SECTION B: Marxist perspective on education:

Question 1

Three key thinkers:

Answer 1

• Louis Althusser (1971)
• Samuel Bowles and Herbert Binits (1976)
• Paul Williams (1997) neo-Marxist.

Question 2

Louis Althusser (1971):

Answer 2

1. Education reproduces class inequality.
   - Education teachers young people that capitalism is both natural and normal, despite its inherited inequalities and injustice.
2. Education legitimates class inequality.
   - By selecting and grading pupils for unequal positions in society, school make inequality seem fair and legitimate.

Question 3

Key Study: Bowels and Gintis:

Answer 3

• Argued that education is controlled by capitalists and serves this interests. The education system is designed to create an obedient workforce, that will accept inequality and equal.
• There are close parallels between schooling and wok in capitalist society. Correspondence Principle.

Question 4

Bowels and Gintis: The hidden curriculum:

Answer 4

Bowels and Gintis argue that the corresponded principle operates through the hidden curriculum.

Question 5

Features of the hidden curriculum include:

Answer 5

• Hierarchy,
• Competition,
• Obedience,
• Hard work,
• Discipline,
• School routine.

Question 6

Paul Willis (1977):

Answer 6

• Disagree with Bowels and Gintis that education is a straightforward process of indoctrination into the ‘ myth of meritocracy’.

Question 7

Paul Willis: Learning of Labour:

Answer 7

• Researcher, found that 12 working class kids developed a counter school culture because they opposed the value of school, the hidden curriculum and teachers.
• They saw no value in academic work or qualifications.
• These lads looked forward to working in a car factory, where there’s no qualifications required.
• They saw through the ideology of capitalism and their behaviour reinforced class inequality.

Question 8

Criticisms to Paul Willis research:

Answer 8

• A small sample of 12. Unrepresentative and ungeneralizable.
• Other studies show that working class pupils may oppose some aspects of schooling while being accepting of others.

Question 9

Contemporary Marxist: Freire (1996):

Answer 9

• Schools are repressive institutions, where learners are conditioned to accept oppressive relations of domination and subordination.

Question 10

AO3: Evaluation:

Answer 10

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