Education - Marxism
- Created by: chlopayne
- Created on: 19-04-19 11:27
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- Marxism and education
- Education is a form of social control
- It assumes different social classes are in competition for power and wealth.
- Marxists view education as a means of oppressing the working class.
- Marxists are generally hostile to formal school organisations and to teachers.
- Marxism is a conflict theory. Karl Marx said capitalism would be overthrown in his lifetime (1883).
- Correspondence theory
- Bowles and Giants = schools are a mirror of society. Society is a hierarchy.
- Children who succeed in school are obedient and accept authority.
- Their approach was theoretical. Bowles and Gintis see school as a conspiracy against working class.
- Counter school cultures
- Evidence of revolutionary potential among the working class.
- Resist the values of capitalism promoted by schools.
- Argued that only the working class form a counter-school culture.
- Paul Willis [1970s] studied 12 working-class boys in a secondary school. Writers have criticised Willis.
- These boys were seen as ‘working-class heroes’, whereas in reality they displayed rampant sexism and racism and were very anti-social.
- Evidence of revolutionary potential among the working class.
- Althusser, = schools transmit capitalist ideology - justifies capitalism.
- Oversimplification, schools do a great deal more than oppress children and brainwash them.
- Hidden curriculum
- Functionalists agree with Marxists that schools teach social ideas without a conscious knowledge that they do so.
- Marxists see this process as a negative and oppressive.
- Ivan Illich [1970s] said that schools kill creativity and children learn to accept authority without challenging it.
- Criticisms: children may not be engaged in conscious rebellion against school rules.
- It implies that children cannot judge for themselves the worth of what they are told by teachers.
- Functionalists agree with Marxists that schools teach social ideas without a conscious knowledge that they do so.
- Evaluation
- Strengths
- Challenges functionalists views that education system is meritocratic, some pupils have more opportunities.
- Explanation of class differences in attainment.
- Highlights the ideological role of education.
- Weaknesses
- Overlooks inequality - gender + ethnicity.
- Ignores that education is a route to better standards for some children.
- It sees teachers as agents of middle class.
- Education is designed to serve the needs of employers.
- Strengths
- Cultural capital
- Embodied capitalrefers to class indicators such as accent, culture and manners
- Objectified capital refers to ownership and access to social markers such as knowledge of music, access to art and books.
- Institutionalised capitalis capital that signifies authority and power
- Education is a form of social control
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