The Marxist Perseoctive On Education

Question 1

Marxism

Answer 1

• where functionalists see society and education based on value consensus, Marxist see it as based on class division and capitalist exploitation

Question 2

Karl Marx

Answer 2

• Marx described capitalism as a two class system:
  1. The capitalist class/bourgeoisie are the minority class. They are the employers who own the means of production. They make their profits by exploiting the labour of the majority - the proletariat or working class
  2. The working class are forced to sell their labour power to the capitalists since they own no means of production of their own and so have no other source of income. As a result, work under capitalism is poorly paid, alienating, unsatisfying, and something over which workings have no real control
• this creates potential for class conflict. E.g, if workers realise they are being exploited, they may demand higher wages, better working conditions or even the abolition of capitalism itself. Marx believed that ultimately the proletariat would unite to overthrow the capitalist system and create. A classless, equal society
• it is able to continue because the bourgeoisie also control the state. A key component of the state is the education system, and Marxist see education as functioning to prevent revolution and maintain capitalism

Question 3

Althusser: the ideological state apparatus

Answer 3

• Marxist see the state as the means by which the capitalist ruling class maintain their dominant position. According to Althusser, the state consists of two elements or ‘apparatuses’, both of which serve to keep the bourgeoisie in power:
  1. The repressive state apparatuses (RSAs)
  2. The ideological state apparatuses (ISAs)

Question 4

What is the repressive state apparatuses (RSAs)

Answer 4

• maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by force or the threat of it. The RSAs include the police, courts and army when necessary, they use physical force to repress the working class

Question 5

What is the ideological state apparatuses (ISAs)

Answer 5

• maintain the rule of the bourgeoises by controlling peoples ideas, values and beliefs. The ISAs include religion, the media and the education system

Question 6

Althussers view of education

Answer 6

• in Althussers view, the education system is an important ISA. He argues that it performs two functions:
  1. Education REPRODUCES class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation, by failing each successive generation of working class pupils in turn
  2. Education LEGITIMISES (justifies) class inequality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause. The function of ideology is to persuade workers to accept that inequality is inevitable and that they deserve their subordinate position in society. If they accept these ideas, they are less likely to challenge or threaten capitalism

Question 7

Bowles and gintis: schooling in capitalist America

Answer 7

• Marxist Bowles and ginits argue that capitalism requires a workforce with the kind 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. In the view of Bowles and ginitis, this is the role of the education system in capitalist society - to reproduce an obedient workforce that will accept inequality as inevitable
• from their study of New York high school students and the findings of other studies, Bowles and finish conclude that schools reward precisely the kind of personality traits that make for a submissive, compliant worker. For instance, they found that students who showed independence and creativity tended to gain lower grades,while those who showed characteristics linked to obedience and discipline tended to gain high grades
• Bowles and ginits conclude from this evidence that schooling helps to produce the onbdeient workers that capitalism needs. They do not believe that education fosters personal development. Rather, its stunts distorts students development

Question 8

The correspondence principle and the hidden curriculum

Answer 8

• Bowles and ginits argue that 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 the decisions and giving orders, and workers or pupils at the bottom obeying. As Bowles and ginits puts it, schooling takes place in ‘the long shadow of work’
• Bowles and ginits refer to these parallels between school and workplace as examples of the ‘correspondence principle’. The relationships and structures found in education mirror or correspond to those of work
• Bowles and ginits argue that the correspondence principle operates through the hidden curriculum - all the ‘lessons’ that are learnt in schools without being directly taught. E.g, 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 explored workers of the future, reproducing the workforce capitalism needs and perpetuating class inequality from generation to generation
• e.g, cohen argues that youth training schemes serve capitalism by teaching young workers not genuine job skills, but rather the attitudes and values needed in a subordinate labour force. It lowers their aspirations so that they will accept lower paid work

Question 9

The myth of meritocracy: legitimation of class inequality

Answer 9

• because capitalist society is based on inequality, there is always a danger that the poor will feel that this inequality is undeserved and unfair, and that they will rebel against the system responsible for it. In Bowles and gintis view, the education system helps to prevent this from happening, by legitimating class inequality. It does this by producing ideologies that serve to explain and justify why inequality is fair, natural and inevitable
• Bowles and gintis describe the education system as ‘a giant myth making machine’. A key myth that education promotes is the ‘myth of meritocracy’. Meritocracy means that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve, that rewards are based on ability and effort, and that those who gain the highest rewards deserve the, because they are the most able and hardworking
• unlike functionalist such as parsons, Bowles and gintis argue that meritocracy does not in fact exist. Evidence shows that the main factor determining whether or not someone has a high income is their family and class background, not their ability or educational achievement
• by disguising this fact, the myth of meritocracy serves to justify the privileges or the higher classes, making it seem that they gained them through succeeding in open and fair competition at school. This helps to persuade the working class to accept inequality as legitimate, and makes it less likley that they will seek to overthrow capitalism.
• the education system also justifies poverty, through what Bowles and gintis describe as the ‘poor are dumb’ theory of failure. It dose so by blaming poverty on the individual, rather than blaming capitalism. It therefore plays an important part un reconciling workers to their exploited position, making them less likely to rebel against the system

Question 10

Willis: learning to labour

Answer 10

• all Marxists agree that capitalism cannot function without a workforce that is willing to accept exploitation. Likewise all Marxist see education as reproducing and legitimating class inequality. This is, it ensures that working class pupils are slotted into and learn to accept jobs that are poorly paid and alienating
• however, whereas Bowles and ginits see education as a fairly straightforward process of indoctrination into the myth of meritocracy, Willis study shoes that working class pupils can resist such attempts to indoctrinate them
• as a Marxist, Willis is intrested in the way schooling serves capitalism. However, he combines this with an interactionist approach that focuses on the meanings pupils give to their situation and hoe these enable them to resist indoctrination.

Question 11

The lads counter culture - Willis

Answer 11

• using qualitative research methods including participant observation and unstructured interviews, Willis studied the counter school culture of ‘the lads’ - a group of 12 working class boys - as they make the transition from school to work
• the lads form a distinct counter culture opposed to the school. They are scornful of the conformist boys who they call the ‘earoles’ - because unlike the lads they listen to what the teacher tells them. The lads have their own brand of intimidatory humor, ‘taking the piss’ out of the ‘earoles’ and girls
• the lads find school boring and meaningless and they flout its rules and values, e.g, by smoking and drinking, distrusting classes and playing truant. For lads, such acts of deviance are ways of resisting the school. They reject as a ‘con’ the schools meritocratic ideology that working class pupils can achieve middle class jobs through hard work

Question 12

What does Willis note about lads counter culture

Answer 12

• Willis notes similarity’s between the lads anti school counter culture and the shop floor culture of male manual workers. Both cultures see manual work as superior and intellectual work as inferior and effeminate. The lads identity strongly with male manual work and this explains why they see themsleves as superior both to girls and to the ‘effeminate’ earoles who aspire to manual jobs.
• however, it also explains why the lads counter culture of resistance to school helps them to slot into the vary jobs - inferior in terms of skill, pay and conditions - that capitalism needs someone to perform e.g,
• having been accused to boredom and finding ways of amusing themselves in school, they dont expect stratification from work and are good at finding diversions to cope with the tedium of unskilled labour
• their acts or rebelllion guarantee that they will end up in unskilled jobs, by ensuring their failure to gain worthwhile qualifications
• for willis, the irony is that by helping them resist the schools ideology, the lads counter culture ensures that they are destined for the unskilled work that capitalism needs someone to perform

Question 13

Evaluation of Marxists approaches

Answer 13

• Marxist approaches are useful in exposing the ‘myth of meritocracy’. They show the role that education plays as an ideological state apparatus, serving the interest of capitalism by reproducing and legitimating class inequality
• however postmodernists criticise Bowles and ginits correspondence principle on the grounds that todays post fotdist economy requires schools to produce a very different kind of labour force from the one described by Marxist. Postmodernist argue that education now reproduces diversity, not inequality
• Marxist disagree with one another about how reproduction and legitimation take place. Bowles and gintis trade a deterministic view. That is, they assume that pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination. This approach fails to explain why many pupils reject the schools values
• in contrast, Willis reject 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 Woking class jobs
• critical modernists such as morrow and Torres criticise Marxist for taking a ‘class first’ approach that sees class as the key inequality and ignores all other kinds of
• instead, like postmodernists, morrow and Torres argyle that society os now more diverse. They see non class inequality, such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality, as equally important. They argue that sociologist must explain how education reproduces and legitimates all forms of inequality, not just class, and how the different forms of inequality are inter related
• feminist make a similar point. E.g, MacDonald argues Bowles and ginits ignore the fact that schools reproduce not only capitalism, but patriarchy too. Similarly, as McRobbie points out, females are largely absent from Willis study