Marxism view on education Flashcards
what is capitalism
Capitalism is type of economy (exchange system) where there is private ownership of property, and two major social classes, the ruling class and the working class. The ruling class (bourgeoisie) own the means of production (factories, businesses, machinery) and exploit the working class (proletariat), who are paid a small amount, so the ruling class can keep the profit for themselves.
Marxist view on education
Education transmits messages to pupils which justify and legitimise capitalist ideology.
Social institutions such as education reproduce class inequalities and play an ideological role by persuading alienated students and exploited workers that inequality is justified and acceptable.
Althusser view on education, ideological state apparatus
A piece of equipment the government uses to control ideas (in a subconscious way so that you don’t realise it is happening
Althusser view on education, repressive state apparatus
A piece of equipment the government uses when people go against their ideas in order to oppress them
Althusser, reproduction of capitalist ideology
Education reproduces class inequality, by failing each generation of working-class pupils in turn and ensuring that they end up in the same kind of low-paid, low-skilled jobs as their parents.
Althusser, legitimation
Education legitimates (justifies) class inequality by producing ideologies (sets of ideas and beliefs) that disguise its true or real function. Education tries to convince people that inequality is inevitable (‘natural ability and talent’) and that failure is the fault of the individual, not the capitalism and an unequal education system.
rutters argument on education
peoplefrom poorer backrounds changing their social class
argues that a well organised school can sometimes enable people from poorer back grounds to change their social class upwards
bowels and gintis
school working similuarly to payed work
Argues that school and work are similar which creates new generations of workers ready to accept their lot and serve capitalism
Encourages an acceptance of hierarchy and authority
Motivation by external rewards
Qualifications rather than the joy of learning
Wages rather than the joy of working
This makes people easier to control as they are divided up
bowels and gintins, hidden curriculum
The correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum - the things that are learnt but are not directly taught. Through the everyday workings of the school, pupils learn how to be passive workers.
bowels and gintins , myth of meritocracy
Unlike functionalists, Marxists argue that the education system is made to seem fair to stop the poor/disadvantaged from challenging the system, causing people to blame themselves for being stupid, rather than blaming the system
Willis, learning to labour
He found that at secondary school, working class boys don’t learn anything valuable. Instead they learn how to do very little, to do the bare minimum to get through school. They also have an important anti-school subculture that values mucking around, breaking school rules and ‘having a laff’. Willis says this prepares them for the boredom and monotony of working-class jobs AND ensures their failure and underachievement to guarantee supply of workers for capitalism
bourdieu, habitus
He argues that each social class possesses its own cultural framework or set of ideas, which he calls a habitus. This cultural framework contains ideas about what counts as good and bad taste, good books, newspapers, TV programmes and so on. This habitus is picked up through socialisation in the family and the dominant class has the power to impose its own habitus in the education system. What counts as educational knowledge is not the culture of the society as a whole, but that of the dominant social class.
bourdieu, cultural capital
better-off middle and upper class backgrounds have more access to the culture of the dominant class
Pupils from lower social classes do not in general possess cultural capital, so the educational failure of the majority of these pupils is inevitable.
