Assess The View That The Main Function Of The Education System Is To Reproduce And Legitimise Social Inequality
Marxist theories of education rely upon the notion that the education system systematically reproduces the social and cultural values that lead to the privileging of one social class over another. For Marxists, social inequality is the core of capitalism. As Anyon (2011, p. 7) suggests, capitalism is “an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production.” Moreover, capitalism cannot function unless these social inequalities exist.
According to Marxism, the education system perpetuates these inequalities by creating a set of standards which do not have a neutral ideological formation. Indeed, critics such as Gramsci comment that ideology is grounded on the concept of hegemony. Hegemony is the idea that domination over certain classes and social groups are determined by everyday processes that make common sense. Adamson (2005, p. 10) comments that, for Gramsci, “Hegemony [] is the process of gaining legitimate consent within the functional universe of civil society, as opposed to simply holding it together through a monopoly on the means of violence.” In this respect, liberal schooling and educational policies create an idea that all children are treated equally within the schooling system. For Marxists, the violence that ordinarily takes place still occurs within the system of education but on a more insidious level. Although violence may not be explicit, educational systems still serve to compound the differences between social class, and this creates a sense of inequality that is later transformed into a more authentic societal difference.
The difference between educational standards of the rich and the poor cement the idea that individuals are treated differently dependent on their social status. Marxists tend to push this concept further by stressing that the educational system systematically confines the working-classes into thinking that they are naturally subservient. Because, according to Marx, the grounds of this inequality is entirely economic and is also endemic within capitalism itself, education can only serve the interests of propagandists who wish to perpetuate the status quo.
Marxism suggests that capitalism in education creates a false set of standards which prioritize middle-class and ruling-class values over working-class values. In short, this is because capitalism is dependent upon whether a class of people possess ownership over the means of production, distribution and exchange. This form of social stratification is central to Marxism and usurps all ideas about race and gender. Education, for Marx, affects the ideology of the everyday by perpetuating values that attempt to hoodwink individuals into thinking that the system offers opportunities for freedom, when in fact the educational system promotes and sustains mass inequality (Sarup 2013, p. 107).
Of course, inequalities affect the education system, both in terms of classrooms themselves, and in terms of the opportunities offered to people from different backgrounds. The opportunities offered to those individuals afforded access to private schools is considerably greater than the opportunities offered to people who are not given access to those particular institutions.
Feminism also has had an important role to play in identifying certain biases in how education is practised in society. Particularly, feminism is broadly concerned about the notion of gender norms practised in the educational system. However, feminism, like post-structuralism, is difficult to quantify in exact terms. Allen (2012, p. 45) notes that feminist post-structuralist education is largely dependent upon the idea of abandoning existing approaches to the study of education. However, similar to Marxism, feminism articulates inequalities within the educational system, but grounds this inequalities on gender rather than on class. In particular, certain norms are promoted in classrooms which routinely discriminate against either gender. Although feminism has a reputation for promoting female interests above male interests, contemporary feminist studies articulate how gender is generated by educational establishments, cultures and societies. As Judith Butler (2011, p. 179) puts it, gender is “performative”, in the precise sense that it is socially created across society.
For Judith Butler and others, the educational establishment creates norms through performance rather than because of a genetic proclivity toward the performance of particular acts. Butler (2011, p. 179) argues that gender, even to the level of biology, is performative, because individuals are taught and educated in such a way that exacerbates differences between particular genders and sexualities. Although Judith Butler's arguments are controversial, her feminism provides a distinct contribution to gender studies, in the precise sense that it allows us the opportunity to challenge the various models in which male and female attributes create a sense of inequality throughout society. Obviously, the teaching of such methods in the school system are likely to reproduce a stereotypical idea of what constitutes male and female across the broader society. For Butler, this idea even extends to the concept of biological gender. For her, gender in education is the “subversion of identity”, and is the place where gender ideas, and “gender troubles” are generated.
References
Adamson, W. (2014). Hegemony and revolution. Berkeley: Echo Point Books & Media.
Anyon, J. (2011). Marx and education. New York: Routledge.
Allen, E. J. (2012). Policy Discourses, Gender and Education. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2011). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge.
Sarup, M. (2013). Marxism and education. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
