Assess The Contribution Of Marxism To Our Understanding Of Education

Using Material From Item A and Elsewhere Assess The Contribution of Marxism to our Understanding of Education. (20 marks)

Marxists uphold a conflict perspective of the role of education in society – as Item A states, Marxists operate on the belief that education’s role in society is to acclimatise students to the two class system, in which they will be exploited by the ruling class.

As stated in the item, Marxists such as Althusser argue that the ruling class, or bourgeoisie, dominate and control the proletariat with both ideological and repressive state apparatus. Education, along with mass media and religion are examples of ideological state apparatus, which are used to indoctrinate the working classes with the ruling class’ ideas, beliefs

Bowles and Gintis carried out a study in which they observed 237 New York secondary school students, and found that demonstrations of independence and creativity were suppressed with discipline and low grades, as part of an agenda to promote submission and obedience. Characteristics linked to obedience, such as punctuality, were promoted as vital skills which, if not developed, would lead to punishment. Bowles and Gintis argued that education does little to aid the personal development of a student, and even inhibits and distorts the development through the promotion of bourgeoisie ideals. However, Critical Modernists such as Morrow and Torres criticise this Marxist perspective for being too focused on class, and not acknowledging the other inequalities within society. Much like Postmodernists, Morrow and Torres argue that society is too diverse and imbalanced to focus on just one inequality, and that race, gender and sexual inequality carry as much, if not more weight than class inequality. They argued that an investigation into how other inequalities are reproduced in schools would be more appropriate, and that there should be focus on how the inequalities are