Revision summary
Durkheim: education methodically socialises; major function is moral transmission. Needed for organic solidarity and occupational ethics. School rituals still fit. Bourdieu and Althusser add class reproduction and ideology. Gender and caste ask whose values. Transmission is major, not sole.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Emile Durkheim treated education as the methodical socialisation of the young. Its major function is to transmit the moral rules that a differentiated society still needs. The sentence is the core of Moral Education and Education and Sociology. It is incomplete as a map of schools today.
Body
Durkheim’s claim
- In organic solidarity, the child must learn a common morality plus a specialised occupational ethic.
- The school is a social fact: discipline, attachment to the group, and autonomy as a modern ideal.
- Transmission is not a family leftover. The nation and the occupational group require a public teacher.
What the claim illuminates
- Uniforms, assemblies, and civics still ritually charge belonging, a cousin of collective effervescence.
- Exam systems transmit achievement values that Talcott Parsons later typed.
Limits in discussion
- Pierre Bourdieu: schools transmit class cultural capital while claiming a common morality.
- Louis Althusser: education as ideological state apparatus, closer to Karl Marx than to a neutral church of the nation.
- Gender and caste: whose norms? Ann Oakley and Indian classroom studies show a double curriculum.
- Conflict and change: transmission can fail, or transmit rebellion, which Robert Merton’s latent functions allow.
Discuss
- Major function, yes, for Durkheim’s problem of moral integration.
- Not the only function: allocation, credentialing, and exclusion are major too.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD EDU[Education] --> TRANS[Transmit norms values] TRANS --> INT[Moral integration] CLASS[Class caste gender] --> HIDDEN[Hidden curriculum] HIDDEN[HIDDEN] --> EDU[EDU]
Conclusion
Durkheim is right that education’s classic function is to transmit society’s norms and values in a methodical way. Bourdieu, Althusser, and feminist and caste critique show that “society” is stratified. Discuss the sentence as a necessary moral function, not as the whole of the school.
Quick related
Students also ask
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In the context of globalisation, has the scope of sociology been changing India ? Comment.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2020 · Q5(a)). View answer →
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Did Durkheim want a church school?
He wanted a secular moral education that still binds. The teacher stands in for society.
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Is skill training a Durkheimian function?
Occupational specialisation is included. He still put the moral core first.
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