Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Marxist Perspectives on Education
- Althusser
- saw education as the main Ideological State apparatus
- used to pass on ruling class ideology
- Selects people for the different social
classes and equips them with attitudes &
behaviours that makes them good,
submissive employees.
- For example, education teaches workers to accept exploitation
and always obey managers.
- Bowles and Gintis
- Schooling and the long shadow of work
- Say education's main focus is to reproduce a disciplined and skilled workforce
to fuel capitalism: this happens in two ways
- Similar to Althusser
- The school is run similarly to a business through
the Hidden curriculum, so children become used to
being a good workforce
- How does the hidden
curriculum reproduce a good
workforce?
- school rules i.e. detentions,
punishments and prizes
- you must conform to the
rules of society or be
punished
- division in male and
female education (i.e.
different uniforms +
subject preferences)
- privileges given to
sixth formers
- teaches respect for elders
- Education justifies and
replicates social inequality
- How does education justify and replicate
social inequality?
- Believe meritocracy is a myth
- Class background, in
fact, determines how
well a person does.
- CRITICISMS
- Education only benefits the ruling class
- Functionalists believe it benefits
society as a whole; feminists
believe it benefits men rather than
the ruling class