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Sociological Perspectives on Values in Education
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Education and British Values
In this course, Dr Shaun Best (University of Winchester) explores the role of British values in education in both sociological theory and policy. In the first lecture, we think about different theoretical perspectives on values and their role in education, focusing especially on the ideas of Émile Durkheim. In the second lecture, we consider education policy around the promotion of British values in schools. In the third lecture, we turn to the Prevent strategy and the duty since 2015 on schools to promote British identity as a means of countering terrorism. Next, we think about the ideas of Michael Foucault within sociology. In the fifth an final lecture, we think about how they can be used to understand the role of values in education.
Sociological Perspectives on Values in Education
In this lecture, we think about sociological perspectives on the role of values in education, focusing in particular on: (i) how sociologists think about the purpose of shared values in society and define what a value is; (ii) how different theoretical traditions within sociology, such as functionalism, Marxism and feminism, think about the role of values in society; (iii) Émile Durkheim’s idea of social facts as something produced by common values and his work Moral Education, which argues that the purpose of education is to both socialise people into common values and prepare them to work within the modern division of labour.
Hello, everybody.
00:00:06My name is Sean Best,
00:00:07and I am a senior lecturer in education studies at the University of Winchester.
00:00:08And in my presentation, I'm going to talk about British values
00:00:13Since 2015,
00:00:17there has been a legal obligation on schools and
00:00:18colleges to promote British values within their curriculum.
00:00:21The Office for Standards in Education, off stead
00:00:25in their common inspection framework, identify the British values as democracy,
00:00:28the rule of law, individual liberty,
00:00:35mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
00:00:37Now what constitutes Britishness
00:00:43and what constitutes British values?
00:00:45It is contentious.
00:00:47There are competing understandings of the function of Britishness, and indeed,
00:00:48of the British identity.
00:00:53However,
00:00:55the role of British values is the promotion of social cohesion.
00:00:56But what do sociologists understand by a value?
00:01:01Well, the value is defined by most people as being a set of attitudes of values,
00:01:04beliefs, etcetera that underpin standards of behaviour
00:01:10and British values
00:01:14is meant to be a set of common values
00:01:16that British people share that makes Britishness distinctive.
00:01:19So the sharing of values, common values
00:01:23is thought to be central to sustaining both social cohesion and indeed,
00:01:26social solidarity.
00:01:31And what you find
00:01:33is that across a broad range of sociological perspectives,
00:01:34that underpinning assumption of common values
00:01:39providing social cohesion is found.
00:01:41So, for instance, I'm going to mention in in a little bit more detail
00:01:44Emil Durkin's notion of the social fact.
00:01:47But it could easily have talked about Talcott Parsons in the common value system.
00:01:51Okay, so
00:01:55Talcott Parsons in these big 1951 book The Social System
00:01:56Talcott Parsons makes it crystal clear that underpinning the
00:02:00social system is a set of commonly shared values,
00:02:03attitudes and beliefs that people are socialised in
00:02:06that provides solidarity to the social system.
00:02:09I could easily have talked about marks and the concept of dominant ideology in the
00:02:13way in which people are socialist into the dominant ideas of the ruling class,
00:02:16or a feminist perspective where people are socialist into patriarchy,
00:02:20common ways in which men and women are expected to relate to each other
00:02:25in terms of the action perspectives I
00:02:29could have talked about symbolic interaction is,
00:02:32and the notion of the definition of the situation
00:02:34again common ways of behaving within this time,
00:02:36small groups,
00:02:40phenomenology ists have a similar idea called
00:02:41the Libyans felt the world lived experience
00:02:44again. This is where people are socialised into common ways of thinking.
00:02:47Common ways of behaving within within a common culture
00:02:50after the methodology ists have a similar notion of members methods again
00:02:53similar ways of behaving and acting within any given situation.
00:02:57Okay, let's start by having a look at the work of Emile Dirk. I'm
00:03:02Emil Durkin wrote.
00:03:06Very informative and influential text called
00:03:07The Rules of the Sociological Method,
00:03:10and the first chapter of The Rules of
00:03:13the Sociological Method is about the social fact.
00:03:14Durkin tries to explain to his readers what he understands by a social fact,
00:03:18and indeed, what brings the social fact into being.
00:03:22According to Dirk, I'm
00:03:25individual people make expectations of each other's behaviour.
00:03:27So in their everyday lives, they talk to each other. How are you today?
00:03:30I'm fine, thank you, et cetera. So there's common ways of behaving.
00:03:34And according to Dirk,
00:03:38I'm when those expectations echoes a common
00:03:39ways of thinking common ways of behaving.
00:03:42Then what happens is is that they form a social fact,
00:03:44and what he means is common values.
00:03:47Those expectations come together.
00:03:49They form a common value system external to the individual
00:03:52and these these external constraints are experienced by
00:03:55individual people as a set of common values.
00:03:59So the collective expectations impose their self
00:04:02upon people and people feel the need
00:04:05to confirm
00:04:08one of dark times. Lesser known books is a book called Moral Education,
00:04:09and this book tries to address the role of education within the modern world
00:04:14and according to a milder camp in the modern world,
00:04:18individual people have very specialist tasks to perform,
00:04:21so the world of work is divided up into a very strict,
00:04:25rigid but specialist division of labour.
00:04:29The role of the school is to try to provide people with a degree of solidarity.
00:04:32So on the one hand,
00:04:37what the education system does is to
00:04:38provide people with skills and abilities so that
00:04:40they can take their place in the labour market in the specialist division of Labour.
00:04:43At the same time,
00:04:48the role of the education system is too
00:04:49socialist into the common value system within society,
00:04:51
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Best, S. (2021, August 23). Education and British Values - Sociological Perspectives on Values in Education [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/education-and-british-values/the-prevent-duty
MLA style
Best, S. "Education and British Values – Sociological Perspectives on Values in Education ." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 23 Aug 2021, https://massolit.io/courses/education-and-british-values/the-prevent-duty