About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about classical sociological approaches to education and its role in society, focusing in particular on: (i) Karl Marx’s base and superstructure model and the role of education in upholding the ideology of the ruling class; (ii) Max Weber’s writing on education as the means by which societies become rational and modern; (iii) Émile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons’ functional understandings of education, particularly Parsons’ ideas of socialisation and selection.

About the lecturer

Dr Eric Lybeck is Presidential Fellow at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. His recent research focuses on the sociology of education, especially the university sector. He is author of The University Revolution: Outline of a Processual Theory of Modern Higher Education (2021) and Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education (2019), and co-editor of Reconstructing Social Theory, History and Practice (2017).