Outline the key contrasts between the Marxist and Neo-Marxist view on education (12)
As Marxists Bowles and Gintis (1976) believed that through the term ‘Correspondence Principle’ that education corresponds to employment so if you knuckle down and learn at school it will result in better jobs/careers in your lifetime, this gives the workforce structure and organisation. The values of education reflect on the workplace. They also believe that education prepares a workforce through the hidden curriculum. This teaches the working class the values needed within employment and also how to talk and act in a polite manner. A final key function in which they believed in was ‘Meritocracy’. They see it as a myth and in reality they class people’s backgrounds on how well they work because people believe that the education system is meritocratic, it legitimates the system making it seem fair towards others. As a neo Marxist Paul Willis (1977) conducted a study on a group of lads in a midlands comprehensive school in the 1970’s. He believed that counter school culture is opposed to the values in society. Whilst studying the lads he found that they had formed a counter culture which valued traditional working class masculinity, emphasizing toughness and despising weakness. In this counter culture they were sexist so looked down on women and also racist which meant that they looked down on ethnic minorities. Shop floor culture is another key function of Paul Willis’ study; it’s not so different from counter school culture apart from the fact that they had little respect for authority. Workers would do as little work as possible and instead try to enjoy themselves through ‘having a laff’; this helped them to develop ways of coping with their boredom.
Bowles and Gintis believed that capitalism directly shapes the content of education and control the behaviour of pupils. They argue that education is controlled by capitalists and serves their interests so there is a close relationship between schooling and work as it prepares the pupils for future employment. Whereas Paul Willis argues that capitalism shapes society as a whole but groups with in education form their own subculture, proving this though his study of 12 lads who as a consequence of being bored of education formed their own group and rules, so in other words the 12 lads would entertain themselves through bad behaviour.
The view of pupil’s behaviour in school was at a very high standard for Bowles and Gintis they believed that pupils would conform within school, meaning that they would follow the rules of the education system and behave in a polite order to one another. This makes the pupils more motivated to work harder and achieve more. On the other hand Paul Willis argues that some pupils actively rebelled against school so they would ignore all the rules and misbehave. In other words they would develop ways of coping with boring.
Finally the relationship between school and work was very important for all pupils back then as it would decide what they would be doing in the future. Bowles and Gintis believe that school creates passive, obedient workers who will be easily exploited. It teaches the working class how to conform and listen to higher achy however Paul Willis perceives school as creating poorly behaved workers who do not rebel against the capitalist systems as a whole. He believes that education/school does not teach pupils the values needed for future careers but instead promotes bad behaviour boredom.
Overall Bowles and Gintis see education as teaching and developing the skills needed for jobs e.g. hidden curriculum whereas Paul Willis sees education as crushing the pupils individualities and preventing them from learning the skills for the workplace.