MARXISTS

Question 1

Louis Althusser (Marxist, the ideological state apparatus)

Answer 1

• Althusser believes in the ideological state apparatus, which maintains the rule of the bourgeoise by controlling people’s ideas, values and beliefs.
• The education system is an important ISA, he argues it had two functions: to reproduce class inequality (by transmitting it from generation to generation, by failing each successive generation of working-class pupils in turn), and through legitimising inequality (by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause; the function of ideology is to persuade workers to accept that inequality in inevitable and that they deserve their subordinate position in society, and if they accept these ideas they’re less likely to challenge or threaten capitalism).

Question 2

Eval (Raymond Morrow and Carlos Torres, Postmodernists)

Answer 2

• Argues that society is now more diverse.
• They see non-class inequalities, such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality, as equally important.
• They argue sociologists must explain how education reproduces and legitimises all forms of inequality, not just class, and how different forms of inequality are inter-related.

Question 3

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (Marxist,)

Answer 3

• They argue that capitalism requires a workforce with the kinds of attitudes, behaviour and personality-type suited to their role as alienated and exploited workers, willing to accept hard work, low pay and orders from above.
• From their study of 237 New York high school students and the findings of other studies, they concluded that schools reward precisely the kind of personality traits that make for a submissive, compliant worker, like how they found pupils who showed independence and creativity tended to gain low grades, and those who showed obedience were rewarded.

Question 4

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis ( correspondence principle )

Answer 4

They also argue there are close parallels between schooling and work in capitalist society. Both schools and workplaces are hierarchies, with head teachers or bosses at the top making decisions and giving orders, and workers or pupils at the bottom obeying. Schooling takes place in the ‘long shadow of work’. This is known as the ‘correspondence principle’; the relationships and structures found in education mirror or correspond to those of work.

Question 5

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (hidden curriculum)

Answer 5

• The correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum- that is, all the ‘lessons’ that are learnt in school without being directly taught.
• For example, simply through the everyday workings of the school, pupils become accustomed to accepting hierarchy and competition, working for extrinsic rewards and so on. In this way, schooling prepares working-class pupils for their role as the exploited workers of the future, reproducing the workforce capitalism needs and perpetuating class inequality from generation to generation.

Question 6

Myth of Meritocracy

Answer 6

• Marxists (bowles and Gintis) criticise the functionalist view of role allocation and “sifting and sorting” arguing that the appearance of meritocracy is nothing but ideology.
• They argue that the proletariat are persuaded to believe that the rich and powerful reached their positions through their hard work and natural ability rather than because of their privileged birth because this led them to accept inequality as fair.
• They argue instead that class inequalities and reproduced in the next generation and that the education system plays a key role in this. As such they argue that the myth of meritocracy plays an important part in developing a false class consciousness.

Question 7

Eval (Paul Willis)-

Answer 7

• Willis rejects the view that school simply ‘brainwashes’ pupils into passively accepting their fate.
• By combining Marxist and interactionist approaches, he shows how pupils may resist the school and yet how this still leads them into working-class jobs.