Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 39, Number 18, July 26, 1976.

Economy

Economy

Frankly this has Been my FINEST year as a principal! I've got the teachers DIVIDED and STALEMATED on the question of SALARY DEMANDS! I've got the LABS, TEACHING MACHINES, GYMS, POOLS and TV BOOK UPS clicking over like one perfectly tuned machine! My speeches are quoted VERBATIM in the local PRESS! COMMUNITY LEADERS back me RIGHT down the LINE! IF I could just figure a way to get those down KIDS the bell out of here, the place would run like a DREAM!

Education

The lectures on education were delivered at the Conference by Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis. These two also presented ideas to an Education Conference over the following two days. They are the leading Marxist analysts of education in advanced capitalist countries.

The Marxist approach to education takes on two roles: one on analysis of education in capitalist society, the other a critique of liberal ideas of schooling (particularly of Dewey and Illich). We'll take them in this order.

Schooling, the argument goes, has two essential functions in capitalism. There are:
1. to reproduce workers in a technical sense
2. to reproduce the social relations of production

Of course, schools are not the only institutions carrying out these functions. As much of the analysis of the state shows there are many others - the Church, the family, and so on. There is increasing agreement that schooling's role is a vital one, even the most vital.

Reproducing Workers

So what is the production of workers in a technical sense? Briefly, it means giving workers skills to fit into production. Such as the ability to read and write, do simple maths. Beyond this, some jobs pecific skills are taught - technical subjects, even the professional schools at universities.

It is not enough to just produce these skills though. There is an immense body of evidence suggesting that employers do not see higher levels of education as evidence primarily of skills. Rather it is evidence of abilities to fit into the productive framework well.

It is thus no accident that schools are structured very similarly to industry: there are rigid authority patterns for example. More importantly, the stress on competition, on individual achievement, performs a very great cohesive function.

Individualism both atomises the working class and justifies 'failure'. As people see themselves as individuals, they see problems as also individual - affecting just them. Thus the possibilities of combined action to combat the problems are glossed over.

The school system justifies failure by telling students that if we 'fail' the tests, it is our own fault. An unequal social system can thus gloss over continued inequality. If people get low wages, it is not because of exploitation, but their own failure to make use of opportunities.

Reproducing Society

In reproducing a society, there is much more schools do beyond the productive network. There are also religious, ethical, sexual and racial attitudes reproduced. And attitudes toward authority, toward society. These attitudes are normally structurally useful to capitalism: if they were not the dynamics of the structure would tend to eliminate them.

But such attitudes can often be in contradiction with the continuance of capitalist society. Another important contradiction lies between the teaching of skills and the social cohesive function. In teaching someone to use a gun, one cannot be entirely sure this skill won't be used against the social order. In teaching someone to write, one perhaps will not predict they won't end up writing for Salient [?]

And what about the ideal of education? That it's passing on a body of knowledge from generation to generation and encouraging criticism? In part, this is reinforcing class values, for knowledge is rarely for the people - its for a small, normally ruling elite. Beyond that, this argument dovetails into the critique of liberal schooling. The second part of Marxist theories of education.

Liberal Schooling Ideals

Dewey, and the people who followed him in arguing for liberal education, saw education as having four major functions:
1. to produce skilled workers
2. to make up for social inequality
3. to develop the individual's capabilities
4. to pass on a particular body of knowledge.

In capitalist society, the primary role is the first, and in many respects is in contradiction to the others. Bowles and Gintis here disagree with Illich, who ducks the question of production. They point out it is production that keeps a society going in the most basic way, and education must take notice of this.

How are the other aspects in contradiction to this goal? Social inequality, according to Marxists, is not something that just happens or is caused by innate inferiorities. It stems from the exploitative nature of the productive system. Consequently, in preparing workers for their positions in society schools are reinforcing social inequality rather than removing it.

Similarly with an individual's capabilities. Capabilities can be developed, so long as they stay within boundaries. The capability to develop beyond an exploitative society is not one. However, as with all such cases, the contradiction here can lend to unusual results - a stress on humanitarianism can often lead to challenges to the whole system.

Course Content

The "body of knowledge" is more complicated. Again, there are very real constraints. We all know of lecturers who mark down essays not toeing their 'line this is more a problem of the structure than of individuals. The subjects we are taught are shot through with ideology.

But one cannot talk of a body of knowledge in the abstract. One must ask "knowledge for what", "knowledge for whom ?" Most theorists of schooling see knowledge as a end in itself. I suggest that unless people see knowledge as being useful or important to them it passes quickly. How long do we remember the rubbish we cram for exams?

Lasting knowledge comes then down to social practice - and that may be of various types, but it ultimately is a question of either helping people take greater control of their own lives or of denying them.

The major contradiction in this section on knowledge is between the generally repressive system it is part of and the ideology of "freedom of criticism". As the availability of radical ideas develops, so the contradiction becomes more acute.

Marxist critique of liberal schooling stems from a different analysis of the problems which are, rightfully, being tackled. This sees the problems as rooted in the productive system of capitalism. However as noted above, there are many developments from the liberal approach which are in contradiction to the designs of capitalism. The question is really whether these developments are seen in this light, or more in 'reformist' terms.

Once again, this summary has done scant justice to a very fruitful field. Please get into it.

References:

Louis Althusser "Ideology and Ideological Stale Apparatuses" in Lenin and Philosophy'.

Graeme Clarke: Assessment (NZUSA available from Studass).

Trevor Pateman (ed) 'Counter course'.