Marxism + Education

• Marxist Functions of Education

  1. Prepares children for a life in work under an oppressive capitalist system
  2. Ensures that middle class children achieve the best and working class the least
  3. Transmitting capitalist values to all
• Transmitting capitalist values to all

  Althusser argued that education acted as ideological state apparatus, and functioned to transmit capitalist ideology on to all children.
• Ensures that middle class children achieve the best and working class the least

  Bourdieu (1977) argues that school focuses more on a middle class culture.

  It values the culture of the middle and upper class more than that of the working class.

  The curriculum is designed to favour those with more cultural capital, therefore working class children are more likely to underachieve.
• Prepares children for a life in work under an oppressive capitalist system 

  Bowles and Gintis (1976) argue that education ‘stands in the long shadow of work’. 

  Students learn through the hidden curriculum how to be a good employee later in life.

  Most notably, students learn to accept hierarchy and inequality.