4.3 Theorists

Question 1

Althusser

Marxist

Answer 1

Cultural reproduction involves the ability of a ruling class to pass on its political and economic domination from one generation to the next.

He characterised education as an ISA; an important institutional mechanism for social learning. Teachers are agents of ideological control, who transform pupil consciousness by trying to get them to accept the ‘realities of life’. Cultural institutions such as education influence our view of the world by what we learn in a range of ways.

Question 2

Weber

Answer 2

All societies develop beliefs about what is worthy of being known.

Question 3

Young

Answer 3

Argued what counts as educational knowledge always has an ideological dimension. Knowledge is socially constructed from a particular viewpoint and for a particular purpose.

Question 4

Young

Answer 4

Went on to argue that the formal school curriculum reflects the interests of a ruling class in capitalist societies in the way that knowledge is;

• Selected. This involves decisions about which subjects appear on the curriculum and the content of each subject.
• Stratified within the classroom, school and society. This involves questioning things such as why theoretical knowledge is considered superior to practical knowledge, the division between vocational and academic subjects are separated rather than combined within the curriculum.

Question 5

Self and Zealey

gendered curriculum

Answer 5

• more women studied subjects linked to medicine such as nursing
• more men studied business and administrative services, engineering and technology subjects and ccomputer science.

Question 6

Equal Oppurtunities Commision

UK

Answer 6

argue that in terms of educational achievement girls outperform boys at all levels of the UK education system yet this doesnt necesarilly help women into well paid jobs.

Question 7

Warrington and Younger

Answer 7

Note that male and female career aspirations often reflect traditional gender stereotypes, such as childcare, nursing, hairdressing and secretarial for girls, and computing, accountancy and plumbling for boys.

Question 8

Kampmeier

Answer 8

argues that despite there being greater opportunities for stereotyping and segregation in vocational training, academic education does not necesarilly guarantee a lack of stereotyping and segregation.

Question 9

Best

Answer 9

Demonstrated how pre-school texts designed to develop reading skills remain populated by sexist assumptions and stereotypes.

Question 10

Norman

Answer 10

Argued that teacher expectations, especially in early years schooling, emphasise female roles related to the mother/carer.

Question 11

Jackson

Answer 11

Defined the hidden curriculum as the things children learn from the experience of attending school

Question 12

Skelton

Answer 12

Suggested that informal education involves a set of implicit messages rlating to knowledge, values, norms of behaviours and attitudes the learmers experience in and through educational processes

Question 13

Bourdieu

Neo Marxist

Answer 13

Argues that in late/postmodern societies, the mechanism of cultural reproduction is more varied and more subtle. Bourdieu’s concept ofcultural capital, for example, provides a significant mechanism for cultural reproduction that is carried out by the education system.

Question 14

Bourdieu

Neo Marxist

Answer 14

He is critical of the idea that schools operate along meritocratic lines, because differences in cultural capital influence both the relative starting points of students as they enter the education system as well as their relative progress through that system.

Question 15

Bourdieu

Answer 15

MC culture is reproduced and given higher status than wc culture.
This is symbolic violence against the working class.

Question 16

Crozier

Answer 16

Noted how mc parents were able to invest more time, money and effort into their children’s education than their wc peers.

Question 17

Mariaye

Answer 17

found mc parents were able to invest more time, money and effort into their children’s education than their wc peers in countries such as Mauritius.

Question 18

Bourdieu

Answer 18

Developed a concept called habitus. Habitus is similar to the idea of habitat, the environment in which a group lives and flourishes.

He believed that schools are the ‘natural habitat’ of the middle and upper classes. Wc students face a culture clash.

Question 19

Light

Answer 19

Light defines the idea of different classes having access to cultural resources similar to their access to financial resources as ‘fluency in a society’s elite culture’ or ‘high cultural knowledge that ultimately rebounds to the owner’s financial and social advantage.’

Question 20

Light

Answer 20

Argues that cultural capital takes numerous forms but is acquired in the family and in formal schooling.

Question 21

Cotton et al

Answer 21

state that the hidden curriculum in contemporary education places highest value on hard work, efficiency, and value for money, rather than equality and opportunity.
There are token attempts to promote equality, contrasted with continual emphasis on hard work - shows the true message of education.

Question 22

Giroux

Answer 22

A neo-Marxist, he believes that schools do NOT transmit one unambiguous message as they are sites of ideological struggle.
Some teachers may emphasise certain rules, whilst others don’t - lead to other informal messages.