EIGHT Function of

Schooling at a Societal
Level
SOCIAL CONTROL &
DISCIPLINE
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Social Control

-The techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in any society.
-The sum of those methods by which a society tries to influence human behavior to
maintain given order.
-By means of social control, students are taught the boundaries of acceptable
behavior. They carry these lessons with them into everyday life and later, into their
careers. Thus the social control lessons learned in school may prepare students.
For example, to be a docile proletariat in a capitalist economy.
-In other words, it’s term that refers to the ways us humans to stop each other from
doing both immoral and illegal stuff. Defending on the act of Social Control, it could
either be labeled as a Formal Social Control or Informal Social Control.
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EXAMPLE OF SOCIAL CONTROL:

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One of the Agencies of Social Control is EDUCATION

 Education is considered as a mechanism of social control.

 Durkheim believes that education carries the commands of the society and
enforces these commands on both teachers and the students in order to offer
adequate enterprise and knowledge into the minds of the students to fit into
the demands of society.
 Educational Institutions at all level (School, College, University, etc.) impart
knowledge as well as ethics through formal structured courses and behavior
inputs. The child learns many things from the Education institutions, which
cannot learn from other sources.
 It is education, which makes all efforts to discipline the mind of the students
in the school so that he can realize the importance of social control.
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Forms of Social Control

Formal Social Control

Formal Social Control typically involves the state. External sanctions are
enforced by the government to prevent chaos, violence, or anomie in society. An
Example of this would be a law preventing individuals from committing theft. Some
theorists, like Emile Durkheim, refers to this type of control as regulation.

Formal social control is often defined as any social control that is based upon
the law. Some authors classify an action as a formal control as long as it is set by a
written and official document, for example in the rules and regulations of a particular
organization. Any form of control enforced or enacted by the government are formal
social control.
Example of Formal Social

Policing, Judicial sanctions and regulatory policies.

Informal Social Control
Informal control typically involves an individual internalizing certain norms
and values. This process is called socialization. The social values present in
individuals are products of informal social control, exercised implicitly by the
society through particular customs, norms, and mores. Individuals internalize the
values of their society, whether conscious or not of this indoctrination.

Informal social controls are any of those activities that regulate human
behavior and interaction that are not based on laws. Society most often and most
effectively controls the behavior of it’s members through socialization. Informal
controls can take the form of rewards such as praise or compliments, making
members feel socially desirable and therefore reinforce desired behavior. These
informal social controls are enforced primarily within families, schools, or
workplaces.
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Example of Internal Social Control

A kid putting his pointer-finger over his mouth
saying “Shhh!” to signal his rowdy friends to
be quiet while they’re in area like a library
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DISCIPLINE

✘ Discipline means that teachers have to exercise their

authority in the best interest of the students,
emphasizing the development of self-discipline,
independence, and maturity.
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INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
✘ This perspective argues that people create, maintain, and
modify culture as they go about their everyday activities. This
theory states that human interaction is a continuous process of
creating meaning from both objects and actions.
✘ Focuses on how individuals interact with one another in
society
✘ The main focus of an interactionist perspective is the
interactions of society, which is to say how people behave with
each other.
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Interactionist Perspective
- Schools reinforce discipline and
social control through rituals, such as
checking of attendance. “NO I.D. NO
ENTRY policy,” strict implementation
of uniform, and disciplinary actions.
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FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE
o Schools prepare students for their future involvement as a adult in
the labor force by equipping them with essential knowledge, skills, and
values necessary to become productive, responsible, and successful
workers.
o Education is a process of socialization, it prepares the child for social
living and reforms the attitudes wrongly formed by children already.
o It teach them the values of discipline, social cooperation tolerance and
sacrifice.
o It encourage the individual qualities of honesty , fairness sense of right
and wrong.
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o It gives him the ability to succeed in his struggle for

existence.

o The child learns to respect the opinion and advice of others

hence education is necessary condition for the proper
exercise of social control.
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CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE

- Conflict theory posits that the need for control

and discipline can take precedence over the
learning process.
- Conflict theory assumes that the ideas of a
society are the ideas of the ruling class.
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CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

- Social control is often the controversial function

of schools. Critical theory asserts that school’s
control is too rigid it becomes a vehicle for
oppression , injustice, and inequality.
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THANK YOU!