Marxist views on education

What do Marxists believe about education?

Education is a form of social control, it teaches the working class to accept ruling class values that inequality and capitalism are acceptable.

What do Marxists argue?

Marxists argue that the education system plays a key role in promoting the ideology of the ruling class.

What key thinker discusses how schools reinforce capitalism?

Althusser- School reinforce ideological state apparatus and keep us under false class consciousness.

What does Bowles and Gintis (1976) say about education

The main function of education in capitalist countries is to create workers, Correspondence Theory suggests education mirrors the inequality of wider society

Ivan Illich

School kills creativity as it insists on conformity and offers indoctrination into capitalistic society, children learn to accept authority and accepts governments dictation

Paul Willis

Ethnographic study on twelve anti school boys ‘the lads’ found that they rejected school to present themselves and superior typically working class students as they reject capitalism and is an act of resistance

Pierre Bourdieu

Cultural capital is the knowledge that typically middle class use to navigate the education system