PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION 9

Point for Reflection:

1. A teacher cannot separate himself/herself from the

community of which s/he is a part. S/he together with his/her
teaching profession has a social dimension.
2. Education has meaning and function to the extent that it is
relevant to the society within which it exists.
3. The teaching profession has function only to the extent that it
is able to fulfill the needs of the society and contribute to the
development of people in the society.
Education and Society

Schools exist within social context and any

change within schools in terms of educational
aims, goals, and objectives including its
contents are always in relation to societal
changes.

CHAPTER I:

THE SOCIAL SCIENCE THEORIES OF EDUCATION

 Society and schools are interdependent and provide
bidirectional influence to each other.
Sociology as a science provides theories, concepts
and principles that help us better understand theories
and principles that help shape and guide education.
Education on the other hand through its curriculum
trains and educate the people with the necessary
knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that are
necessary for its continued maintenance, growth and
development.
It describes society as with two faces – Consensus
and Conflict
1. Consensus - defined as the widespread agreement
among all members of a particular society.
2. Conflict - conflict is a disagreement or clash between
opposing ideas, principles or people that may be
covert or overt.
Sociological Theory should be divided into two
parts – Consensus theory and Conflict theory.
1. Consensus Theory –
 shared norms and values as fundamental to society. It is the people’ shared norms and
values that ensure the order, peace and stability in the society.
 focus on social order based on tacit or implied agreements. Any change that happens in a
society is slow, gradual, and orderly.
 the emphasis is on social order, stability or social regulation.
 The theory is concerned with the maintenance or continuation of social order in society
in relation to accepted norms, values, rules and regulations as widely accepted or held
collectively by the society.
 It emerged out of social order, social stability or social regulation.
1. CONFLICT Theory –

emphasize the dominance of some social groups over

others.
Social order is the result of the dominance and manipulation
of the strong groups over the weak.
Social change is seen as occurring rapidly and disorderly as
the subordinate group tries to overthrow the dominant group,
argued that the focus of the conflict theory is the heterogeneous
nature of society and the disparity, inequality in the distribution
of political and social power.
A struggle between the two social classes – the
dominant and the dominated; the
powerful and the powerless- occurs.
 The discussion of the conflict theory is on the
emergence of conflict and what causes it.
 The theory emerges out of the incompatible
aspects of human society; its conflicts, crisis and
social change.
Conflict Theorists are interested in how social
institutions – family, government, religion,
education, economic institutions and the media –
may help to maintain the power and privileges of
some groups and keep others in a subservient or
subordinate position.
They advocate for social change resulting from the
redistribution resources. In that sense, people who
support conflict theories are viewed as radicals and
social activists.
 Conflict Theory and Education
Karl Marx argued that society is characterized by
class conflicts or the conflict between the bourgeoisie
(the rich owners of production) and the proletariat
(the poor workers or working class).
From this class struggle or class conflict, interpreters of
the theory posit that social change may emerge from this
conflict. On the issue of the role of schools in
maintaining the dominance of the powerful over the
powerless.
Structural Functionalism
-states that society is made up of various
institutions that work together in
cooperation.
Talcott Parsons’ Structural Functionalism includes 4
Functional Imperatives for all action systems.
Those imperatives are:

1. Adaptation. A system must cope with external

situational exigencies. It must adapt to its
environment and adapt environment to its needs.
2. Goal Attainment. A system must define and
achieve its primary goals.
Those imperatives are:
3. Integration. A system must regulate the
interrelationship of its component parts.
4. Latency or Pattern Maintenance.
A system must furnish, maintain and renew both
the motivation of individuals and the cultural
patterns that create and sustain the motivation.
The General Structure of Action System by George
Ritz, (2000 inVega, et al. 2015, p.5) is presented below.

Action System is the behavioral organism that

handles the adaptation function by adjusting to
and transforming the external world.
Personality System performs the goal-
attainment function by defining system goals and
mobilizing resources to attain them.
The General Structure of Action System by George
Ritz, (2000 inVega, et al. 2015, p.5) is presented below.
Social System copes with the integration
function by controlling its component parts.
cultural System performs the latency
function by providing actors with the norms and
values that motivate them for action.
 Assumptions of Structural Functionalism
1.Systems have the property of order and
interdependence of parts.
2.Systems tend toward self-maintaining order, or
equilibrium.
3.The system may be static or involved in an ordered
process of change.
4.The nature of one part of the system has an impact on
the form that the other parts can take.
 Assumptions of Structural Functionalism
5.Systems maintain boundaries with their environments.
6.Allocation and integration are two fundamental processes
necessary for a given state of equilibrium of a system.
7.Systems tend toward self-maintenance involving the
maintenance of the relationships of parts to the whole,
control of environmental variations, and control of
tendencies to change the system from within.
Parson’s conception of the social
system begins at the micro-level with
the interaction between the ego and
alter ego which he identified as the most
elementary form of the social system.
A Social System consists of the following:
1. Individual actors
2. Interaction
3. Physical or environmental aspect
4. Motivation towards the optimization of gratification
5. Relation to situation and each other is defined and mediated by a
system of culturally-structured and shared symbols.

Parson’s believed that systems exist because they are able to meet
the needs of society in its particular situations.
Parsons listed the Functional Requisites of a Social System:
1.Social system must be structured so that they operate
compatibly with other systems.
2.To survive, the social system must have the requisites from
other systems.
3.The system must meet a significant proportion of the needs
of its actors.
4.The system must elicit adequate participation from its
members.
Parsons listed the Functional Requisites of a Social
System:
5. It must have at least a minimum of control over
potentially disruptive behavior.
6. If conflict becomes sufficiently disruptive, it
must be controlled.
7. A social system requires a language in order to
survive.
Functionalist explains that a society assumes a particular
form because that form works well for the society and develops
certain characteristics.
The key principles of the functionalist
perspective as identified by Farley (in Vega et
al. 2015, p.6):

1. Interdependence - society is made up of

interdependent parts and that every part of society is
dependent to some extent on other parts of society.
2. Functions of Social Structure and
Culture - it is assumed that each part of the social
system exists because it serves some function.
a. Social Structure refers to the organization of
society, including its institutions, its social positions, and
its distribution of resources.
b. Culture refers to a set of beliefs, language, rules,
values, and knowledge held in common by members of a
society.
3. Consensus and Cooperation -
societies have a tendency toward consensus, to
have certain basic values that nearly everyone in
the society agrees upon.
4. Equilibrium - is a characteristic of society
that has achieved the form that is best adapted
to its situation..
The structural functionalt model addresses the
question of social organization and how it is maintained, (Durkheim &
Spencer inVega, et al., 2015, p.8).
The component parts of social structure are:
1. Families
2. Neighborhood
3. Associations
4. Schools
5. Churches
6. Banks
7. Countries, etc.
FunctionalisM
• stresses interdependence of the social system
• examines how parts are integrated with each other
• compares society with a machine, where on part articulates
with another to produce the dynamic energy required to
make the society work.
• stresses the processes that maintain social order by stressing
consensus and agreement
• understands that change is inevitable and underscores the
evolutionary nature of change
FunctionalisM
•understands that change is inevitable and underscores the
evolutionary nature of change
•acknowledges that conflict between groups exists,
functionalism believe that without a common bond to unite
groups, society will integrate.

Functionalism examines the social processes

necessary to the establishment and maintenance of social
order, (Ballantine & Spade inVega, et al., 2015, p.8).
Structural FunctionalisM
•Emphasizes social order and social stability and not
social conflict.
•Explains that society is made up of different
institutions or organizations that work together in
cooperation – to achieve their orderly
relationship and to maintain social order and
social stability.
- Parsons believe that education is a vital
part of a modern society. Schooling performs
an important function in the development and
maintenance of a modern, democratic society,
especially with regard to equality of
opportunity for all citizens.
Education also plays a significant function in a political
democracy. Schools provide citizens with the knowledge and
dispositions to participate actively in civic life.
Functionalist and Conflict Theories have been
criticized as being highly abstract and whose emphases are on social
structure and processes which are at a macro-level.
Critics of conflict and functionalist theories argued that while
those two levels of analysis helps us to understand education in the
big picture or at a macro level, they hardly provide us with an
interpretable snapshot of what schools are like on a day-to-day basis,
or what transpires in the classroom between teacher and students
and between students and students.
 Activity:
1. Make a table summary of the philosophies of education.

Philosophy on Aim/s and Classroom/School

Philosopher
Methods of Education Application

2. Let’s Reflect