How to Teach Fend's Functions of Schooling: A Lesson Plan

Quick answer: Teach Fend's functions of schooling by finding all of them in one real-looking school project, then separating selection from allocation, then weighing a school decision where functions pull against each other. Keep description and evaluation apart throughout. The Fend functions of schooling unit runs this as four 90-minute lessons with annotated answers.

What are Fend's functions of schooling?

Helmut Fend treats school as a social institution that supports individual development and performs functions for society at the same time. His later theory names:

• Enculturation: access to cultural symbol systems, knowledge and ways of interpreting the world.
• Qualification: capacities for social and occupational activities.
• Allocation: distribution of educational routes and later positions, including through achievement and credentials.
• Integration and legitimation: participation in social orders and recognition of their foundations.

Two points need stating on day one. First, the functions overlap: a single exam communicates expectations, assesses knowledge and grants access at once. Second, a function describes a contribution, not a goal worth pursuing. Saying that school allocates positions does not justify any particular allocation. The model comes from a German institutional context, which is worth keeping in view when students apply it to American high schools.

How do you open the first lesson?

Start with something students recognize. The unit's first case is a local history project: students interpret old maps, conduct interviews, build digital presentations and share findings publicly. Participation feeds into a grade relevant to entry into an advanced course. Students debate whose history is represented, school leaders praise both job-relevant media skills and democratic participation, and some students have less access to technology at home.

Ask students to find all four functions with evidence before you name them as a complete list. Most groups spot qualification (digital and inquiry skills) and allocation (the consequential grade) quickly. Enculturation (maps and historical interpretation) and integration (public participation and the debate over shared history) take longer. Then ask the harder question from the workbook: does describing the grade as an access mechanism make it fair when technology access is unequal? It does not, and students need criteria to evaluate it.

How do you teach selection versus allocation?

This is the distinction students blur most often. Selection is sorting and differentiation, for example through grades or placement decisions. Allocation is the wider distribution of routes, credentials and later positions that follows. Lesson 2 uses an admission case: a popular course takes only the top 20 applications, judged on a home-made video and a short interview, and professional editing earns extra points although the course teaches introductory skills. Some applicants get family help and equipment; others use a borrowed phone.

The ranking is the selection mechanism; access to the course is allocation. The sharpest student insight is that editing quality may measure resources rather than the skills the course needs.

How do you handle the school development lesson?

Lesson 3 moves from the student's view to the school's. A school replaces a cultural elective project with extra exam preparation for one year. Leaders expect better results, students welcome the support but miss their own projects, one teacher proposes building assessed skills through self-chosen cultural questions, and others worry about comparability. The old project was never evaluated.

Students analyze which functions are affected (qualification and, through credentials, allocation on one side; enculturation and participation on the other), test the combined proposal against three criteria, and design an evaluation that measures more than one success figure. Without baseline information, strong causal claims are not justified. The best answers avoid a false choice between culture and achievement.

Why distinguish society, school and classroom?

A workbook page on levels of action keeps the discussion honest. One teacher can make feedback more transparent but cannot remove society's opportunity structures alone. Fend's term recontextualization describes how demands take different forms in different settings. Ask students, for every proposal: who can decide, who is affected, and what happens at other levels?

The unit includes a 32-page student workbook, a 20-page teacher guide with annotated case solutions and a 100-point rubric, plus an editable Word edition, for $24.99. The Moral Development & Socialization Bundle puts it together with Kohlberg, Critiquing Kohlberg and Mead for $49.90 for all four. Upper Secondary Complete has 24 units for $149.90. For related topics, see our psychology and educational studies page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Fend relevant to students outside Germany?

Yes, as long as you keep the original context in view. The functions describe what school systems do for society, and the cases (a history project, a course admission procedure, an elective replaced by exam prep) are fictional and not tied to one country. The unit was originally developed for German upper-secondary courses; the English edition is a full parallel version.

Which courses does it fit?

It fits grades 11–12 sociology, sociology of education, psychology and education electives. It roughly maps to education topics in A Level Sociology, Australian senior secondary social science courses and IB Diploma social sciences. There is no official endorsement by the College Board, the IB, any exam board, ACARA or a state education agency.

Does the unit argue for or against grades?

Neither. The teaching text says that abandoning all achievement feedback does not automatically make access fair, and that selection is not automatically just either. Students learn to separate support, diagnostic assessment and consequential selection, and to judge a procedure against explicit criteria.

How is it delivered?

As an instant download: two A4 PDFs (32-page student workbook, 20-page teacher guide) that print on US Letter with fit-to-page, and an editable Word text edition with different pagination. All teaching texts and cases are inside the workbook, so students need no extra reading or downloads. Keep the annotated example pages closed during assessed work.

Related reading

• Functions of Schooling Lesson: Fend and the Sociology of Education
• Teaching Moral Development and Socialization Theories in Grades 11–12
• G. H. Mead Discussion Questions and Essay Prompts
• Teaching Mead's I and Me: Lesson Sequence and Worked Answers