marxist views on education

Question 1

poverty statistics that prove the marxist view of education:

Answer 1

according to the social mobility comission 2020 report:

around 4.3 million children, nearly 1/3 of them in the UK were living in poverty as of 2020

Question 2

school statistics that prove the marxist view of education:

Answer 2

according to the social mobility comission 2020 report:

at 16, only 24.7% of disadvantaged students get a good pass in GCSE English and Maths compared to 49.9% of others

Question 3

employment statistics that prove the marxist view of education:

Answer 3

according to the social mobility comission 2020 report:

you are still 60% more likely to get a professional job if you come from a privelaged rather than a working class background. In 2019, those from a working class background working in professional jobs earnt about £6000 less than those from a privelaged background.

Question 4

health statistics that prove the marxist view of education:

Answer 4

according to the social mobility comission 2020 report:

life expectancy is falling for women in the most deprived 10% of areas, it has been revealed by coronavirus that this is due to socio-economic factors.

Question 5

Louis Althusser

Answer 5

• the education system is based on the infrastructure of society:
  1. reproduction of skills necessary to create new generation of workers
  2. reproduction of ruling class ideology, socialisation of workers in terms of this
• ruling class control greatly depends on ideological control, people accepting their exploitation
• education system is the main ideological state apparatus in industrial society
• church is the main ideological state apparatus in pre industrial society

Question 6

Evaluation of Althusser

Answer 6

• little evidence
• very general framework
• members of society presented as “cultural dopes”- ignores that people resist
• ignores that people have their own morals and the meanings they ascribe to their own actions

Question 7

Bowles and Gintis summary

Answer 7

• studied 273 students in the senior year of a New York high school
• said that there is a “long shadow of work”
• correspondance between social relationships in school and in work
• reproduces labour power in three ways
• different personality traits are encouraged and discouraged in schools

Question 8

what are the three ways that Bowles and Gintis say schools use to reproduce labour power?

Answer 8

1. the forms of conciousness
2. interpersonal behaviour
3. personality reinforced in students

Question 9

evidence for Bowles and Gintis’ claim that personality traits are controlled/reinforced in the education system? (within their study)

Answer 9

• in their study of the senior year of a new york high school (237 students):
• low grades were linked to creativity, independence and aggression. these traits are punished
• characteristics that are rewarded are those that indicate subordinancy and discipline (perseverance, consistency, dependability)
• through this system, obedience and subservience are encouraged

Question 10

correspondance theory

Answer 10

a theory that states there is a similarity between two things

Question 11

how do Bowles and Gintis argue that schools mirror the workplace?

Answer 11

• people are forced to accept authority via the hierarchal structure
• little direct satisfaction (intrinsic) is recieved from completing the work, so people are instead motivated by external rewards (extrinsic).
• this results in alienation as the individual is not personally involved in the work

Question 12

Bowles and Gintis on the myth of meritocracy

Answer 12

• for capitalism to work efficiently, the inequalities it produces must be legitimised
• they suggest a large part of this comes from schools
• the belief that schools provide an opportunity for fair competition is created
• this justifies those with high positions in the workplace because people believe that this was earned through hard work
• they reject the view that rewards are based on meritocracy and think it’s instead based on family background
• children with higher class backgrounds gain high positions regardless of their ability, the education system disguises this with the myth of meritocracy

Question 13

Bowles and Gintis evaluation

Answer 13

• schools produce misfits and rebels as well as docile workers because they offer freedom of speech: this contradicts the demands of capitalism and reflects real world conflicts in doing so
• disregard for resistance to authority and school rules
• too deterministic- ignores that school is affected by factors other than the economy
• Henry Giroux (1984) argues that schools are sites of ideological struggle, there is conflict between the views of people in different positions

Question 14

evaluation of Bowles and Gintis (positive)

Answer 14

• recent research indicates that their study still has much relevance: it indicates that employers look for perseverance, conscientiousness and industriousness as factors for hiring/ promoting workers
• these are the attitudes rewarded by schools
• they are relatively certain they had the facts straight

Question 15

Willis’ study details

Answer 15

• used methods such as observation in class and other settings, informal interviews and recorded group sessions
• he studied 12 working class boys in their last 18 months at school and first few months at work, his study was based on a working-class estate located in a mainly industrial small town in the midlands during the 70s

Question 16

sumary of Willis’ study- the findings about the boys

Answer 16

• found schools weren’t as effective in producing workers as bowles and gintis suggested
• the boys = counter-school culture
• kept entertained w/ ‘irrelevant and marauding misbehaviour’, eg mischief, harassing conformist students (‘ear ‘oles’)
• school = boring, adult male life= freedom and excitement
• thought adult male life was exciting bc of alcohol, part time jobs + nights out
• considered manual work “real work” as they viewed it as masculine, unlike what the others were headed for

Question 17

what did the counter-school culture involve?

Answer 17

• feeling superior to teacher and conformist students
• little/no value to academic work done at school
• no interest in gaining qualifications
• resented control of school, trying to win “symbolic and physical space from the institution and its rules”

Question 18

analysis of willis’ study

Answer 18

• their disobedience is what prepared them for work- they were suitable for male, unskilled or semi skilled work, despite what some see as the ideal workers for capitalism to be obedient
• their construction of masculinity is important to note because it gave them the power to have self-respect in their resistance where others saw them as failures
• their counter-school culture is very similar to shop-floor culture
• while both cultures challenge institutions and such, they do not do this head on as it risks them being dismissed from their positions

Question 19

what does willis say about his study?

Answer 19

• in some ways the boys see through their exploitation, in some ways they contribute towards it
• he calls these partial penetrations
• the myth of meritocracy: the boys recognise that the possibility of having social agency is basically nonexistent, any qualifications they try to get will ultimately be meaningless and a waste of effort due to what job they choose
• the boys were ultimately headed to a life of exploitation due to low skill jobs

Question 20

evaluation of Willis by Madeleine Arnot (2004)

Answer 20

• his theory has increased in relevance for two reasons:
  1. schools are becoming increasingly exam and competition driven
  2. deindustrialisation of western society has lead to the disappearance of a lot of manual jobs, creating uncertainty about the futures of people’s careers
• these might make working class masculintiy and resistance to schools even more relevant today

Question 21

evaluation of Willis by Liz Gordon (1984) + an example of her point

Answer 21

• willis has ‘prodivded the model on which most subsequent cultural studies within education have been based’
• for example, Michael Ward’s 2015 study called from labouring to learning: working class masculinties, education and deindustrialisation
• this shows that despite the disappearance of many working class jobs, working class culture has remained the same in some ways

Question 22

criticisms of Willis

Answer 22

• critics suggest that his sample is an inadequate basis for generalisation as he only studied 12 students who were boys and were atypical for the students of the school he studied
• he is accused of ignoring subcultures within the school- some students were in between the extremes of being conformist and counter-school
• the relevance of his study is questioned in an age where society is increasingly de-industrialised and manual jobs are disappearing

Question 23

overview of willis as a researcher

Answer 23

• neo-marxist (1977)
• looks at other issues as well as class
• combined interactionist approaches, focusing on the meanings pupils give to their situations
• qualitative and quantitative

Question 24

Willis’ criticism of Bowles and Gintis

Answer 24

• believed schools can be sites of ideological struggle
• education isn’t entirely shaped by the economy
• too deterministic, not everyone pasively accepts the rules
• they ignore other factors like gender and ethnicity
• if education really prepares for work then why do we have work-based training programmes and apprenticeships