Marxist and Feminist

• Marxists believe that education only benefits the ruling classes, while feminism sees education as only benefiting men.
• • French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu studied social class reproduction.
  • He researched how cultural capital (cultural knowledge that helps someone navigate a culture) affects the opportunities available to French students from different social classes.
• Bourdieu - formal curricula

  • Members of the upper and middle classes generally have more cultural capital than families of lower class status.
  • Because of this, the dominant culture's values seem to always be rewarded in the educational system.
  • Teaching and tests are generally geared towards the dominant culture.
  • Other students can struggle to identify with values outside of their of social class.
• Social class reproduction - hidden curriculum

  • The cycle of rewarding those with cultural capital is found in the hidden curriculum, which is the type of nonacademic knowledge that someone learns through informal learning and the passing on of culture.
  • Marxism says that this hidden curriculum reinforces the positions of those with higher cultural capital. It also reinforces unequal status.
• Setting/streaming

  • Marxists say that streaming and setting, where students are sorted into classes by ability, make inequalities worse.
  • Although teachers may argue that students do better in these classes because they are with students of similar ability and get more individual attention from teachers, Marxists think that streaming and setting lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.
  • These happen when students live up or down to the teacher's and societal expectations (Education Week 2004).
• Training

  • To Marxists, schools play the role of training working class students to accept and retain their position as lower members of society.
  • Marxists argue that this role is fulfilled by students from wealthier areas accessing better or more resources than students in poorer areas (Lauren and Tyson 2008).
• Feminists view gender norms as socially constructed rather than biological and patriarchy as the main cause of gender inequality
• Liberal feminists

  • Liberal feminists believe that nobody benefits from gender inequality but that the education system socialises young people into gender roles.
  • They believe that changes should take place within existing structures, such as changes in the law.
• Radical feminists

  • Radical feminists see society as ruled by men (a patriarchy) who view women as subject to their laws and social norms.
  • They view education as a tool that perpetuates these differences through the enforcement of strict, inflexible gender roles.
  • Some radical feminists believe in the superiority of women, espousing an overthrow of the current system.
• Marxist feminists

  • Marxist feminists see capitalism as the main source of female oppression, not patriarchy; the purpose of the education system is to create an obedient and compliant workforce where women are seen as free labour (caring for men, raising a family and helping to produce a future workforce that serves capitalism).
  • Gender equality is brought about by revolution as part of a wider economic redistribution of wealth.