Marxism

Marxism
 Developed by Karl
Marx in the 19th
century
 Marx and Engels wrote
the famous
“Communist
Manifesto” in 1846
 Marx developed the
political system known
as Communism
Marxism
 When considering
Marxist theory it is
useful to remember the
3 Cs;
› Class
› Conflict
› Capitalism
 These provide a
“baseline” to Marxist
theory
 What is Marxism?
 Marxists see capitalist society as being ruled by
the economy.
 The minority, the ruling class or bourgeoisie rule
the majority, namely the workers or proletariat.
 The bourgeoisie have the wealth and the power to
rule.
 The proletariat are exploited because they are not
treated fairly. This is the basis of class inequality.
What can Marxists tell us about
education?

Writers in the Marxist tradition of sociology claim

that the education system is a conspiracy which
exists to deny the children of the working class
access to an understanding of their true class
position.
Marxism summarised
 Education reproduces the
inequalities and social relations
of production of Capitalist
Society.

 Education serves to legitimate

these inequalities under the
guise of Meritocracy.
 For Marxists, the role of education is
considered in terms of the idea that
there is always a basic “conflict of
interest” in Capitalist society. The
most-fundamental
 conflict is between Capital (the
owners of the means of production)
and Labour
 (people who sell their labour power
in exchange for money). Marxists
try to relate
 all other forms of conflict (gender,
age, racial, etc.) to the economic
sphere.
 Marxists are mainly concerned with
analysing the way education
involves the
 transmission of ideas and beliefs
about the nature of the social world.
The reason
 for this is that education is a process
that enables a ruling class to
reproduce its
 domination of other social classes. It
does this by trying to socialise
children with
 ideas that legitimise the nature of
society “as it is”; that is, a society in
which there
 are fundamental inequalities of
wealth, income, power and status.
Louis Althusser

 Althusser believed that education socialises

working class children into accepting their
subordinate status to the middle class.
 Education conveys the ideology of the ruling
class.
 Education prepares individuals for the world of
work, in order to accept their position in a
capitalist society.
 Bowles and Gintis
 Bowles and Gintis (1976), say the main function of education
in capitalist countries is to create workers.
 Correspondence theory suggests that educational inequality
mirrors the inequality of wider society.
 If capitalism is to succeed it must have an industrious and
obedient workforce that is too divided to challenge the
authority of the rulers.
 The education system succeeds in fulfilling this aim by means
of the hidden curriculum
Ivan Illich (173)
 Schools kill creativity, insist on conformity, and
offer indoctrination into capitalistic society.

 Children learn to accept authority in an

unthinking fashion and this leads them to accept
government dictats in the same way.
 Resistance is
Paul Willis (1977) futile

 Did an ethnography of twelve anti-school boys ‘the

lads’
 These boys rejected school and other children within
it, presenting themselves as superior
 Willis claims that working class children choose to
fail in school as a rejection of capitalism
 Their rejection of school is an act of resistance
 Two Marxist viewpoints
 Traditional Marxist  Neo- Marxism

Louis Althusser Paul Willis

Schools pass on messages Children can see through

that people accept without the ideology, but it doesn’t
question. They are matter. The reality is low
socialised into accepting pay work, poverty and
capitalism oppression regardless.
Summary
Conclusion
 Marxism is a political philosophy – your views
are your own and not required in sociology.
 Marxism is an understanding of the nature of
social relationships which you are expected to
evaluate. Recognise that it has strengths and
weakness as a tool of understanding of our
culture.