neo-marxist

• Willis- learning to labour

  Conducted using interviews and participant observations

  -Studied 12 working class 'lads' from an anti-school subculture who were racist and sexist. he followed the lads to their first jobs and their resistance to following school values helped them get into to the 'inferior' jobs that a capitalist society requires: manual labour (in which they were exploited)

  -they saw themselves as superior to staff

  -they were not interested in gaining academic qualifications

  and this was also reflected in their jobs
• Giroux

  -W/C pupils do not passively accept everything they are taught

  -the education system possesses relative autonomy from the economic base- it has some independence
• Weaknesses

  -study not generalisable

  -outdated

  -oversimplified

  -relies too much on willis’ subjective interpretation of the lads’ behaviour
• Differences between Marxist and neo-marxist view on education

  -m believe that pupils conform with in school whereas nm believe some pupils actively rebel

  -m believe education creates passive workers who will be easily exploited whereas nm believes it creates poorly behaved workers (but they dont rebel against the capitalist system)

  -m believe capitalism directly shapes the content of education whereas nm believes it shapes society but groups within education create subcultures