Assess the Marxist view of the role of education.

Marxists views are of a negative outlook on society as they focus on capitalist ideologies, which are transmitted by the ruling class differences and reinforce equality.

Marxists such as Louis Althusser (1972) believe that schools transmit ideologies the capitalism is just and reasonable and they train people to accept there role in society as workers and to except their future exploitation.

Sociologists Bowel and Gintus considered this an idea called the correspondence theory and this idea considers that what happens within the school environment mirrors what goes on in society itself and they also suggest that success is not entirely related to the individuals ability. This is why Bowel and Gintus suggest that white middle class students tend to do better, therefore the government uses the schools to transmit there ideologies. Bowel and Gintus also consider the Marxist idea of the social reproduction within the school system. It is suggested that whatever class a young child goes in to the education as whether it be upper, middle or lower, this is how they will leave it, ready to gain a working position within that class boundary.

This also ties in with the idea of cultural and material deprivation in which forsythe and furlog (2003) suggest that the cost of higher education and the prospect of debt puts off many bright working class students, this therefore tells us the Marxists view on education is that the education system very much favours the middle class section of society, as if a child of working class did have the intellectual ability to move into further education it would be very hard due to the cost of university and higher education training itself.

There are various different points of view when assessing the Marxist view on education, for example if we consider the functionalist view on education in which Talcott Parsons suggests that school bridges the gap between family and industry. It also suggests that school is actually a mini version of society and it therefore mirrors society itself, it is a place in which gets you ready for the working world itself, but not in the way that Marxists suggests. This view also suggests that it is irrelevant what your background is as the school sifts and sorts people as soon as they go according to their individual intelligence.

This differs with the Marxists view as it suggest that school is a place in which helps you to grow, learn and gain your independence, not to generate you into just another proletarian worker or whatever your class will eventually generate you into.

Rebecca Scanlon.

Mock results

Overall:
Grade; B 72%

My analysis:
analysis........12/20
examples ....10/20
terminology ..6/10


52% D

Targets:

1) to present more technical observation of what the camera, editing, sound and mise en scene are doing and the represention they are making.
2) More focus on the explicit representation, such as if the focus is on gender focus on gender.