Marxism

The main role of education is to…

… maintain capitalism and reproduce social inequality

Define ‘ideological state apparatus’

A social institution whose main role is to pass on the dominant ideology of the ruling class

Define ‘repressive state apparatus’

A social institution whose role it is to enforce the dominant ideology by force or threat of force eg police

Define ‘correspondence principle’

The ways in which the education system mirrors the world of work eg hierarchy, punctuality and uniforms etc

Define ‘hidden curriculum’

The informal learning processes that happen in school, it is a side effect of education that teaches students the norms and values of society

Althusser → Reproduction of social inequality

• Education is used by the state to ensure w/c failure through setting, streaming and lack of access to resources. This keeps them in low paid, low skill jobs

• Private education gives elite children better qualifications, connects (cultural capital) and leadership training, preparing them for high status roles

• The hidden curriculum teaches norms and values that support m/c culture (eg competition, punctuality) which w/c children may not have at home, disadvantaging them

Althusser → Legitimisation of social inequality

• Schools promote the idea that success is due to hard work, not class advantage. M/C students succeed more because they have more cultural and economic capital, not because they’re more able

• Through daily routines and expectations (eg accepting authority, competitiveness) the hidden curriculum makes students believe inequality is normal and deserved

Bowles and Gintis → Correspondence principle

Schools are structured to prepare w/c students for factory style work

• Wages not satisfaction - rewards (grades) reflect future work incentives

• Lack of control - students follow strict timetables, like workers follow shift patterns

• Obedience - taught to follow rules and authority figures without question

• Achieved status - rewarded for effort, not creativity, similar to performance targets in jobs

• Discipline and consequences - punishment systems mirror workplace discipline (eg disciplinarys)

• Boredom - repetitive tasks reflect monotonous jobs

Bowles and Gintis → Myth of meritocracy

• Schools claim to reward effort and talent, but w/c students are disadvantaged by their language use, lack of cultural capital and teacher expectations

• The hidden curriculum subtly teaches w/c students to lower their ambitions, accepting their ‘place’ in the system,

Eval - Neo marxism (Giroux)

• Rejects the view that w/c passively accept their position to become compliant workers

• Existence of anti school subcultures, truancy and exclusion suggest both the hidden curriculum and correspondence principal have failed

• Marxists often fail to acknowledge that gender and ethnicity often combine with class to produce stress or failure

Eval - Social democratic

• Halsey, Floud and Martin suggest that marxists exaggerate the effect education has on w/c achievement

• They point out that government policies such as comprehensivisation have improved the chances of the w/c

Eval - Neo liberals

• Saunders claims that m/c educational success is due to biological differences

Eval - New right

• Chubb and Moe argue that the marxists fail to see how education has failed all social groups not just the w/c

• They believe that education has failed to equip all students with the skills needed to be successful in the global market place

Eval - Postmodernism

• Marxists fail to acknowledge that education actually reproduces diversity rather than inequality

• Morrow and Torres claim the students create their own identities rather than being constrained by traditional structures like class. In postmodern societies students are able to make their own choices about their identity (shown by increasing numbers of trans students)