Social Institutions

Social Institutions

Introduction

Education is the key to success in a person's life. Not being educated people would be hurting just to try and get through day to day life situations. There are three main theories that help with understanding education and that is the conflict theory, integrationist theory and the theory of functionalist. All of these theories help in comprehending why various groups disagree with their views of social problems, but the question is that why they believe that they all are right. Education could be the difference from getting a low paying job or a high paying job. Education also plays a huge role in helping you to understand things better, it helps your social skills, the way people view you and also the way you view yourself.

The Structural Functionalists

Structural functionalist theory was formulated by Radcliffe-Brown, and expounded by Evans-Pritchard: The structural functionalist sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability and focuses on the relationships between the various social institutions like government or religions. (Vissing, 2011)

The structural-functional perspective is the one that views society as having many parts which are all necessary for its well being .for this group of people education has a number of important aspects. Firstly the school system assists in passing skills to people. Students learn a lot of skills. For example they learn some technical skills such as carpentry, metal work or driving. Other skills that are transmitted include ability to communicate, ability to maintain personal integrity when faced by pressure. Knowledge is also passed on through the education system. For example how people can maintain their health status by having balanced meals or bathing and the disposal of waste matter. The culture and values of a society are passed on through the education system. Some values are passed through political ideologies and history as taught in school. For example the American educational system teaches that people must maintain their liberties. Day to day skills and folkways are passed on, for example in my country we are taught to say thank you to someone while clapping hands (Morrow, 1995). Valuable practices, norms, values, rituals and symbols are transmitted through the education system, which assists to create a united society that has a lot to share.

On the other hand the conflict theory has its own outlook on the role of education in the society. The conflict perspective paints the society as having various groups and individuals who have different interest, aspirations and needs which must be satisfied. They say that what happens in the society occurs because there are people and groups who want to exploit, dominate, and oppress others. Some powerful people and groups want to benefit from others through their influence and power in the society. It contends that, the society socializes some less powerful ones to accept the dictates of the powerful people. This perspective views that there is a lot of competition in the society in order for survival (Barcan, ...