Social class and education

Book: R. Simmons and J. Smyth (eds.), Education and Working Class Youth. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Education, Social Class and Marxist Theory, 2019

In this chapter I discuss the relationship between social class, society and education. The perspective adopted is Marxist. In Part One, I discuss social class and how it is measured. Here I discuss Weberian `gradational’ and Marxist `relational’ classifications and definitions of class. In Part Two, I present some of the main concepts of Marxist social class analysis. In Part Three, I relate these concepts to Marxist theory of education. In Part Four, I differentiate between two types of Marxist analysis -Structuralist neo-Marxism and Culturalist neo-Marxism.

2010

The relationship between the educational system and social class inequalities is one of the most fundamental issues in the sociology of education. Schools have been held up as both the means of achieving equality in society but also as centrally implicated in the reproduction of inequalities. So we are confronted with a conundrum. How is schooling to be understood in relation to social class?

Citation: Hill, D. (2018) Education and social class: a Marxist response. In R. Simmons and J. Smyth (eds.), Education and Working Class Youth. London: Palgrave MacMillan. (pre-publication corrections) In this chapter I discuss the relationship between social class, society and education. The perspective adopted is Marxist. In Part One, I discuss social class and how it is measured. Here I discuss Weberian `gradational’ and Marxist `relational’ classifications and definitions of class. In Part Two, I present some of the main concepts of Marxist social class analysis. In Part Three, I relate these concepts to Marxist theory of education. In Part Four, I differentiate between two types of Marxist analysis -Structuralist neo-Marxism and Culturalist neo-Marxism.

Encyclopedia of Marxism and Education, 2022

In this cghapter we discuss the relationship between Marxism, Social Class and Education from a Marxist perspective

Interchange, 1980

One of the more perplexing problems in a Marxist analysis of capitalist society arises out of inquiry into how the ruling class asserts and maintains its dominant position.1 Although class conflict should be observable, why is it that members of the working class are not only non-revolutionary but actually support the status quo? My response is that class consciousness and class actions are mediated by the dominant institutions and ideologies of society. The ruling class not only counts on material force alone to exercise its leadership but also actively seeks to create and diffuse throughout the social structure an intellectual, moral, and political hegemony. In other words, the process of domination by the ruling class is not only material and physical but also cultural. This paper examines the educational system in order to explore some of the ways in which the school serves to maintain aspects of the capitalist hegemony. The educational system serves not only to prepare individuals for their eventual objective positions within the social structure but also to shape the subjective disposition of the participants such that the existing social order is rendered non-problematic. The importance of education to the legitimation of bourgeois society is not a new contention (see, for example, Parsons, 1959; Miliband, 1973; Althusser, 1971). However, the question remains m how does the educational system reproduce this sense of legitimacy of the bourgeois social order? Research on the role of education in maintaining a system of structured social inequality-i.e., the reproduction of the division of labor (Bowles and Gintis, 1976)-has tended to emphasize the structure of schooling and not the content. On the one hand, insofar as the internal workings of the school remain a "black box," little is said about the process leading to class differentials in academic achievement. On the other hand, work which does focus on the content of the educational process m i.e., classroom interaction and the sociology of curriculum (see Young and associates, 1971)-often fails to locate the system of relationships and the school within the broader context of society. What needs to be done is to integrate interactional analysis, which considers the management of knowledge as its central problem, with structural analysis, which places greater emphasis on power and interests underlying the schooling process. To restate, an attempt must be made to resolve a major problem of Bernstein's work-how it is that "power relationships penetrate the organization, distribution and evaluation of knowledge through the social context" (Karabel and Halsey, 1977, p. 71). There are mechanisms specific to the educational system which reflect the power and interests of the capitalist class and which serve to reproduce class relations. These can be linked to external forces which impinge upon the process of schooling. Of central con

A paper presented at the Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues Seminar IX, University of London, Institute of Education, 2006

Here I take forward ideas first advanced in a paper I produced for the British Sociological Association Education Study Group in 2001 (Rikowski, 2001) and a further elaboration of some of those ideas with Paula Allman and Peter McLaren (in Allman, McLaren and Rikowski, 2005). It is very much a programmatic paper, mapping out work that remains to be done (the second half of the paper) as much as summarising work already completed (in the first half). The style is compressed, aphoristic even, and reflects both the time at my disposal for sustained thought on theoretical and academic issues these days, and the fact that many ideas stand in need of development and to be infused with further background reading. The main aim of this paper is to work out a specifically Marxist analysis of class and then to relate this to education. This is not as straightforward as it seems as mainstream sociologists and education researchers and theorists mistake ‘social classes’ for status groups. Some Marxists do this too, unfortunately. When Marxists do this the result is a neo-Weberianism box-like apparatus rather than a Marxist analysis of class. What I am after is a dynamic perspective of social class that more adequately reflects life in contemporary capitalism, whilst also critiquing and challenging the social existence of class itself.

1981

One of the more perplexing problems in a Marxist analysis of capitalist society arises out of inquiry into how the ruling class asserts and maintains its dominant position.1 Although class conflict should be observable, why is it that members of the working class are not only non-revolutionary but actually support the status quo? My response is that class consciousness and class actions are mediated by the dominant institutions and ideologies of society. The ruling class not only counts on material force alone to exercise its leadership but also actively seeks to create and diffuse throughout the social structure an intellectual, moral, and political hegemony. In other words, the process of domination by the ruling class is not only material and physical but also cultural.

This paper reiterates the centrality of economics (relations of production) in Marxist models of class, while avoiding the crude determinism which results from a neglect of cultural aspects of class formation. It explores the confusion in education and educational sociology arising from non-Marxist conceptions of class which place an exaggerated emphasis on cultural difference and see it as the determining factor. The paper explores some of the implications of non-Marxist models, including Bourdieu, for educational theory and practice. Critique is directed at the designation of different groups of workers as separate and mutually antagonistic 'working' and 'middle' classes and the deficit construction of workers thrust into poverty as an 'underclass' which is reproduced not by economic forces but by cultural habitus.

Routledge eBooks, 2005

Education policy and social class : the selected Education policy and social class : the selected works of Stephen J. Ball Social class in public schools | jennifer l the outlines of the moves needed to weaken the link between social class and Education Policy She is a co-editor of Social Policies for Social class and education-bgfl homepage this slide suggests that education policy needs to be trainees awareness of key concepts relating to social class and education and to stimulate Education policy and social class: the selected Education policy and social class: the selected works of Stephen J. Ball J. Ball, London, Routledge World Library education policy, social class, Read the education debate online/preview-Education Policy and Social Class: The Selected Works of Stephen J. Ball (World Library of Educationalists) EDUCATION REFORM High Stakes Education: Inequality Gea gender and education association | social The Education system and social class: This social policy research organisation and charity campaigns for reducing poverty and disadvantage in the UK.

Educational Theory, 2013

Recently, a range of educational theorists have explored and extended upon popular currents in political theory through articulating “open” and “unknowing” pedagogies. Such contributions represent a radical turn away from the presumed “universals” found in proclamations of justice and emancipation and, ultimately, the centering of class analysis. At the same time, inspired by and building upon Bourdieuian theory, another cluster of educational research has developed a nuanced understanding of the social, cultural, and educational mechanisms involved in class reproduction. In this essay, Jessica Gerrard offers a critical — though sympathetic — response to these dual trends. Bringing together theories of reproduction in conversation with theories of pedagogical possibility, Gerrard argues for a renewed understanding of working-class relations to education that incorporates an understanding of working-class action and struggle.