1. SOCIOL 316: Critical Theories of Schooling
Lecture 4: Marxist Theory I
Lecturer: Dr Bruce Cohen

2. Last Lecture / Tutorial
Observational and ethnographic research
The Hidden Curriculum
Labelling theory and the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’
Last Lecture / Tutorial

3. This Lecture Background: The Myth of Meritocracy
Group work on B&G reading
Bowles and Gintis: Correspondence Theory
Bernstein: The Hidden Curriculum Revisited
Willis: Cultural Resistance
Limitations

4. “…disadvantaged students tend not only to be encumbered with more risk factors, but those risk factors have a stronger impact on these students’ performance.” (OECD, Low-Performing Students: Why They Fall Behind and How to Help Them Succeed, 2016)
Background

5. Social Class and Higher Education
“The gaps in participation remain very large and the rate of change is slow.” (Bolton 2010)

6. The Myth of Meritocracy
“The biggest single source of income differences seems to be the fact that men from higher-status families have higher incomes than men from lower-status families, even when they enter the same occupation, have the same amount of education, and have the same test scores.”
(Jencks et al. 1973)

7. Rist: Factories of Failure
“Under the guise of creating an enlightened citizenry, schools for the poor and the immigrant child were organized so as to resemble closely the conditions of the factory and prepare young people to perceive the inevitability of the capitalist division of labor.” (Rist 2002)
Rist: Factories of Failure

8. Bowles & Gintis reading -small group work (20 minutes)
What are the three main propositions on schooling and economic success forwarded by Bowles and Gintis?
According to B&G, how important is cognitive skills (as measured by IQ and other tests) to achieving economic success?
How do B&G offer more human agency in theorising the transmission of cultural values within the schools system (as opposed to e.g. the ‘socialisation theory’ from conservative scholars)?
For B&G, what primarily needs to be changed – society or schooling?
Bowles & Gintis reading -small group work (20 minutes)

9. Marxist Theory: General points
Structural theory: strong linkage between schooling and socio-economic processes of wider society.
Schools reflect and reproduce the inequalities present within capitalism.
Schools prepare kids for their future (class-differentiated) work roles.
Schools restrict mobility due to the hidden curriculum, credentialism, and privilege.
Schools are institutions of social control, reproducing dominant ruling class ideology and enforcing docility among the working classes.

10. Bowles and Gintis: Correspondence Theory
School reproduces wider social relations through processes of:
Fragmentation of learning
Dividing the students/workforce
Promoting extrinsic rewards
Imposition of alienation
Encouragement of competition
Imposing Hierarchy
“Through the educational encounter, individuals are induced to accept the degree of powerlessness with which they will be faced as mature workers.” (Bowles and Gintis 1975)
Bowles and Gintis: Correspondence Theory

11. The Hidden Curriculum Revisited
Basil Bernstein (1975): ‘elaborate’ and ‘restrictive’ language codes.
Schools in low-income areas: stress on obedience, punctuality, and following instructions from authority figures.
Schools in middle class areas: emphasize behavior and appearance, cooperation, conforming to rules, and deference to authority.
Selective schools: encourage leadership, creativity, independence, and people skills.
The Hidden Curriculum Revisited

12. Paul Willis: Cultural Resistance
“…I mean what will they [the ear’oles] remember of their school life? What will they look back on? Sitting in a classroom, sweating their bollocks off, you know, while we’ve been … I mean look at the things we [the Lads] can look back on…” (‘Spanksy’, cited in Willis, 1977).
Paul Willis: Cultural Resistance

13. Limitations and Criticisms
Over-deterministic
Overstates importance of social class?
Impact of hidden curriculum?
Overestimates power of formal curriculum.
Limitations and Criticisms

14. Next Week: Marxist Theory II Selected Bibliography
Bernstein, B. B. (2003) Class, Codes and Control, rev. ed.. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cole, M. (2008) Marxism and Educational Theory: Origins and Issues. New York: Routledge.
Willis, P. E. (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House.
Next Week:
Marxist Theory II