Marxist approach to Education

• Role of education for Marxists

  Education in a capitalist society reinforced the reproduction of an effective workforce
• Althusser (1971)


  -Education= Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

  -The reproduction of the necessary technical skills

  -The reproduction of ruling class ideology and the socialisation of the workforce (false consciousness)
• IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES (ISAs)


  Maintain bourgeoisie rule by controlling people's ideas, values and beliefs e.g. religion, media and education system.
• REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUSES (RSAs)


  Maintain bourgeoisie rule through FORCE or the THREAT of force e.g. police, courts, army.
• According to Althusser, the education system performs two functions

  1)REPRODUCE CLASS INEQUALITY-Transmit inequality from generation to generation by failing all working-class children - creating a cycle.

  2)LEGITIMISE CLASS INEQUALITY-Justify inequality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause.

  Persuades workers to accept that inequality is inevitable and that they deserve their subordinate position in society.

  Accepting this means they are less likely to challenge capitalism.
• Illich and Freire (1995)

  Hegemonic control leads to promoting conformity and passive acceptance

  Those who do not conform are alienated/ marginalised
• Formal curriculum


  These are timetabled subjects

  Specific subjects that are taught directly
• Hidden curriculum

  Particular skills/ practises taught in education, but are not under timetabled subjects
• Bowles and Gintis


  -Schooling and the 'long shadow of work'

  -The idea of work embedded in education to the point of work shadowing over education

  -Shown through the hidden curriculum

  -The hidden curriculum mimics and prepares social relationships

  -The role of the education system legitimises and/ or justifies inequality
• Bowles and Gintis:The myth of meritocracy


  -The education system legitimises inequality and creates a false class consciousness (so that the proletariat do not rebel against the system).

  -It produces ideologies that explain and justify why inequality is fair, natural and inevitable.

  -Such as the idea that society is built on meritocratic principles.

  -Marxist sociologists would say that this is a MYTH and meritocracy does not exist - it is your class, your income, your family background that determines your success in society.
• Pros of this approach

  -See schools as playing a role in legitimising social inequality- can be seen in professional careers, people tend to be from privileged backgrounds.

  -As a macro theory, concerned with the structural relationship between education and other parts of the social system, such as the economy and social inequality.
• Cons of this approach

  -Place too much emphasis on the role of education in forming students' identity, and pay too little attention to the influences of other agencies of socialisation, such as the family, the media and work.

  -They don't fully consider the way students react to schooling in ways that aren't necessarily 'functional' for the social system or capitalism. E.g. pupils disrupt schools, play truant and don't learn. Worker's earlier experience of schooling does not stop them from going on strike.