Marxism on Education Flashcards
(23 cards)
How do traditional marxists see the edeucation system as?
Working in the interests of ruling class elites
What do Marxists believe the education system does?
- Ensures that working-class students are less likely to achieve good qualifications
- reproduces the existing social class structure
- prepares working-class stuends for their lower position in a capitalist society where they learn to accept hierarchy and obey rules
What did Bowels and Ginitis say?
Found that:
- schools rewarded students with characteristics such as being hard-working, disiplined, obedient and unquestioning of authority
- students demonstrating greater independence adn creative thinking were more likely to gain lower grades
- schools were producing unimaginative and unquestioning workforce suitable for alienation and exploitation
What is Bowels and Ginitis’ “Correspondence Principle”?
A way to describe the way education and the workplace mirror or correspond eachother
What is Bowels and Ginitis’ “Myth of meritocracy”?
- Education is NOT meritocratic
- We are led to believe that it treats people fairly and equally so people don’t question the system
- Universalistic standards are not applied equally and individual status is decided by social class, not intelligence of achievement
- Education system disguises the fact that social class is the main factor affecting someone’s income and convinces us to believe that they deserve that position
What are the criticisms of Bowels and Ginitis?
- Reseach may only apply to the 70s
- assume students have no free will and will passively accept the values taught via hidden curriculum - many reject values and resist authority figures
- Many teaching methods encourage creativity - preparing people for modern economy
What does Willis say against Bowels and Ginitis?
Education is not a particularly successful agency of socialistion and it can have unintended consequenced that many not be beneficial to capitalism
What do feminists say against Bowels and Ginitis?
That they ignore the fact that schools reproduce not only capitalism but patriachy too
What does Frire say?
Sees schools as repressive instituions, where learners are conditioned to accept oppressive relations of domination and subordination and to listen to their ‘betters’ through obeying teachers.
What does Illich say?
Schools are repressive institutions which promote conformity and encourage students to be passive accepters or existing inequalities and the interests of the powerful, rather than encouraging them to be critical and think for themselves.
What is Willis’ ‘Learning to Labour’ study?
- Neo-marxist
Studies 12 working class misbehaving boys who he called ‘lads’ - They were part of an anti - school subculture
- They engaged in smoking, bullying, truenting
- They failing in school so seeked alternative means to gain status
What did Bourdieu say?
Schools have an underlying culture which he calls the ‘habitus’. The middle class culture is dominenet in society so dominent in education.
- In schools, the habitus is middle class where those who don’t conform to ideas and tastes are not judged to be ‘ideal’ students
- middle class students who fit well into schools ‘habitus’ have more cultural capital.
- working class don’t possess this cultural capital and so failure is inevitable
What did Althussar say?
- Education is an ideological state apparatus
- This is a part of society that keeps bougeroise in power by reproducing and justifying inequalities
- The main role of education in a capitalist society is to reproduce obedient workforce.
- Does by; teaching the skills, reinforcing ruling class ideology and socialising workers into accepting this dominant ideology (false consciousness)
What are marxists’ specialised skills?
The belief that education teaches ‘specialised skills’ needed to fulfil social class but talents are pre-determined so opportunity for social mobility is limited for working class
What is a criticsm of marxisms’ specialised skills?
Too critical - people can overcome labelling
Feminists - argue Marxists overlook gender inequality in social mobility, e.g. glass ceiling
Where are 90% of Ofsted’s ‘failing’ schools?
Deprived areas
What is a result of poor Ofsted?
Problems in recruiting teachers, even if students work hard in lessons they may not have specialised teachers, e.g. pe teacher teaching maths
What is the ‘corrospondence principle’? achieved through?
Hidden curriculum
What are 3 examples of how schools mirror workplace
- Hierarchy of authority (among teachers and among pupils) + (authority in workplace)
- Alienation (students lack of control of what they learn/timetable) + (workers lack of control over production)
- Competition and division (among pupils over top of class/streaming/setting) + (through difference in pay and status for workplace)
What did Althussar say about ‘Indoctrination’?
Pupils are brainwashed by the ruling class to be ideal workers
How are students being indocrtinated?
Obedience and passivity
What are criticisms’ of Willis’ ‘Learning to Labour’ study?
He didn’t study any girls so it is unrepresentative
What did Willis say against the concept of passivity?
He critisized concept of ‘brainwashing’ as many students will jsut rebel from education instead of being passive to it
