Social Control within the education system

Much of what happens in education is about social control. Children learn to follow rules and to behave in the way that the schools require. Marxists such as Althusser believe that schools form part of the idealogical state apparatus because they teach the ideas of the ruling class. Children are taught to obey teachers, and this reproduces the world outside the classroom where they will obey their employers. Durkheim however, was very much in favour of very strict discipline in schools. His logic was that offenders…