Discuss the views of the functionalist sociologists on the role of education in society.
1. The functionalist sociologists have acknowledged the positive influence of education on society.
2. Emile Durkheim maintains that ‘society can survive only when there exists among its members a sufficient degrees of homogeneity. Education does ensure to perpetuate and reinforce this homogeneity.
3. Emile Durkheim argues that in complex industrial societies, school serves an important function which the family or peer group may not be able to do.
4. In the family or peer group, a person has to interact with his kin or with his friend.
5. In the society at large, one has to interact with a person who is neither a kin nor a friend. School teacher an individual to learn to cooperate with such strangers.
6. Talcott Parsons also maintains that schools socialize young people into the basic values of society. The schools of the modern society educate the young not only to acknowledge and honour these basic values but also prepares to cope with the newly created conditions and circumstances in the wake of industrialization.
7. The functional role of education in society has also been highlighted by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore.
8. Social stratification, according to them, is a mechanism for ensuring allocation of positions in society to suitable persons. Education system serves this purpose and provides competent people to occupy important positions in society.
