Marxism Flashcards
(8 cards)
Describe Althusser’s ideology
-2 apparatuses keep the bourgeoisie in power
- ideological state apparatus: maintain power by people’s ideas values and beliefs e.g. religion, media, education
- repressive state apparatus: maintain power by threat, force or coercion e.g. police, courts, army
According to Althusser what are the two key functions of the education system ?
- reproduce class inequality
- legitimise class inequality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause e.g. false class consciousness
According to Bowles and Gintis, what is the role of education?
to create an obedient and passive workforce to be alienated and accept inequality
Describe Bowles and Gintis’ study
- 237 High schoolers
- Found that schools reward personality traits for a passive, obedient worker
- Discourage independence and creativity
- education stunts and distorts personal development and fosters obedience
Describe Bowles and Gintis’ theory of the correspondence principle and the hidden curriculum
- there a parallels between school and work
- the correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum
- Therefore school prepare wc pupils for the role of an exploited worker to reproduce class inequality
- e.g. rewards : school = grades, merits / work= promotion, pay
Describe Bowles and Gintis’ theory of the myth of meritocracy
There is always a danger that the poor will recognise that capitalism is unfair and rebel, so meritocracy makes them passive
- meritocracy produces ideologies to justify class inequality
- the myth of meritocracy convinces us that the highest rewards go to the most talented people
- it justifies poverty : “poor are dumb” (Bowles and Gintis) - blame the poor because they didn’t work hard enough
Describe Paul Willis’ study “learning to labour”
- 12 WC boys
- qualitative research - participant observation + unstructured interviews
- formed a counter-school subculture
- resist school and reject meritocracy
- see manual work as superior as they have been socialised into not valuing education, so they believe they are destined to work manual labour
- rebellion guarantees unskilled jobs
Criticisms of “learning to labour”
- Willis romanticises the WC boys, as feminists would say he ignored the blatant misogyny of the boys
- methodology is not clear which makes it unreliable
- only of boys so you can’t generalise to the whole of the working class
- small sample so not representative or valid
