Marxist perspective

Marxist perspective

1. Ruling class - Bourgeoise/capitalist

2. Subject class - Proletariate/workers

   • class reproduces itself

3. ECONOMY

   • Education
   • Family
   • Religon
   • Legal
   • Mass Media
     • SUPER STRUCTURE (CONTROLS MOST THINGS)

4. HIDDEN CURRICULUM

   • What children learn from their experience of schooling rather than what they learn from formal lessons
     • E.G.
       • Punctuality
       • Learning when to speak
       • Dress code
       • knowing their place
       • Attendence
       • Gender roles
     • NEGATIVES
       • obedience to authority
       • acceptance of inequality
       • Gender roles
       • powerlessness
       • conditioning to boredom
     • some children resist 'indoctrination' (brain washing)
       • E.G.
         • WILLS study of 12 working class 'lads'
           • the lads had formed a counter school culture
             • tried to break school rules and not conform to the hidden curriculum

5. Bowles and Gintis

   • The education system provides capitalists with a docile workforce
     • Achieved through the hidden curriculum
     • Subservient workforce
       • treated like a servant
     • Encourages acceptance of hierarchy
     • fragmentation of the curriculum
       • curriculum is broken into several parts
       • close parallels between schooling and work in a capitalist society
         • called the corrospondence principle
   • MERITOCRACY IS A MYTH
     • class background is the most important factor
     • 'old school tie'
     • people are born into their status, that doesn't change
     • social classes reproduce themselves
     • A child's behaviour in school affects their setting/grouping