marxism

• Education is a significant part of the superstructure of education, serving the needs of the ruling class who control the economic base.
• Education in capitalist society has two main functions: it reproduces the inequalities and social relations of production, and it serves to legitimate these inequalities through the myth of meritocracy.
• According to Louis Althusser, education is an ideological state apparatus with the main function of maintaining, legitimizing, and reproducing class inequalities by transmitting ruling class/capitalism views as common values.
• Education reproduces the conditions needed for capitalism, ensuring that the proletarian is in a state of false consciousness which prevents revolt.
• Pierre Bourdieu argues that working class are effectively dumped into accepting failure and limited social mobility due to education values culture of middle and upper class.
• Correspondence theory suggests that education corresponds to employment.
• Bowles and Gintis argue that education is controlled by capitalism and serves their interests, preparing a hardworking, docile and obedient workforce through hidden messages.
• Paul Willis's study "Learning to Labour" followed 12 working class lads from the last few months of school into working class jobs, observing their laughs to get through the day.
• Willis associates masculinity with wage, suggesting that pupils are not passive, and romanticizes lads as heroes.
• Willis's study is small scale and only focuses on boys.