Marxist perspective

• Ideological State Apparatus


  A social institution whose main role is to pass on the dominate ideology of the ruling class.
• Repressive State Apparatus 


  A social institution whose role it is to enforce the dominant ideology by force or threat of force (police)
• Correspondence Principle


  The ways the education system mirrors the world of work. E.g. hierarchy, punctuality etc
• Hidden Curriculum


  The informal learning processes that happen in school. It's a side effect of education that teaches students the norms and values of society.
• Althusser


  Reproduction of social inequality:

  • Education deliberately engineers working-class failure to create an unqualifies factory workforce.
  • Private education prepares children of the elite for position of power.
  • Hidden Curriculum is shaped to assist middle-class achievement and deter working-class achievement.

  Legitimisation of social inequality:

  • Middle-class has access to more cultural and economic capital which puts them at an advantage.
  • Education encourages students to blindly accept capitalist values, through the hidden curriculum.
• Bowles and Ginits


  Correspondence Principal:

  School processes mirror the world of work in order to prepare them for manual labour:

  • Wages not satisfaction.
  • Lack of control.
  • Obedience.
  • Achieved status.
  • Discipline and consequences.
  • Boredom.

  Myth of meritocracy:

  Education claims to be meritocratic but schools discriminate in favour of the middle-class.

  Hidden Curriculum lowers working-class ambitions.
• Neo Marxist evaluation - Giroux


  Rejects the view that WC passively accept their position to become compliant workers.

  Existence of anti-school subcultures, truancy and exclusion suggest both the hidden curriculum and correspondence principal have failed.

  Marxists often fail to acknowledge that gender and ethnicity often combine with class to produce success or failure
• Social Democratic Evaluation


  Halsey Floud and Martin suggest that Marxists exaggerate the effect the education has on working class achievement.

  They point out that govt policies such as comprehensivisation have improved the chances of the working class.
• Neo-Liberal Evaluation 


  Saunders claim that middle class educational success is due to biological differences.
• New Right Evaluation 


  Chubb and Moe argue that the Marxists fail to see how education has failed all social groups not just the working class.

  They believe that education has failed to equip all students with the skills needed to be successful in the global market place.
• Postmodernist Evaluation


  Marxists fail to acknowledge that education actually reproduces diversity rather than inequality.

  Morrow and Torres claim the students create their own identities rather than being constrained by traditional structures like class. In postmodern societies students are able to make their own choices about their identity e.g. increasing numbers of trans students.