Should a school curriculum promote social consensus, as Functionalists maintain, or should it expose and challenge social conflicts, as Social Justice Educators maintains?

SS5019 Sociology and the Curriculum – Essay Questions

Assignment 1: Essay on sociological theories (2500 words)

Select one of the titles from the list below related to theories studied in the first semester

Should a school curriculum promote social consensus, as Functionalists maintain, or should it expose and challenge social conflicts, as Social Justice Educators maintains?
Is a twofold curriculum – a true one for an elite and a mythic one for the many – a necessity for any social economy based on a division of labour?
To what extent have the universal and rationalist hopes of the Enlightenment impacted upon modern schooling?
For what reasons do either Marx or Foucault present mass education as a means of social control? Depending on which theorist you have selected to write about, is anything about their analyses accurate?

Assignment 2: Essay on curriculum organisation (2500 words)
Critically examine one of the following subject areas in the curriculum: Science, Maths, English Literature, Geography, History, Religious Studies or Citizenship.
Your discussion should cover the history and original purpose of the subject, as well as its contemporary content and purpose (if different). You should consider and assess the reasons why the subject is considered to be an important part of the curriculum, and what purpose its content serves in relation to the opposition between knowledge and ideology.
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