Marxism flashcards + criticisms

Althusser (1971) - state apparatuses

• State consists of two state apparatuses that keep the bourgeoisie in power

Althusser (1971) - repressive state apparatus

• Maintain bourgeoisie’s position through (threat of) force

3 elements of RSA

1. Police

2. Courts

3. Army

Althusser (1971) - ideological state apparatus

• Maintain bourgeoisie’s position through control of ideas/values/beliefs

  • Reproduce class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation

  • Legitimate class inequality by producing ideologies

  • Disguise the true cause

  • Workers accept inequality is inevitable and that they deserve their subordinate position in society and therefore don’t challenge capitalism

3 elements of ISA

1. Religion

2. Education

3. Media

Bowles and Gintis (1976) - hidden curriculum

• Capitalism requires a hardworking and obedient workforce that is accepting of low pay and orders

• Education reproduces this by rewarding personality traits that make for a submissive/compliant worker via hidden curriculum

  • It also stunts and distorts development

Bowles and Gintis (1976) - correspondence principle

• School operates in the ‘long shadow of work’

• Parallels between school and capitalist society

  • E.g. relationships and structures found in schools that mirror the workplace

    • Hierarchies– headteachers/bosses give orders, pupils/workers obey

    • Structure

    • Fragmentation

    • Extrinsic satisfaction

    • Alienation

    • Competitions and divisions

Cohen (1984) - function of youth traning schemes

• Youth training schemes teach attitudes and values

  • Lower youth’s aspirations for them to later accept low paid work

Bowles and Gintis (1976) - myth of meritocracy

• Education explains and justifies inequality as fair/natural to prevent rebellion and maintain false-class consciousness

  • Education system ‘giant myth-making machine’

• Meritocracy, as perpetuated by the education system, doesn’t exist

Bowles and Gintis (1976) - function of myth of meritocracy

• Justify the privileges of higher classes to persuade the W/C to accept inequality as legitimate

Willis (1977)

• Lads and ear’oles

• Rejected the meritocratic ideology

• Had a culture similar to that of male manual workers

CRITICISM: post-modernist of Bowles and Gintis

• Education now reproduces diversity instead of inequality

  • Also required to produce a different type of labour force than that described by Marxists

CRITICISM: within Marxism

Bowles and Gintis

• Deterministic

  • Assumption pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination

    • Fails to explain why pupils reject school’s values

CRITICISM: within Marxism

Willis

• Rejection of view that schools brainwash pupils

  • Combination of Marxist and interactionist approach

    • Demonstrates how resistance to school still leads to W/C jobs

CRITICISM: critical modernists

Marrow and Torren (1998)

• ‘Class first’ approach ignores other key inequalities

  • Society is more diverse and ethnicity/gender/sexuality are equally important

  • Interrelation of inequalities

CRITICISM: feminism

MacDonald (1980)

• Gender is also important

CRITICISM: feminism

McRobbie (1978)

• Girls were absent from Willis’ study

2 CRITICISMS of Willis

1. Romanticises lads and portrays them as heros despite anti-social, racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes

2. Very small scale study - unlikely to be truly representative