Evaluate the View that education reproduces & legitimates inequality (30)
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- Created on: 04-05-17 15:12
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- Evaluate the claim that education reproduces & legitimates inequality (30)
- Introduction
- Define Marxism
- Structural conflict theory; class inequality; bourgosie & proletariat
- Althusser: Ideological State Apparatus
- Willis: The Lads
- Bowles & Gintis: The Correspondence Principle, the Hidden Curriculum & the myth of meritocracy
- Define Marxism
- Althusser: Ideological State Apparatus
- Legitimating class inequality
- Produces ideologies that hide the true cause of w/c failure
- E.g. meritocracy
- Link to Bowles & Gintis: The myth of meritocracy
- Convinces people that failure is the fault of the individual & that inequality is inevitable
- Ensures a steady supply of proletarian workers to feed capitalism, whilst at the same time preventing revolution
- Althusser's theory does explain the patterns of educational achievement & social class, but it is too deterministic & too negative
- Ev. Inequality & failure is the fault of the individual. The education system is meritocratic, meaning everyone has the chance to succeed.
- Ensures a steady supply of proletarian workers to feed capitalism, whilst at the same time preventing revolution
- E.g. meritocracy
- Produces ideologies that hide the true cause of w/c failure
- Reproducing class inequality
- Ensures that each generation of w/c pupils fail
- These pupils then end up in w/c jobs, serving capitalism by producing goods in factories
- Affects the pupils' life chances
- Ev. Does explain patterns in the achievement of pupils from different social classes
- Ensures a steady supply of proletarian workers to feed capitalism, whilst at the same time preventing revolution
- Althusser's theory does explain the patterns of educational achievement & social class, but it is too deterministic & too negative
- Ev. Where Marxists see inequality, there is really diversity & choice
- Affects the pupils' life chances
- Ev. Explains why having w/c parents makes failure more likely, but is too deterministic
- These pupils then end up in w/c jobs, serving capitalism by producing goods in factories
- Ensures that each generation of w/c pupils fail
- ISA: Institutions used by the state to control thoughts and ideas
- Legitimating class inequality
- Bowles & Gintis
- Legitimates class inequality
- The Correspondence Principle
- Operates through the Hidden Curriculum
- School provides pupils with certain skills without teaching them, in order to prepare them for the workplace
- Ev. Marxism is too negative. School is a positive step into wider society
- School reflects the work place in order to prepare the young for alienation & exploitation in the capitalist work place
- E.g. hierarchy, extrinsic reward, fragmentation of knowledge / work
- Ev. Outdated. No longer applies to the post-Fordist economy / postmodernity
- Ev. Provides a link between the education system & capitalism
- Obedient & passive workforce is needed to prevent a class revolution
- Ev. Popper: The idea of revolution cannot be falsified
- School provides pupils with certain skills without teaching them, in order to prepare them for the workplace
- Operates through the Hidden Curriculum
- The Myth of Meritocracy
- Pupils are led to believe that the education system is meritocratic, that inequality is inevitable and that failure is the fault of the individual
- Link to Althusser: ISA
- Although untrue, meritocracy is designed to create a particular way of thinking
- Ev. Marxism is too negative
- Ev. Meritocracy is real
- Pupils are led to believe that the education system is meritocratic, that inequality is inevitable and that failure is the fault of the individual
- Bowles & Gintis provide an explanation for how the education reproduces & legitimates class inequality. Too negative, deterministic, outdated.
- The Correspondence Principle
- Legitimates class inequality
- Willis: Learning to Labour
- Study of 12 boys, who formed an anti-school sub-culture called "The Lads"
- W/c pupils actively resist indoctrination with values such as meritocracy with acts of defiance
- Link: Willis rejects Bowles & Gintis' Correspondence Principle
- Marxists disagree on how the education system reproduces class inequality
- Reflects the shopfloor culture of male manual workers
- This means they are guaranteed to fail, as they refuse to comply to the school's values
- This reproduces class inequality
- Ev. deterministic, Use Fuller
- Link: Willis rejects Bowles & Gintis' Correspondence Principle
- Ev. Very small study. Unlikely to be representative
- W/c pupils actively resist indoctrination with values such as meritocracy with acts of defiance
- Study of 12 boys, who formed an anti-school sub-culture called "The Lads"
- Introduction
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