Education by Emile Durkheim

Durkheim, considered to be one of the founding fathers of sociology, taught pedagogy all his life to primary school teachers. According to him, education is a social fact. He believed that the focus of education is depend on the society's notion of an ideal man. He says, ' For each society, education is the means by which it secures, in the children, the essential conditions of its own existence'. Interesting way of describing what education is.

Durkheim defines education as -

Education is the influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life. Its object is to develop in the child a certain number of physical , intellectual and moral states which are demanded of him by both the political society as a whole and the special milieu for which he is specifically destined.

The definition is a clear functionalist outlook. He saw education as a tool for socialization of the youth. There are two beings: individual being and social being. Education plays an important role in molding the social being. This covers religions, beliefs, moral beliefs, and traditions.

All this sounds very traditional and repressive? Well, let me tell you that Durkheim's time was around in the 18th century. Now, all this will make more sense. But it is interesting thought that education is defined by the society we live in.