Althusser: Education as an ideological state apparatus

Question 1

Ideological State Apparatus

Answer 1

Education helps to control people’s ideas, values & beliefs. Schools teach an ideology that benefits the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Children are taught that capitalism is reasonable & the best of all possible systems

Schools are part of the ideological state apparatus (alongside e.g. the media) that exist to control how people think & to make people accept, without question, the status quo of capitalist society.

Question 2

2

Answer 2

Existence of inequality is viewed as being right & inevitable. In this way people are given a ‘false consciousness’ & learn to cooperate in their own exploitation

School prepares children for a future of inequality in work. In school children become used to inequality as they are divided & ranked according to different academic abilities

Through rules, routines, streaming & selection working class children learn their “place” in society & are conditioned to accept failure