence too.
In Parsons’ defence: exams are universalistic
Public exams are the closest thing in education to what Parsons meant. GCSE and A-level scripts are marked by external examiners who have never met the pupils, against the same mark scheme for everyone. A functionalist could argue that inequalities in results do not show the standards themselves are unfair — they may reflect what pupils bring with them into the exam hall, which is a problem with the family and wider society rather than with the school.
Marxist criticisms
Marxists criticise the idea that schools transmit shared values. Rather, they see the education system as transmitting the values of the ruling class, as outlined in Bowles and Gintis’ Correspondence Principle.
Marxists have also criticised the idea that schools are meritocratic, arguing that meritocracy is a myth, because in reality, while schools may treat pupils the same, class inequalities result in unequal opportunities. 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 (DfE). For Marxists, the value of equality of opportunity that Parsons describes is an ideology that makes these inequalities look fair. There is more on this on the Marxist perspective on education post.
Interactionist criticisms: teachers judge pupils particularistically
Interactionists argue that schools do not apply universalistic standards in practice, because teachers judge pupils by who they are as well as by what they do. Howard Becker (1952) found that the Chicago teachers he interviewed judged pupils against an ‘ideal pupil’ who was middle class. Ray Rist (1970) found that a kindergarten teacher had divided her class into three tables within eight days, and that the real basis of the grouping was social class.
If teachers’ judgements are shaped by class, then pupils are being judged on ascribed characteristics — exactly what Parsons said school replaces. Through labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy, those judgements can then shape what pupils achieve.
Bourdieu: the standards are not neutral
Pierre Bourdieu would accept that schools apply the same standards to everyone, but argue that the standards themselves are those of the middle class. Pupils who arrive with middle-class cultural capital — the right language, knowledge and tastes — find that school rewards what they already have. So universalistic standards can reproduce inequality while appearing perfectly fair, which is close to the Marxist point that Parsons mistakes ideology for consensus.
Feminist criticisms
Feminists would point out that Parsons says nothing about gender. Pupils may sit the same exams, but research on in-school factors and gender shows that teacher expectations, careers advice and the curriculum still steer girls and boys towards different subjects, and from there into different jobs. That is not the gender-blind, achievement-based sorting Parsons describes.
Ascribed status still matters
Parsons argued that adult status in modern society is achieved rather than ascribed. HOWEVER, family background still shapes where people end up. In 2025/26, 6.3% of pupils in England attended independent schools, yet the Sutton Trust’s Elitist Britain 2025 found that 62% of senior judges had been privately educated. Being born into a family that can afford school fees is an ascribed advantage, and it seems to carry on into adult life.
When the universalistic standards were suspended
In 2020 and 2021 there were no public exams, and grades were based on teachers’ judgements of their own pupils. In 2021 the share of A-level entries graded A or A* rose from 60.8% to 70.1% in independent schools, against 33.1% to 39.3% in comprehensives, according to Ofqual’s analysis. Whatever the reasons for the gap, it suggests that once judgements are made by people who know the pupils, outcomes change — which is a reminder of why Parsons put so much weight on universalistic standards in the first place.
Dated and American
Parsons was writing about American schools in the 1950s, and he assumed a single set of shared values for school to pass on. Postmodernists argue that society today is far more diverse, and that there is no single value consensus for school to socialise pupils into. See my post on postmodernism and education.
How Parsons comes up in the exam
Parsons is examined on Paper 1 (7192/1), usually as part of a question on functionalism or the role of education. Three AQA questions where he is directly useful:
- November 2020, Q02: Outline three functions that the education system performs for society. [6 marks] — AQA’s mark scheme credits “Secondary socialisation (1 mark); schools are focal socialising agencies teaching universalistic principles of behaviour to children (+1 mark).” Worked answer
- June 2023, Q01: Outline two similarities between the functionalist and Marxist views of education. [4 marks] — functionalism vs Marxism
- June 2017, Q04: Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of the role of education in transmitting ideas and values. [30 marks] — a 28/30 student answer with examiner commentary
In a 30-mark essay, the bridge between family and society and the particularistic/universalistic distinction are the points that show an examiner you know Parsons rather than functionalism in general. The interactionist and Bourdieu criticisms above are the most effective ways to evaluate them, because they go after his specific claim rather than functionalism as a whole.
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 post has been written to provide a more in-depth look at the Functionalist perspective on education, usually taught as part of the sociology of education topic in A-level sociology.
If you like this in-depth sort of thing then you might also like my post on Durkheim’s view of education.
Parsons also wrote about the functions of other institutions. See Talcott Parsons’ perspective on religion, and for his general systems theory, my Functionalist Theory in Sociology hub.
Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com
Sources
- Parsons, T. (1959) ‘The School Class as a Social System: Some of Its Functions in American Society’, Harvard Educational Review, 29(4), 297–318. (You will often see it dated 1961 in textbooks.)
- Davis, K. and Moore, W. E. (1945) ‘Some Principles of Stratification’, American Sociological Review, 10(2), 242–249.
- Becker, H. (1952) ‘Social-class variations in the teacher-pupil relationship’, Journal of Educational Sociology, 25, 451–465.
- Rist, R. (1970) ‘Student Social Class and Teacher Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Ghetto Education’, Harvard Educational Review, 40(3).
- Department for Education (2026) Key stage 4 performance 2025/26; Schools, pupils and their characteristics 2025/26.
- Sutton Trust (2025) Elitist Britain 2025.
- Ofqual analysis of 2021 A-level results by centre type (10 August 2021).
- Haralambos, M. and Holborn, M. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives.