Education - Neomarxism

Question 1

Henry Giroux - relative autonomy (1984)

Answer 1

disagrees with marxism for 3 reasons:
- WC do not passively accept what they are taught but actively resist discipline imposed on them
- schools are sites of ideological struggle for different demographics
- edu system possesses relative autonomy from economic base, not always shaped by capitalist economy, has some independence

Question 2

Paul Willis - learning to labour (1977)

Answer 2

• ethnographic longitudinal overt participant study in Midlands
• ‘lads’ saw themselves as superior
• not interested in academic qualifications
• formed a counterculture of sexism, racism, masculinity
• manual labour not ‘pen pushing’
• followed boys into employment, often in factories
• mirrored anti school subcultures as they did as little work as possible and ‘had a laff’
• Willis argues they saw through capitalist system and realised they had little change of progression or social mobility

Question 3

A03 of Neomarxism

Answer 3

• oversimplifies subcultures into pro and anti school
• heavily based on one person (Willis) interpretation of behaviour