Topic > British education: fair or not for all

All over the world, all kinds of people need to be educated, whether or not that is compulsory. During the training course, students learned many things not only about traditional subjects but also about practical skills for work. In particular, in the following essay on equitable education, we will explain what are some factors that influence the adaptation of schools and the real education system in the United Kingdom. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First of all, when it comes to education, two theories often emerge. One is Functionalism, which has a positive aspect of education. It is insisted that “education is quite similar to the liver in our body”, which means that education serves a particular function for our society. Emile Durkheim, a sociologist in 1858, argues that when students are educated in a school, social solidarity is necessary. In other words, social unity. And every child should have essential similarities: for example, in the Republic of Korea, elementary school students take an oath to their flag during morning assembly every first Monday. But the union with the similarities cannot be said to be valid today. Especially in England there is a school and a multicultural society. It seems quite difficult to provide social solidarity to children since they have different backgrounds and histories and so on. Education helps children in many ways. An example is that the main function of a school is role assignment emphasized by Talcott Parsons, who was a sociologist. Role assignment means that young students can be helped to select jobs or jobs by the school through assessment in exams. By testing their abilities, it can inspire pupils to cultivate their passion for learning. Not only role assignment, but also school can become a bridge that can give children an experience of virtual society before they enter real life. Considering functionalism, however, they tend to ignore the critical point of view of education. In comparison, Marxists have a pessimistic view of the education system. One reason is that many schools in the UK allow pupils to be brainwashed so that they may not realize they are exploitative in the future. Aside from the exploitative condition and political education, teachers indoctrinated students to have a biased opinion on the political issue. An opinion poll for students on the “Politburo at the height of the Soviet empire” was held at a school in Kent. They replied that 'left-wing' meant 'NHS' and the theory goes that 'everyone should be equal'. While 'right wing' is defined as 'Hitler', 'helping fewer people' and supporting inequality. The reason for giving these answers is that teachers have taught students by indoctrinating them with prejudicial thoughts. Furthermore, schools provide a hard work discipline for societies capitalism. Over in all capitalist worlds, including England, students are encouraged to accept this type of education system without any questions. It is called state ideological apparatus (ISA) conducted the study by Louis Althusser. There is a correspondence between social relationships in the classroom and those in the workplace. For example, at school, those who are obedient students risk becoming submissive workers while a student who is not interested in studying but in qualification tends to be a worker who places more importance on salary (money) rather thanthe products researched by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis in 1976. If we believe the theory of Marxism, we would say that it is decidedly unfair for working class students to receive an education in Britain. Interestingly, functionalists argue that society and education are linked to meritocracy. Meritocracy is one in which people can achieve success and power depends on their talents, skills and hard work, providing fair and equal opportunities, not on their position and class. Therefore, the school supports pupils to have an equal chance of succeeding and achieving a good qualification. They have no doubt that working-class students can achieve a high position regardless of their background if they try to study hard. On the other hand, people who are on the side of Marxism are strongly against meritocracy. They believe that “meritocracy is a myth” because of the correspondence of Marxism. In reality, meritocracy cannot be adopted in the education system. If the first generation is wealthy and has sufficient material and cultural factors to support their children, then the second generation has a high chance of being as wealthy as their parents. However, lower class children have an extreme tendency to become working class children. Most argue that the education system alone is responsible for this phenomenon. Certainly not, teachers also have the responsibility. Research from the University of Birmingham, which has 14,000 students in six countries plus England, questioned the fairness of teacher favoritism. More than 0.5% of respondents disagreed that tutors treated them absolutely fairly. Moderators working at the Department for Education calculated that two-thirds of teachers say: “personal feelings towards certain pupils influence their ratings” every time they mark homework. There is another study that supports Marxism, Paul Willis' research called “Learning to Labour” has shown that students who reject the education system by messing up the classroom climate and making them laugh, do not try to concentrate on their studies. These guys are called boys. The kids do not fully accept the ideology and reject the “brainwashing” into an obedient person both at school and at work. These situations create the counter-scholastic culture. Engaging counter-school culture may not interest children in their future jobs. And that would lead to British education being called unfair. One aspect that could play a central role in the education system is the support of resources such as cultural capital. Middle class parents usually pay close attention to what children have to do by associating with the school principal or tutors. Some of these parents meet to get resources and information about education. Douglas investigated parents who were in a different class. The result was that the more concentrated children were in studying, the higher GCSEs and A-levels their children could achieve. Parents' education can affect their children's verbal abilities and language is one of the cultural capitals. There are two different types of language, restricted code and elaborate code. The restricted code requires that whenever children talk to their family or peers they do not use grammatical and logical sentences or technical terms. In contrast, elaborate code is often spoken by middle-class students with complete sentences and high-quality vocabularies. At school, peers who use the elaborate code are good at understanding lessons and communicating with their teachers.