1. SOCIOL 316: Critical Theories of Schooling
Lecture 5: Marxist Theory II
Lecturer: Dr Bruce Cohen

2. Last Week The Myth of Meritocracy
Bowles and Gintis: Correspondence Theory
The Hidden Curriculum Revisited
Willis: Cultural Resistance
Last Week

3. This Lecture Background: The economic base and the superstructure
Gramsci: Hegemony
Althusser: Ideological State Apparatuses
Bourdieu: Symbolic violence
Limitations

4. Main point
Schools are institutions of social control, reproducing dominant ruling class ideology and enforcing docility among the working classes.

5. Background: The economic base and the superstructure
“The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
(Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)
Background: The economic base and the superstructure

6. “an order in which a common social-moral language is spoken, in which one concept of reality is dominant, informing with its spirit all modes of thought and behaviour.” (Femia 1981: 24)
the “domination by ideas and cultural forms that induce consent to the rule of the leading groups in society.” (Kellner 2005: 158)
Hegemony

7. Althusser: Ideological State Apparatuses
Hegemony a negotiated form of power.
ISAs are “sites of practice where human subjects or agents are, in effect, shaped as compliant and willing members of (capitalist) society. That is, they are the sites of practices which form us as human agents, making us what we are and, more importantly, making us ‘in the image’ of capitalist society.” (Crossley 2005: 152)
ISAs are responsible for the transmission of ruling class values and the interpellation of the masses.

8. Schools as an Ideological State Apparatus
“…one Ideological State Apparatus well and truly plays the dominant role… This is the school.” “the reproduction of labour-power requires not only that its qualifications be reproduced, but that its submission to the rules of respect for the established order be reproduced at the same time.” “it is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that the reproduction of the qualification of labour-power is ensured.”

9. Small group work (20 minutes)
According to Bourdieu, how do schools reinforce inequalities between the elite and the underprivileged kids?
Drawing on previous research (and/or your own personal school experiences), give some examples of how ruling class habitus is transmitted in the classroom.
Name one major difference between Bourdieu’s and Althusser’s ideas on education.
One major criticism of Bourdieu’s theory on education?
Small group work (20 minutes)

11. Bourdieu: Cultural reproduction and symbolic violence
“All pedagogic action (PA) is, objectively, symbolic violence insofar as it is the imposition of a cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power.”
PA reflects interests of dominant class, reproducing the uneven distribution of cultural capital (‘habitus’) and, thus, the current social structure.
‘Cultural capital’ = symbols, ideas, tastes, etc., used as resources in social action.
‘Habitus’ = ‘an embodied socialized tendency or disposition to act, think, or feel in a particular way.’ (Scott and Marshall 2005)
Bourdieu: Cultural reproduction and symbolic violence

12. Limitations
Over-emphasises consumption of knowledge at the expense of production of knowledge
Passive model of socialization
How do radicals emerge from schooling system?

13. Next Week is Study Week (no lecture sessions!)
Selected Bibliography
Althusser, L. (2014) On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. London: Verso.
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J-C (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage.
Femia, J. V. (1981) Gramsci’s Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Marx, K. (1971) A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. New York: International.
Next Week is Study Week (no lecture sessions!)