Feb 21, 2016

THE MANIFEST FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION




Education is one element of society that has many functions. Some of the functions are readily observable even by a woman or stone crusher in the village and yet some these need a student working on her assignment to see and understand them. When students pass through these institutions of learning they are subjected to many experiences. The output of such experiences results into a variety of qualities or values, some of which are clear and obvious to understand while others are not.
 In this assignment effort will be made to discuss the manifest functions of Education and show how a Zambian teacher can help to achieve the function? First of all, to be manifest means to be clear or to be observable enough to be grasped. The manifest functions of university education are to use your education in order to advance your career. The latent function of university education is to culture you. It allows you to become more sophisticated and mature. Manifest functions are Robert Merton's terms for the consequences of any social action/institution. A manifest function is the conscious, deliberate result.
There are several major manifest functions associated with education. The first is socialization. Beginning from kindergarten, students are taught to practice various societal roles.  Schools as socialization agencies teach children how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic roles. Indeed, it seems that schools have taken on this responsibility aggressively. This socialization also involves learning the rules and norms of the society as a whole. A manifest function is the conscious, deliberate and intentional result. Kendall contends that from kindergarten through college schools teach students the student roles, specific academic subjects and political socialization, Kendall (1998). Socialization enables students to be taught skills, social control, respect as well as reliability.So that the skills and knowledge can be applied in future for the benefit of the individual and society at large. Therefore the school with its education happens to be an agent of change. As a matter of fact education is the social institution that is responsible for transmitting knowledge, skills and cultural values in a formally organized structure. Actually schools are sources of change and innovation.
Since culture is increasingly diverse, students may learn a variety of cultural norms. School systems also transmit the core values of their particular nations through manifest functions like social control. One of the roles of schools is to teach students conformity to law and respect for authority. Obviously, such respect, given to teachers and administrators, will help a student navigate the school environment. This function also prepares students to enter the workplace and the world at large, where they will continue to be subject to people who have authority over them. Fulfillment of this function rests primarily with classroom teachers and instructors who are with students all day.Godofsky, Cliff andCarl (2011) here the function is to prepare the student for integration into society and become useful members of society instead of being useless misfits.
Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility. This function is referred to as social placement. College and graduate schools are viewed as vehicles for moving students closer to the careers that will give them the finance and securities they seek. As a result, college students are often more motivated to study areas that they believe will be advantageous on the social ladder. A student might value business courses over teacher education courses because she sees business classes as being stronger vehicle for financial success.
The educational system, especially as experienced on various university campuses, has traditionally provided a place for students to learn about various social issues. There is ample opportunity for social and political advocacy, as well as the ability to develop tolerance to the many views represented on campus.Functionalists recognize other ways that schools educate and help in the enculturation of students. One of the most important values in the west is that students learn habits of individualism—the valuing of the individual over the value of groups or society as a whole. In countries such as Japan and China, where the good of the group is valued over the rights of the individual, students do not learn as they do in the United States that the highest rewards go to the “best” individual in academics as well as athletics. One of the roles of schools in the Zambian is fostering self-esteem; conversely, schools in Japan focus on fostering social esteem—the honoring of the group over the individual argues the scholar; Mansfield, (2001).
In Zambian schools, teachers also fill the role of preparing students for competition in life. By virtue of being teachers they become specialist in performing the functions of education. The competition during athletics is the analogue for community competition and consequently there is integration into the society but even in the classroom students compete against one another academically. Schools also do a great deal by transmitting patriotism, mannerism, morality and orderliness to the students. Students sing the national anthem each Monday and take history classes where they learn about national heroes and the nation’s past. Clearly it can be seen that school teachers provide an opportunity in which the students socialize.  After all, schools are responsible for identifying the most qualified persons to fill the advanced positions of society. The school system determines which people are to become university lecturers or accountants and the  like.  So teacher administrators and the rest should endeavor to channel students into programs according to their abilities.This is in that the students can be well qualified for their various jobs in future. Kendall cements by saying that ‘graduates receive appropriate credentials for entering the paid work’, Kandall (1998:276)
Another role of schools, according to functionalist theory, is that of sorting, or classifying students based on academic merit or potential leading to social placement. The most capable students are identified early in schools through testing and classroom achievements. Such students are placed in accelerated programs in anticipation of successful college attendance, argues Mansfield (2001).
Conflict theorists point to tracking, a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuate inequalities. While educators may believe that students do better in tracked classes because they are with students of similar ability and may have access to more individual attention from teachers, conflict theorists feel that tracking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations.To conflict theorists, schools play the role of training working class students to accept and retain their position as lower members of society. They argue that this role is fulfilled through the disparity of resources available to students in richer and poorer neighborhoods as well as through testing,Lauen and Tyson (2008).
IQ tests have been attacked for being biased—for testing cultural knowledge rather than actual intelligence. For example, a test item may ask students what instruments belong to an orchestra. To correctly answer this question requires certain cultural knowledge—knowledge most often held by more affluent people who typically have more exposure to orchestral music. Though experts in testing claim that bias has been eliminated from tests, conflict theorists maintain that this is impossible. These tests, to conflict theorists, are another way in which education does not provide opportunities, but instead maintains an established configuration of prophecyMerton (1968).In his book, High School Confidential, Jeremy Iverson details his experience as a Stanford graduate posing as a student at a California high school. One of the problems he identifies in his research is that of teachers applying labels that students are never able to lose. One teacher told him, without knowing he was a bright graduate of a top university that he would never amount to anything (Iverson 2006). Iverson obviously didn’t take this teacher’s false assessment to heart. But when an actual 17-year-old student hears this from a person with authority over her, it’s no wonder that the student might begin to “live down to” that label. Instead of being who labels her student the teacher should give credit where it is worth and always give the students a positive picture thereby creating the atmosphere ‘the sky is the limit’. The above is how a Zambian teacher can help to achieve manifest functions of education.
With the above, it can be summarized by saying that: starting from a day care teacher, through a secondary school teacher to a university professor, all have a noble and great task of making sure that education through various schools is able to perform the manifest functions. These include social control, social placement, transmission of culture, socialization and many others. Teachers should help the education system so that each individual who passes through school can be well groomed and be placed where his credentials and abilities allow him or her with regards to configurations on the labor market. As a result of this, there will be private returns and social benefits for both the individuals and the society respectively.


REFERENCES

Godofsky Jessica, Cliff Zukin and Carl Van Horn (2011)Unfulfilled Expectations:Recent College Graduates Struggle in a Troubled Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University.
Iverson Jeremy (2006)High School Confidential. New York: Atria.
Kendall Diana (1998) Social Problems in a diverse Society.Boston, Allyn and Bacon Publishers.
Lauen Douglas Lee and Karolyn Tyson(2008). Perspectives from the Disciplines:Sociological Contribution to Education Policy Research and Debate.Area Handbookon Education Policy Research.
Mansfield Harvey. C (2001)Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts.The Chronicleof Higher Education 47(30).
Merton Robert. K (1968)Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, Free Press.


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