The debate outlined above suggests that some sociologists believe that education benefits the ruling class, however other sociologists may argue that education benefits everyone or just men. To address this issue I will be looking at both sides of the argument and I will assess to what extent sociologists agree that education benefits the ruling class.
Some sociologists; such as Marxist agree with the statement above that education benefits the ruling class. One reason for this is that they believe that education brings about social class reproduction, to benefit them. This means that rich can afford to go to big successful private schools, and then go onto having successful jobs, whereas the poor will continue being poor, as they cannot afford to go to private schools and therefore will not achieve the same grades as the ruling class and will not get as well paid jobs. They believe that the working class do not achieve in education because of their material deprivation and …show more content…
Functionalists believe that education provides the institution of work with skilled workers; this is the idea of organic analogy, where each institution is society work together to benefit one another.
Functionalists claim that education is a meritocracy and that education is fair and based on equality of opportunity. They also believe that education provides an opportunity of social mobility, where the working class can move up the social class system if they work hard enough. Another function of education is that it provides child minding, therefore when the child is at school it allows both parents to work and earn