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Role of Education: Marxists - Coggle Diagram
Role of Education: Marxists
Althusser: Ideological State Apparatus
2 functions of education
Reproduces class inequality
by deliberately failing each successive generation of w/c pupils. The education system engineers w/c failure because capitalism requires an unqualified, low-paid workforce. Meanwhile, private education prepares students for the elite positions of power.
Legitimises class inequality
by producing ideologies that persuade workers to accept that inequality is inevitable and their subordinate position is deserved due to a lack of hard work, maintains a false class consciousness= less likely to revolt or challenge capitalism.
The state is used by the ruling class to maintain their dominant position. Two apparatuses which keep the bourgeoisie in power:
Repressive State Apparatus
: maintains power by force/ threat of force. Includes police, courts, army. Use physical coercion to repress the w/c when necessary.
Ideological State Apparatus:
maintains power by controlling people’s ideas, values, beliefs. Includes religion, media and education system.
Bowles and Gintis
Schooling in America
Role of education system is to reproduce an obedient, docile workforce that will accept inequality as inevitable. Capitalism requires a workforce with people willing to accept hard work, low pay and orders. Schools honour this by rewarding the type of behaviour that makes for a submissive, compliant worker.
Study of 237 New York high school students
(surveys/ questionnaires): students who showed independence and creativity tended to gain low grades, whilst those with characteristics linked to obedience/ discipline got higher grades. Education system doesn't foster personal development, it stunts it.
Correspondence Principle
Close parallels between schooling and and work in capitalist society:
Hierarchies of authority
between teachers and students and teachers themselves reflects hierarchy of authority in the workplace.
Alienation
through lack of pupil control over their education reflects alienation of workers due to lack of control over production
Extrinsic satisfaction
satisfaction from grades rather than the interest in subjects reflects workers' satisfaction from pay rather than the work itself
Fragmentation
of knowledge by getting small pieces of information on unconnected subjects reflects fragmentation of work into small, meaningless tasks, where workers are separated from the product of their labour.
Competition
and divisions amongst pupils e.g. to be at the top of the class, highest stream, reflects competition and divisions in workforce through differences in status and pay.
School prepares w/c pupils for their role as exploited workers, reproducing needed workforce and perpetuating class inequality
Cohen (1984):
youth training schemes serve capitalism, teach young workers attitudes/ values needed in a subordinate labour force, not genuine job skills. This lowers their aspirations= accept low paid work
Myth of Meritocracy
By disguising this fact, myth of meritocracy justifies privileges of m/c, making it seem like they gained them fairly through effort and hard work . This persuades w/c to accept inequality.
Education system justifies poverty through the "poor and dumb" theory of failure. Blames poverty on the individual rather than blaming capitalism, so w/c blame themselves for their poverty as they didn't work hard enough at school. It reconciles workers to their exploitation so they are less likely to rebel.
Education system is a "myth-making machine" that prevents rebellion by producing ideologies that legitimise class inequalities. Myth of meritocracy: meritocracy doesn't exist, the main factor determining whether or not someone has high income is their family and class background, not ability or educational achievement.
Willis (1977)
Neo-Marxist: w/c pupils resist education system's attempts at indoctrination, they are not completely passive
Through participant observation and unstructured interviews, studied an anti-school subculture, a group of 12 w/c boys called "the lads" as they transitioned from school to work
They formed a distinct anti-school subculture and were scornful of the conformist boys (‘ear’oles’ for listening to teachers). They had their own brand of intimidatory humour, ‘taking the piss’ out of the ear’oles and girls.
Found school boring and pointless, and rejected its rules and values by smoking, truanting, disrupting classes. This defiance was their way of rejecting the school. They reject meritocracy as a con, as w/c do not have opportunity for social mobility.
Willis found similarity between anti-school culture and the shopfloor culture of male manual workers. Both see manual work as superior and intellectual work as inferior/ effeminate. Lads identify strongly with male manual work= see themselves as superior to girls and ‘effeminate’ ear’oles who aspire to non-manual jobs.
Lads’ anti-school subculture makes them destined to for the unskilled, inferior jobs that capitalism needs someone to perform:
Accustomed to boredom and to finding ways of amusing themselves in school= don’t expect satisfaction from work, good at finding diversions to cope with tedious labour
Their rebellion ensures their failure to gain worthwhile qualifications, which guarantees they will end up in unskilled jobs.
Evaluation
Bowles and Gintis: deterministic, assume that pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination. Fail to explain why many pupils reject the school's values.
MacDonald (1980)
: They also ignore the fact that schools reproduce not only capitalism, but patriarchy too.
Willis's account of the lads romanticises them as w/c heroes despite anti-social behaviour and sexist attitudes. Small-scale study of only 12 boys= unrepresentative, can't generalise. Feminists such as
McRobbie (1978)
point out that females are largely absent from the study.
Postmodernists:
The economy is now based on
"flexible specialisation"
where
production is customised for small specialist markets
. This
post-Fordist system requires a skilled, adaptable workforce
able to use advanced technology.
Post-Fordism
calls for a different kind of education system that
encourages self-motivation and creativity
. It also
must provide lifelong retraining as technological advancements quickly make existing skills outdated.
Therefore, education has become more diverse and responsive to the needs of individuals.
The education system now
reproduces diversity, not inequality.
They criticise Bowles and Gintis' correspondence principle. Society has entered a postmodern phase where
class divisions are no longer important
and society is more diverse and fragmented.
Critical modernists Morrow and Torres (1998):
Marxists take a "class first" approach that sees class as the key inequality, ignoring other kinds. Society is now more diverse, non-class factors e.g. ethnicity, gender, sexuality are just as important. Must explore how different forms of inequality intersect and how education legitimises them all.