the role of teacher

2. 1. The role of the teacher is significant and crucial.
2. He must be fully equipped not only with the content of education but also the Marxist
methodology of teaching as well as Marxist aims of education.
3. Teacher must entirely be different in attitude and temperament from a bourgeois
teacher. His philosophy of teaching will be the Marxist philosophy.
4. He must be an active member of Marxist social order.

3. • A best Marxist worker can only be a best Marxist teacher (Lenin).
Both in thought and action he must be a true Marxist. Teacher should not
have only mastery on the content of education but also have
consciousness about life, social environment and communist ideology. He
should possess sound health, respect for cultural heritage, deep practical
sense, socialistic bent of mind and true patriotism.

5. ALTHUSSER: THE IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS
Althusser focuses his work on the way that the working class learn to become passive and
obedient. Althusser argues that the state exercises power over the working class. This can
be achieved through two means: repressive state apparatus (RSA)- physical control of the
which through the police, military, judicial system etc. Ideological state apparatus (ISA)- a
form of brain washing through socialization. This is the control over mind rather than by
physical means.
The r/cs dominant ideology gets filtered through I.S.A (media, education etc.) Down to the
which. Althusser argues that the education system performs two functions in the isa:
education reproduces class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation. In
education legitimates class inequality by producing ideologies that disguise its true cause.

6. Althusser: the ideological state apparatus.
bowles and gintis: schooling in capitalist america
• Bowles and Gintis build on Althussers point that the main purpose of education is to
reproduce class inequalities i.E. Obedient workers. They believe that the school creates
workers through two main ways; hidden curriculum and the myth of meritocracy.

7. The correspondence principle and the hidden
curriculum
• Bowles and Gintis argue that there are close parallels between schools and work e.G.
Both are hierarchies with head teacher and bosses. Bowles and gintis argue that this
principle operates through the hidden curriculum which are lessons learnt without them
being directly taught. In this way, schooling prepares working class pupils for their roles
as exploited workers of the future.

8. The myth of meritocracy
• • because there is inequality in a capitalist society, the poor may feel that it is undeserved and
unfair. Bowles and Gintis argue that meritocracy doesn’t exist. Evidence from this shows that the
main factor in determining whether or not someone has a high-income is their family and class not
their ability.
• • The myth of meritocracy justifies the privileges of higher classes, making it seem that they gain
them through open and fair competition.
• • This helps persuade the working class to accept inequality as legitimate, making it less like to
overthrow capitalism.

9. Willis: learning to labor
• • Paul Willis looks at how working class pupils resist the attempts to indoctrinate them into
this myth of meritocracy. Using qualitative methods (unstructured interview), willis studied the
counter-school culture of the lads, a group of 12 working class boys as they made a
transition from school to work.
• • The lads opposed the school and took the piss out of the (conformist boys) and girls.
• • The lads find school boring so they flout its rules e.G. Smoking. These lads see such acts of
defiance of ways of resisting the school.
• • Willis notes the similarity between anti-school counter-culture and shop floor culture as both
cultures see manual work as superior and the lads were strongly identified by this which
explains why they see themselves as superior to the ear’oles and girls.

10. Evaluation of marxist approach
• • however, postmodernists criticize Bowles and Gintis’ correspondence principle on the
belief that schools now produce a different labor force than the one described by
Marxists. They argue that education now reproduces diversity not inequality.
• • By contrast, Willis rejects the view that school simply' brainwashes’ pupils into
passively accepting their fate.
• • However, critics argue that Willis’ account of the lads’ romanticizes them, portraying
them as working class heroes despite their antic-social behavior and sexists attitudes.