Marxist explanation of education Flashcards
Marxist explanation of education
Describe the Marxist’s views on society
Believe that we live in a capitalist society, where the ruling class exploits the working class through their labour.
What sociologist came up with the term ideological state apparatus?
Louis Althusser (1971)
What does Althusser believe the role of education is?
To reinforce class inequality for multiple generations and legitimise it by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause.
What study did Bowles and Gintis in 1976 do on capitalism in education?
- Studied 237 New York high schoolers.
- Found that schools reward personality traits that make for a submissive and compliant worker e.g. obedience and punctuality = high grades vs independence and creativity = low grades.
What did Bowles and Gintis believe was the role of education?
To produce an obedient workforce who accepted inequality as inevitable.
What is the hidden curriculum? (Bowles and Gintis)
Lessons learnt in school that are not directly taught.
What is the correspondence principle? (Bowles and Gintis)
Education mirroring the workplace in order to prepare for their role as exploited workers
State 3 instances of the correspondence principle
1) Hierarchy - Education - a hierarchy of authority among the teachers and the students and within the teachers themselves; workplace - a hierarchy of authority among workers
2) Extrinsic satisfaction - Education - grades rather than the work they did; workplace - pay rather than the work they produced.
What is the myth of meritocracy (Bowles and Gintis)?
The idea that meritocracy does not exist, but was created by the ruling class to justify their privileges and make the working-class accept that inequality is legitimate.
What is the poor-are-dumb theory?
The theory that the poor will justify their position in life by saying that they just did not try hard enough in school.
What sociologist investigated lad’s counter-culture to education?
Willis (1977)
What method did Willis use to conduct his study?
Participant observation and unstructured interviews.
What was Willis’s study about?
Working-class boys’ rebellion to the education system by forming a counter-culture opposed to school.
- Labelled meritocracy as a con, skipping school, call conformists ‘ear’oles and mock girls.
What did Willis discover about this study?
That by rejecting school, they fit into the jobs that capitalism needs them to perform in manual labour.
State 3 Critiques of the Marxist explanation of education.
Bowles and Gintis - deterministic
Willis - romanticises the working-class lads and portrays them as heroes despite their anti-social behaviour and misogyny.
MacDonald (1980) - Bowles and Gintis ignore how education reproduces patriarchy
