the marxist theory education

Marxist Perspective on Education

Charlotte Nickerson

Research Assistant at Harvard University

Undergraduate at Harvard University

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On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• Marx and Engels themselves wrote little about education. Nonetheless, there is a long history of Marxists who have argued that education can both enforce and undermine capitalism.
• Sociologists Bowes and Gintis argue that education serves three main purposes: the reproduction of class inequality, its legitimization, and the creation of a compliant capitalist workforce.
• Althusser and his successor, Bordieu, believed that education served to benefit the ruling class both by spreading capitalist ideology and transmitting cultural capital, giving more legitimacy to those in the know.
• Critics have pointed out that those “exploited” by the education system are aware of their status, and do not blindly accept the values of educational institutions.

Marxist Views on Education

Although Marx and Engels wrote little on education, Marxism has educational implications that have been dissected by many. In essence, Marxists believe that education can both reproduce capitalism and have the potential to undermine it.

However, in the current system, education works mainly to maintain capitalism and reproduce social inequality (Cole, 2019).

According to Marx and Engels, the transformation of society will come about through class struggle and actions — such as the actions that the working-class proletariat can take to disempower the ruling bourgeoisie.

Marx and Engels emphasize the role of the spread of “enlightened” opinion throughout society as a way of creating class change.

Nonetheless, Marx and Engels both believed that fostering a full knowledge of what conditions under and what it would mean to overthrow capitalism was necessary to enact basic structural change.

Marx believed that the bourgeoisie failed to offer a real education; instead, education is used to spread bourgeois morals (Marx, 1847). Marx and Engles also, however, believed that workers are educated by doing labor and that education in schools should even be combined with labor.

The theorists felt that this combination of education with labor would increase awareness of the exploitative nature of capitalism.

Marxists were interested in two related issues regarding education under capitalism: firstly, how and to what extent education reproduces capitalism, and, secondly, the ways in which education in capitalist societies could undermine capitalism.

Bowes and Gintes (1976)

Bowes and Gintes (1976) were the two sociologists most associated with the Traditional Marxist perspective in education.

In the view of Marxist, educational systems in capitalist systems perform three functions of the elite, or bourgeoisie class: reproducing class inequality, legitimizing class inequality, and working in the interests of capitalist employers.

The Reproduction of Class Inequality

The process of reproducing class inequality works like this: Middle-class parents use their cultural and material capital to ensure that their children get into the best schools and then go on to achieve highly in those schools.

This can happen through giving children one-on-one instruction with tutors, paying for private school tuition, or, in extreme cases, making donations directly to elite schools that they want their children to attend.

All of this capital meandering means wealthier students tend to get the best education and then go on to get jobs in the middle class.

Meanwhile, working-class children, who are more likely to get a poor education, are funneled into working-class jobs.

The Legitimization of Class Inequality

Marxists argue that, while in reality money determines the quality of one”s education, schools spread a “myth of meritocracy” to convince students that they all have an equal chance of success and that one”s grade simply depends on their effort and ability.

Thus, if a student fails, it is their fault.

This has the net effect of controlling the working classes. Believing that they had a fair chance, the proletariat became less likely to rebel and attempt to change society through a Marxist revolutionary movement (Thompson, 2016).

Bowes and Gintis explain this concept through the idea that students in the capitalist education system are alienated by their labor. Students have a lack of control over their education and their course content.

School motivates, instead, by creating a system of grades and other external rewards. This creates often destructive competition among students who compete to achieve the best grades in what is seen, at least superficially, as a meritocratic system.

Reproduction and legitimization of social inequality – Althusser

Althusser saw himself as building on the conditions that Marx theorized necessary for capitalist production through emphasizing the role of ideology in the social relationships that permeate people’s lives.

He believed that all institutions, schools included, drilled the values of capitalism into pupils, perpetuating the economic system. In this way, he considered education to be part of the “ideological state apparatus.”

Althusser says this influence perpetrates education in multiple ways. This ideological state apparatus, according to Althusser, worked by injecting students with ideas that keep people unaware of their exploitation and make them easy to control.

Secondly, he believed that this injection of ideas produces complaints and an unquestioning workforce, passively accepting their roles (Ferguson, 2018).

Althusser’s successor, Pierre Bordieu (1971) also believed that the education system and other cultural institutions and practices indirectly benefited the bourgeoisie — the capital class — through passing down “cultural capital.”

Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that someone can use to demonstrate their competence and social status, allowing them to wield influence.

Working in The Interests of Capitalist Employers

Finally, Bowes and Gintis (1976) suggested that there is a correspondence between the values taught by schools and the ways in which the workplace operates.

They suggest that these values are taught through a so-called hidden curriculum , which consists of the things that students learn through the experience of attending school rather than the main curriculum thoughts at the school.

Some parallels between the values taught at school and those used to exploit workers in the workplace include:

The passive subservience of pupils to teachers, which corresponds to the passive subservience of workers to managers;

An acceptance of hierarchy – the authority of teachers and administrators over students — corresponding to the authority of managers over employees;

Motivation by external rewards (such as grades over learning), which corresponds to workers being motivated by wages rather than the job of a job.

Correspondence Principle

The Key concept in Bowes and Gintis’ Schooling in Capitalist America (1976) is that the reproduction of the social relations of production is facilitated and illustrated by the similarities between how social relations in education and in production work.

In order to reproduce the social relations of production, the education system must try to teach people to be properly subordinate and render them sufficiently confused that they are unable to gather together and take control of their material existence — such as through seizing the means of production.

Specifically, Bowes and Gintis (1976) argued, the education system helps develop everything from a student”s personal demeanor to their modes of self-presentation, self-image, and social-class identifications which are crucial to being seen as competent and hirable to future employers.

In particular, the social relations of education — the relationships between administrators and teachers, teachers and students, students and students, and students and their work — replicate a hierarchical division of labor. This means that there is a clear hierarchy of power from administrators to teachers to students.

The Myth of Meritocracy

One such aspect of the capitalist education system, according to Bowes and Gintis, is the “myth of meritocracy “.

While Marxists argue that class background and money determine how good of an education people get, the myth of meritocracy posits that everyone has an equal chance at success. Grades depend on effort and ability, and people’s failures are wholly their fault.

This casts a perception of a fair education system when, in reality, the system — and who succeeds or fails in it — is deeply rooted in class (Thompson, 2016).

Criticisms of the Marxist Perspective on Education

The Marxist perspectives on education have been criticized for several reasons.

The traditional Marxist perspective on education has been evaluated both positively and negative. On the affirmative side, there is a wealth of evidence that schools reproduce class inequality.

In particular, evidence suggests that those from the middle and upper classes do much better in education because the working classes are more likely to suffer from material and cultural deprivation. Meanwhile, the middle classes have high material and cultural capital, along with laws that directly benefit them.

Another point in favor of the Marxist view of education is the existence of private schools. In these schools, the very wealthiest families can buy a better education for their families. This gives their children a substantially greater chance of attending an elite university.

There is also strong evidence for the reproduction of class inequality in elite jobs, such as medicine, law, and journalism. A disproportionately high number of people in these professions were educated in private institutions and come from families who are, in turn, highly educated (Thompson, 2016).

On the other hand, sociologists such as Henry Giroux (1983) have criticized the traditional Marxist view on education as being too deterministic. He argued that working classes are not entirely molded by the capitalist system and do not accept everything they are taught blindly. Paul Willis’ study of the working-class “lads” is one example of lower-class youths actively rejecting the values taught by education.

There is also less evidence that pupils believe school is fair than evidence that pupils believe school is unfair. The “Lads” that Paul Willis studied (2017) were well aware that the educational system was biased toward the middle classes, and many people in poorly-funded schools know that they are receiving a lesser quality of education than those in private schools.

• The Functionalist Perspective of Education

Bourdieu, P., & Bordieu, P. (1971). Formes et degrés de la conscience du chômage dans l”Algérie coloniale. Manpower and Unemployment Research in Africa , 36-44.

Bowes, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Captalist America.

Cole, M. (2019). Theresa May, the hostile environment and public pedagogies of hate and threat: The case for a future without borders . Routledge.

Ferguson, S. (2018). Social reproduction: what’s the big idea? Giroux, H. (1983). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A critical analysis. Harvard Educational Review, 53 (3), 257-293.

Giroux, H. (1983). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A critical analysis.  Harvard Educational Review ,  53 (3), 257-293.

Marx, K., Engels, F. (1847). Manifesto of the communist party .

Thompson, M. (2016). Assess the Marxist View of the Role of Education in Society .

Willis, P. (2017). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs . Routledge.

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Evaluate the Marxist View of the Role of Education in Society

An essay evaluating the Marxist view of education covering ideological state apparatus, correspondence principle, the reproduction and legitimation of class inequality.

Last Updated on November 18, 2022 by Karl Thompson

According to Marxists, modern societies are capitalist, and are structured along class-lines, and such societies are divided into two major classes – The Bourgeois elite who own and control the means of production who exploit the Proletariat by extracting surplus value from them.

Traditional Marxists understand the role of education in this context – education is controlled by the elite class (The Bourgeoisie) and schools forms a central part of the superstructure through which they maintain ideological control of the proletariat.

Education has four main roles in society according to Marxists:

• acting as the state apparatus
• producing an obedient workforce
• the reproduction of class inequality
• the legitimation of class inequality.

Louis Althusser argued that state education formed part of the ‘ ideological state apparatus ‘: the government and teachers control the masses by injecting millions of children with a set of ideas which keep people unaware of their exploitation and make them easy to control.

According to Althusser, education operates as an ideological state apparatus in two ways; Firstly, it transmits a general ideology which states that capitalism is just and reasonable – the natural and fairest way of organising society, and portraying alternative systems as unnatural and irrational Secondly, schools encourage pupils to passively accept their future roles, as outlined in the next point…

The second function schools perform for Capitalism is that they produce a compliant and obedient workforce…

In ‘Schooling in Capitalist America’ (1976) Bowles and Gintis suggest that there is a correspondence between values learnt at school and the way in which the workplace operates. The values, they suggested, are taught through the ‘Hidden Curriculum’, which consists of those things that pupils learn through the experience of attending school rather than the main curriculum subjects taught at the school. So pupils learn those values that are necessary for them to tow the line in menial manual jobs.

For example passive subservience of pupils to teachers corresponds to the passive subservience of workers to managers; acceptance of hierarchy (authority of teachers) corresponds to the authority of managers; and finally there is ‘motivation by external rewards: students are motivated by grades not learning which corresponds to being motivated by wages, not the joy of the job.

Marxists also argue that schools reproduce class inequality . In school, the middle classes use their material and cultural capital to ensure that their children get into the best schools and the top sets. This means that the wealthier pupils tend to get the best education and then go onto to get middle class jobs. Meanwhile working class children are more likely to get a poorer standard of education and end up in working class jobs. In this way class inequality is reproduced

Fourthly, schools legitimate class inequality . Marxists argue that in reality class background and money determines how good an education you get, but people do not realize this because schools spread the ‘myth of meritocracy’ – in school we learn that we all have an equal chance to succeed and that our grades depend on our effort and ability. Thus if we fail, we believe it is our own fault. This legitimates or justifies the system because we think it is fair when in reality it is not.

Finally , Paul Willi’s classic study Learning to Labour (1977) criticises aspects of Traditional Marxist theory.

Willis’ visited one school and observed 12 working class rebellious boys about their attitude to school and attitudes to future work. Willis described the friendship between these 12 boys (or the lads) as a counter-school culture. They attached no value to academic work, more to ‘having a laff’ and that the objective of school was to miss as many lessons as possible.

Willis argued that pupils rebelling are evidence that not all pupils are brainwashed into being passive, subordinate people as a result of the hidden curriculum. Willis therefore criticizes Traditional Marxism. These pupils also realise that they have no real opportunity to succeed in this system, so they are clearly not under ideological control.

However, the fact that the lads saw manual work as ‘proper work’ and placed no value of academic work, they all ended up failing their exams, and as a result had no choice but to go into low-paid manual work, and the end result of their active rebellion against the school was still the reproduction of class inequality. Thus this aspect of Marxism is supported by Willis’ work.

Evaluating the Marxist Perspective on Education

Traditional Marxist views of education are extremely dated, even the the new ‘Neo-Marxist’ theory of Willis is 40 years old, but how relevant are they today?

To criticise the idea of the Ideological State Apparatus, Henry Giroux, says the theory is too deterministic. He argues that working class pupils are not entirely molded by the capitalist system, and do not accept everything that they are taught. Also, education can actually harm the Bourgeois – many left wing, Marxist activists are university educated, so clearly they do not control the whole of the education system.

However, the recent academisation programme, which involves part-privatisation of state schools suggests support for the idea that Businesses control some aspects of education.

It is also quite easy to criticise the idea of the correspondence principle – Schools clearly do not inject a sense of passive obedience into today’s students – many jobs do not require a passive and obedient workforce, but require an active and creative workforce.

However, if you look at the world’s largest education system, China, this could be seen as supporting evidence for the idea of the correspondence principle at work – many of those children will go into manufacturing, as China is the world’s main manufacturing country in the era of globalisation.

The Marxist Theory of the reproduction of class inequality and its legitimation through the myth of meritocracy does actually seem to be true today. There is a persistent correlation between social class background and educational achievement – with the middle classes able to take advantage of their material and cultural capital to give their children a head start and then better grades and jobs. It is also the case that children are not taught about this unfairness in schools, although a small handful do learn about it in Sociology classes.

In conclusion , while Marxist theory might be dated, all of the four major ideas still seem to have some relevance, especially their ideas about the reproduction and legitimation of class inequality, so I would say Marxism is one of the more accurate perspectives which helps us understand the role of the education system today, both nationally and globally.

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The Marxist Perspective on the Role of Education in Society

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Article contents

Marxism and educational theory.

• Mike Cole Mike Cole University of East London
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.105
• Published online: 25 January 2019

While Marx and Engels wrote little on education, the educational implications of Marxism are clear. Education both reproduces capitalism and has the potential to undermine it. With respect to reproduction, it is informative to look at key texts by Althusser and Bowles and Gintis (and the latter’s legacy). As far as challenging capitalism is concerned, considerations are given to both theoretical developments and practical attempts to confront neoliberalism and enact socialist principles, the combination of which Marxists refer to as praxis. There have been constant challenges to Marxism since its conception, and in conclusion we look at two contemporary theories—critical race theory and its primacy of “race” over class—and intersectionality which has a tendency to marginalize class.

• educational theory
• education and the reproduction of capitalism
• education and the undermining of capitalism
• and Saunders
• contemporary theoretical challenges to Marxism

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education, community-building and change

Karl Marx and education

Karl marx and education. what significance does marx have for educators and animateurs today an introduction and assessment by barry burke..

contents: introduction · life · Karl Marx as a thinker · Karl Marx and the class struggle · the communist manifesto · Karl Marx’s relevance to knowledge and education · further reading · links · how to cite this article

Karl Marx never wrote anything directly on education – yet his influence on writers, academics, intellectuals and educators who came after him has been profound. The power of his ideas has changed the way we look at the world. Whether you accept his analysis of society or whether you oppose it, he cannot be ignored. As Karl Popper, a fierce opponent of Marxism, has claimed ‘all modern writers are indebted to Marx, even if they do not know it’.

Karl Marx was born in Trier on May 5, 1818. He studied at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena. His early writings for, and editorship of, the Cologne newspaper Rheinische Zeitung brought him quickly into conflict with the government. He was critical of social conditions and existing political arrangements. In 1843 after only a year in post, Marx was compelled to resign as editor. Soon afterwards the paper was also forced to stop publication. Marx then went to Paris (where he first met Engels). His radicalism had come to be recognizably ‘communistic’. His revolutionary analysis and activity led to him being ordered to leave Paris in 1845. Karl Marx went onto settle in Brussels and began to organize Communist Correspondence Committees in a number of European cities. This led to the organizing of the Communist League (and the writing of the Communist Manifesto with Engels) (see below). With the unrest and revolutionary activity of 1848, Marx was again forced to leave a country. He returned to Paris and then to the Rhineland. In Cologne he set up and edited the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, and continued organizing. In 1849 Marx was arrested and tried on a charge of incitement to armed insurrection. He got off, but was expelled from Germany.

Karl Marx spent the remainer of his life in England, arriving in London in 1849 (see Karl Marx in Soho ). His most productive years were spent in the Reading Room of the British Museum where much of his research and writing took place. He wrote a great deal although hardly any of it was published in English until after his death in 1883.

Karl Marx as a thinker

Marx’s intellectual output is difficult to categorize for whilst his major work, Das Kapital, translated into English as Capital, is a work of economics, he is more popularly recognised as a social scientist and a political philosopher. As C.Wright Mills has explained: “as with most complicated thinkers, there is no one Marx. The various presentations of his work which we can construct from his books, pamphlets, articles, letters written at different times in his own development, depend upon our point of interest …; every student must earn his own Marx.” So today, we have Marxist anthropology, Marxist literary criticism, Marxist aesthetics, Marxist pedagogy, Marxist cultural studies, Marxist sociology etc. His intellectual output lasted from the early 1840s to the early l880s and over that long period of 40 years produced a number of works that have enriched the thinking of those who came after him.

There are many who see different stages in the thinking of Karl Marx. His earlier works are sometimes referred to as showing a humanistic Marx, a philosophical Marx who was concerned with the role of the individual, with what human beings are actually like, with the relationship between consciousness and existence. The later Marx, we are told, wrote as a social scientist, a political economist who was more concerned with social structure than with individuals. It is possible to read this into the work of Karl Marx but it is also possible to see a basic thread going right through all his work. One of the reasons for this is that one of his major works, the Grundrisse or Outlines, described by David McLellan, Marx’s biographer as “the most fundamental of all Marx’s writings” was not published in English until the 1970s. It is quite easy, therefore, to see why there are different perspectives on Karl Marx, why my Marx can be different from your Marx.

Karl Marx on the class struggle

So what was it that made Karl Marx so important? At the cornerstone of his thinking is the concept of the class struggle. He was not unique in discovering the existence of classes. Others had done this before him. What Marx did that was new was to recognize that the existence of classes was bound up with particular modes of production or economic structure and that the proletariat, the new working class that Capitalism had created, had a historical potential leading to the abolition of all classes and to the creation of a classless society. He maintained that “the history of all existing society is a history of class struggle”. Each society, whether it was tribal, feudal or capitalist was characterized by the way its individuals produced their means of subsistence, their material means of life, how they went about producing the goods and services they needed to live. Each society created a ruling class and a subordinate class as a result of their mode of production or economy. By their very nature the relationship between these two was antagonistic. Marx referred to this as the relations of production. Their interests were not the same. The feudal economy was characterized by the existence of a small group of lords and barons that later developed into a landed aristocracy and a large group of landless peasants. The capitalist economy that superseded it was characterized by a small group of property owners who owned the means of production i.e. the factories, the mines and the mills and all the machinery within them. This group was also referred to as the bourgeoisie or capitalist class. Alongside them was a large and growing working class. He saw the emergence of this new propertyless working class as the agent of its own self emancipation. It was precisely the working class, created and organized into industrial armies, that would destroy its creator and usher in a new society free from exploitation and oppression. “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers”.

The Communist Manifesto

These ideas first saw the light of day as an integrated whole in the Communist Manifesto which Marx wrote with his compatriot Frederick Engels in 1847/8. The Manifesto begins with a glowing tribute to the historical and revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie. It points out how the bourgeoisie had totally altered the face of the earth as it revolutionized the means of production, constantly expanded the market for its products, created towns and cities, moved vast populations from rural occupations into factories and centralized political administration. Karl Marx sums up the massive achievements of the bourgeoisie by declaring that “during its rule of scarce one hundred years (it) has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to Man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?”. However, the creation of these productive forces had the effect, not of improving the lot of society, but of periodically creating a situation of crisis. Commercial crises as a result of over-production occurred more and more frequently as the productive forces were held back by the bourgeois organization of production and exchange.

But along with the development of the bourgeoisie who own the means of production we find the development of the proletariat – the propertyless working class. With the evolution of modern industry, Marx pointed out that workmen became factory fodder, appendages to machines. Men were crowded into factories with army-like discipline, constantly watched by overseers and at the whim of individual manufacturers. Increasing competition and commercial crises led to fluctuating wages whilst technological improvement led to a livelihood that was increasingly precarious. The result was a growth in the number of battles between individual workmen and individual employers whilst collisions took on more and more “the character of collisions between two classes”. Marx and Engels characterize the growth of the working class as a “more or less veiled civil war raging within existing society” but unlike previous historical movements which were minority movements, the working class movement is “the self-conscious independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority”. The conclusion they drew from this was that the overthrow of bourgeois supremacy and a victory for the working class would not, therefore, produce another minority ruling class but “in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all”.

The Communist Manifesto contains within it, the basic political theory of Marxism – a theory that Marx was to unfold, reshape and develop for the rest of his life. Without doubt, the Manifesto is sketchy and over-simplistic but its general principles were never repudiated by Marx although those parts that had become antiquated he was only too ready to reject or modify.

For instance, the two-class model which has always been associated with Marx was never an accurate picture of his theory. Marx later made it quite clear that within the bourgeoisie, there were a whole number of factions existing based on different types of property such as finance, industry, land and commerce. He was aware of the growth of the middle classes, situated midway between the workers on the one side and the capitalists and landowners on the other. He regarded them as resting with all their weight upon the working class and at the same time increasing the security and power of the upper class. At the other end of the spectrum, he explains the existence of different strata of the working class such as the nomad population moving around the country, the paupers, the unemployed or industrial reserve army and what has become known as the aristocracy of labour, the skilled artisans. All of these strata made up a working class created by capitalist accumulation.

However, why is it that Marx felt that the existence of classes meant that the relationship between them was one of exploitation? In feudal societies, exploitation often took the form of the direct transfer of produce from the peasantry to the aristocracy. Serfs were compelled to give a certain proportion of their production to their aristocratic masters, or had to work for a number of days each month in the lord’s fields to produce crops consumed by the lord and his retinue. In capitalist societies, the source of exploitation is less obvious, and Marx devoted much attention to trying to clarify its nature. In the course of the working day, Marx reasoned, workers produce more than is actually needed by employers to repay the cost of hiring them. This surplus value, as he called it, is the source of profit, which capitalists were able to put to their own use. For instance, a group of workers in a widget factory might produce a hundred widgets a day. Selling half of them provides enough income for the manufacturer to pay the workers’ wages. income from the sale of the other half is then taken for profit. Marx was struck by the enormous inequalities this system of production created. With the development of modern industry, wealth was created on a scale never before imagined but the workers who produced that wealth had little access to it. They remained relatively poor while the wealth accumulated by the propertied class grew out of all proportion. In addition, the nature of the work became increasingly dull, monotonous and physically wearing to the workforce who became increasingly alienated from both the products they were creating, from their own individuality and from each other as human beings.

Karl Marx’s relevance to knowledge and education

Karl Marx made it clear that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” and what he meant by life was actual living everyday material activity. Human thought or consciousness was rooted in human activity not the other way round as a number of philosophers felt at the time. What this meant was the way we went about our business, the way we were organized in our daily life was reflected in the way we thought about things and the sort of world we created. The institutions we built, the philosophies we adhered to, the prevailing ideas of the time, the culture of society, were all determined to some extent or another by the economic structure of society. This did not mean that they were totally determined but were quite clearly a spin-off from the economic base of society. The political system, the legal system, the family, the press, the education system were all rooted, in the final analysis, to the class nature of society, which in turn was a reflection of the economic base. Marx maintained that the economic base or infrastructure generated or had built upon it a superstructure that kept it functioning. The education system, as part of the superstructure, therefore, was a reflection of the economic base and served to reproduce it. This did not mean that education and teaching was a sinister plot by the ruling class to ensure that it kept its privileges and its domination over the rest of the population. There were no conspirators hatching devious schemes. It simply meant that the institutions of society, like education, were reflections of the world created by human activity and that ideas arose from and reflected the material conditions and circumstances in which they were generated.

This relationship between base and superstructure has been the subject of fierce debate between Marxists for many years. To what extent is the superstructure determined by the economic base? How much of a reflection is it? Do the institutions that make up the superstructure have any autonomy at all? If they are not autonomous, can we talk about relative autonomy when we speak about the institutions of society? There have been furious debates on the subject and whole forests have been decimated as a result of the need to publish contributions to the debate.

I now want to turn to Marx’s contribution to the theory of knowledge and to the problem of ideology. In his book, The German Ideology, Marx maintained that “the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force”. What he meant by that is that the individuals who make up the ruling class of any age determine the agenda. They rule as thinkers, as producers of ideas that get noticed. They control what goes by the name “common sense”. Ideas that are taken as natural, as part of human nature, as universal concepts are given a veneer of neutrality when, in fact, they are part of the superstructure of a class-ridden society. Marx explained that “each new class which puts itself in the place of the one ruling before it, is compelled, simply in order to achieve its aims, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society i.e. ..to give its ideas the form of universality and to represent them as the only rational and universally valid ones”. Ideas become presented as if they are universal, neutral, common sense. However, more subtly, we find concepts such as freedom, democracy, liberty or phrases such as “a fair days work for a fair days pay” being banded around by opinion makers as if they were not contentious. They are, in Marxist terms, ideological constructs, in so far as they are ideas serving as weapons for social interests. They are put forward for people to accept in order to prop up the system.

What Marx and Marxists would say is that ideas are not neutral. They are determined by the existing relations of production, by the economic structure of society. Ideas change according to the interests of the dominant class in society. Antonio Gramsci coined the phrase “ideological hegemony” to describe the influence the ruling class has over what counts as knowledge. For Marxists, this hegemony is exercised through institutions such as education, or the media, which the Marxist philosopher and sociologist, Louis Althusser referred to as being part of what he called the Ideological State Apparatus. The important thing to note about this is that it is not to be regarded as part of a conspiracy by the ruling class. It is a natural effect of the way in which what we count as knowledge is socially constructed. The ideology of democracy and liberty, beliefs about freedom of the individual and competition are generated historically by the mode of production through the agency of the dominant class. They are not neutral ideas serving the common good but ruling class ideas accepted by everyone as if they were for the common good.

This brings us back to the notion of education as part of the super-structural support for the economic status quo. If this is the case, there are a number of questions that need to be asked. The first is can society be changed by education? If not, why not? Secondly, can education be changed and if so, how?

Further reading

Biographies:.

The following biographies are good starting points:

McLelland, D. (1995 Karl Marx: A biography 3e, London: Macmillan. 464 pages. Something of a standard work and includes a postscript, ‘Marx today’.

Wheen, F. (1999) Karl Marx , London: Fouth Estate. pages. Highly readable new biography that picks up on recent scholarship.

Marx – key texts

Go the Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels Internet Archive for online versions of Marx’s key works.

Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels Internet Archive – Excellent collection of primary and secondary works. Includes pieces on various colleagues and family.

In Defence of Marxism Argues for Marxist analysis it’s relevance to current social and political questions.

Marxism Page – links and resources.

Marx and Engel’s Writings – collection of Marx and Engels’ writings in history, sociology, and political theory.

Acknowledgements : Picture: Karl Marx, sourced from Wikemedia Commons from International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Listed as being in the public domain.

How to cite this article : Burke, Barry (2000) ‘Karl Marx and informal education’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education , www.infed.org/thinkers/et-marx.htm . Last update: January 03, 2013

Prepared by Barry Burke © 2000

Last Updated on October 19, 2019 by infed.org

MIA : Subjects : Education:

Marxism & Education   Index to the works of Marxists and others on education, cognitive psychology and child development. Because Marxists have tended to approach the whole range of psychological issues — development, feeling, neurosis, pathology, personality and character — from the point of view of cognitive and linguistic development, much of the material in this subject archive is also found in the more comprehensive Psychology Subject Archive . Likewise, for Marxists, there has never been a sharp line between social and individual development, so social theory penetrates deeply into both psychology and educational theory. The Marxist approach to education is broadly constructivist , and emphasises activity , collaboration and critique , rather than passive absorption of knowledge, emulation of elders and conformism; it is student-centred rather than teacher centred, but recognises that education cannot transcend the problems and capabilities of the society in which it is located. This archive lists the works of Marxist and some non-Marxist writers on teaching and learning to be found on the Marxists Internet Archive.   Early ideas on Socialist Education Theses On Feuerbach #3 , Marx 1845 Communist Manifesto , Marx 1848 Juvenile and Child Labour , International Workingmen's Association 1866 On General Education , Speech by Marx August 1869 Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63 , Marx Section 9 (Factory Acts) , Capital, Chapter 15, Marx 1867 Section 9 (Factory Acts) , Capital, Chapter 15, Marx 1867 Productive Labour , Capital, Chapter 16, Marx 1867 On Education , Mikhail Bakunin 1869 The Struggle of Woman for Education , Bebel 1879 The Socialist System of Education , Bebel 1879 Socialism and Education , May Wood Simmons 1901 The Material Basis of Education , Lena Morrow Lewis 1912 Self-Education of the Workers , Anatoly Lunacharsky 1918 Independent Working Class Education – Thoughts and Suggestions , Eden and Cedar Paul 1918 Bolshevism v Democracy in Education , Eden and Cedar Paul 1918 Education of the Masses , Sylvia Pankhurst, 1918 Men or Machines , Gramsci 1916 On the Organisation of Education and of Culture , Gramsci 1923 >-->   Soviet Ideas on Education Decree on Child Welfare , Alexandra Kollontai 1918 To All Who Teach , Anatoly Lunacharsky 1918 Church and School in the Soviet Republic , Nikolai Bukharin, 1919 Communism and Education , from The ABC of Communism , by Bukharin and Preobrazhensky 1920     Lenin on Education What Can be Done for Public Education? , Lenin 1914 Speech at first All-Russian Congress on Education , Lenin 1918 To People's Commissariat of Education , Lenin 1919 Work of People's Commissariat for Education , Lenin 1921 Reports on Soviet Education Russian Children , from Six Red Months in Russia , Louise Bryant 1918 Soviet Education , from Russia in 1919 , Arthur Ransome Education and Culture , My Disillusionment in Russia , Emma Goldman 1922 Children of Revolution , Anna-Louise Strong 1925 Education in Soviet Russia , The First Time in History , Anna-Louise Strong 1925 The Revolution in Education and Culture , Soviet Russia: a living record and a history , Wm Chamberlin 1929 Family Relations Under the Soviets , Trotsky 1932 Education in Stalinist Russia On Communist Education. Selected Speeches and Articles (1926-1945) , M. I. Kalinin Learning to Live , A. S. Makarenko 1936-1938 The Road to Life (An Epic of Education), Volume 1 , A. S. Makarenko 1933-1935 The Road to Life (An Epic of Education), Volume 2 . Lectures to Parents , A. S. Makarenko 1937 Problems of Soviet School Education , A. S. Makarenko Makarenko: His Life and Work , A. S. Makarenko Makarenko (1888-1939) reflects some ideas which were characteristic of Stalin's Soviet Union. Nonetheless, his ideas were very radical and are much admired by progressive educators to this day, especially in the education of disadvantaged children. The psychologists of the Vygotsky School, whose writings predominate in what follows, were a minority current in the Soviet Union; they were not allowed to travel or publish overseas and their influence on the Soviet education system was limited. Early Childhood and Play Play and its role in the mental development of the Child , Vygotsky 1933 Tool and Symbol in Child Development , Vygotsky 1930 --> The Construction of Reality in the Child , Jean Piaget 1955 Piaget's theory of child language and thought , Vygotsky 1934 Comment on Vygotsky , Piaget 1962 The Child and his Behavior , Luria 1930 The Prehistory of Written Language , Vygotsky 1930 --> The Origins of Thought in the Child, Henri Wallon 1947 Genetic Psychology , Henri Wallon 1956 Summerhill - A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, Erich Fromm 1960 The Psychological Development of the Child , Henri Wallon 1965 Stages in the Mental Development of the Child , Elkonin 1971 Mental Development in Twins , from Soviet Psychology , Luria 1979 --> Mental Development --> The development of Perception and Attention and --> Mastery of Memory and Thinking , Vygotsky 1930 --> Verbal Regulation of Behavior , and Mechanisms of the Brain , Luria 1979 from Soviet Psychology Introduction to Luria's The Making of Mind , by Michael Cole, 1979 --> Adolescence and Ethical Development Ethical Behavior , from Educational Psychology Vygotsky 1926 Esthetic Behavior , from Educational Psychology Vygotsky 1926 Development of thinking and concept formation in adolescence , Vygotsky 1931 Imagination and creativity of the adolescent , Vygotsky 1931 Vygotsky's tool-and-result methodology , Fred Newman and Lois Holzman Society and Individual Development The Psychological and Sociological Study of the Child , Henri Wallon 1947 The Influence of Social Factors in Child Development , Erich Fromm 1958 Human Nature and Social Theory , Erich Fromm 1969 Man in Marxist Theory , Lucian Seve 1974 Cognitive Development: Its Social and Cultural Foundations , Luria 1976 Cognition and Foundations of Learning Internalization of Higher Psychological Functions , Vygotsky 1930 Interaction between Learning and Development , Vygotsky 1930 --> The Genetic Roots of Thought and Speech , Vygotsky 1934 Thought and Word , Vygotsky 1934 Activity and Knowledge , Ilyenkov 1974 Activity and Consciousness , Leontyev 1977 Activity, Consciousness, and Personality 1978: Leontev's Introduction     Marxism and Psychological Science ,     Activity and Personality ,     Motives, Emotions, and Personality . Personal account of Soviet Psychology , Luria 1979 The Historical Context , Introduction to Soviet Psychology , Luria 1979 Vygotsky , from Soviet Psychology , Luria 1979 Cultural Differences in Thinking , from Soviet Psychology , Luria 1979 --> Much Learning does Not Teach Understanding , Vasili Davydov Types of Generalization in Instruction: Logical and Psychological Problems in the Structuring of School Curricula , Vasili Davydov Biography of Vasily Davydov and an outline of his ideas , Vladimir Kudryavtsev   John Dewey on Education Interest in Relation to Training of the Will , 1896 My Pedagogic Creed , 1896 The School and Social Progress , 1899 The Child and the Curriculum , 1902 Education as Growth , 1916 Experience and Thinking , 1916 The Need of a Theory of Experience , 1938 Criteria of Experience , 1938   See also: Hegel on Education Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Paulo Freire 1968   History Archive Subjects Section Encyclopedia of Marxism Cross-Language Section What's New? Contact Us Comments to Andy Blunden M.I.A. Home Page | MCA Discussion Forum  

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Marxism and Educational Theory

2007, Marxism and Educational Theory

Related Papers

Renewing Dialogues in Marxism and Education: Openings

Glenn Rikowski

Since the mid-1990s, Marxist educational theory, research, and policy analysis has experienced an upturn. By exploring Marxist theory in the age of neoliberalism, this edited collection examines the dialectic between race and power in education. The essays embody an underlying set of principles and practices that seek to maximize inclusiveness and dialogue between critical theoretical traditions such as postmodernism, Critical Realism, Feminism, and "anti-racism" in order to critique current educational institutions, policies, and practices. Finally, the book explores phenomena such as globalization, commodification, and capitalization in relation to key aspects of the contemporary educational landscape. The essays extend from the local to the global and encompass historical and contemporary developments in the political economy of education.

Why Marxism? Why Marxist educational theory? Through addressing these questions, this paper proclaims the importance of Marxism as a theory that intellectually disrupts and ruptures capitalist society and its educational forms. With reference to the work of John Holloway, it is argued that the significance of Marxism resides in its capacity to pinpoint fragilities and weaknesses in the constitution of capital. Grasping these fragilities in the rule of capital in contemporary social life sharpens the critical edge of any politics aimed at social transformation. Marxist educational theory plays an important role in this enterprise. These points are illustrated through consideration of the following ideas and phenomena: fragility, crisis, critique, negativity and social form(s). It is argued that fragility must be the starting point as Marxism is primarily a theory of capitalist weaknesses, and not the opposite: a theory of capitalist domination. Following Holloway, Marxism is a theory against society, rather than just another mainstream theory of society. Against Holloway, it is argued that the forms that fragilities for labour take also need to be understood. Paradoxically, our strength vis-à-vis capital is also the place for apprehending the fragilities and dependencies of labour. This vicious duality also exists in terms of crises in capitalism, and this flows into the phenomena of critique and negativity too. Finally, on the basis of this theorisation, the doors of capitalist hell are opened through a consideration of social forms in general and commodity forms in particular and their relations to educational processes and institutions. It is at this point that Marxist educational theory enters the stage, although in a transfigured form. In 1997, I wrote an article for the British Journal of Sociology of Education called ‘Scorched Earth: Prelude to Rebuilding Marxist Educational Theory’. Twenty-one years later, this paper can be viewed as my definitive first element in a programme of rebuilding Marxist educational theory.

Cadernos do GPOSSHE On-line

The article rests substantially on the work of John Holloway, especially his early articles in Common Sense: Journal of the Edinburgh Conference of Socialist Economists. On this foundation, it is argued, firstly, that the importance of Marxism resides in its capacity to pinpoint fragilities and weaknesses in the constitution, development and rule of capital in contemporary society. Understanding these fragilities sharpens the critical edge of any movements aimed at social transformation out of the madhouse of capital.

Educational Theory

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Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory, in: D. Hill, P. McLaren, M. Cole & G. Rikowski (eds.), Lanham MD: Lexington Books

derek r. ford

With the contradictions of capitalism heightening and intensifying, and with new social movements spreading across the globe, revolutionary transformation is once again on the agenda. For radicals, the most pressing question is: How can we transform ourselves and our world into something else, something just? In Marx, Capital, and Education, Curry Stephenson Malott and Derek R. Ford develop a "critical pedagogy of becoming" that is concerned with precisely this question. The authors boldly investigate the movement toward communism and the essential role that critical pedagogy can play in this transition. Performing a novel and educational reading of Karl Marx and radical theorists and activists, Malott and Ford present a critical understanding of the past and present, of the underlying logics and (often opaque) forces that determine the world-historical moment. Yet Malott and Ford are equally concerned with examining the specific ways in which we can teach, learn, study, and struggle ourselves beyond capitalism; how we can ultimately overthrow the existing order and institute a new mode of production and set of social relations. This incisive and timely book, penned by two militant teachers, organizers, and academics, reconfigures pedagogy and politics. Educators and organizers alike will find that it provides new ammunition in the struggle for the world that we deserve. Advanced praise: "In Marx, Capital, and Education, Malott and Ford advance one of the boldest and [most] unmitigated analyses of education in the history of the field. Their unflinching and scholarly critique of the relationship between capitalism and compulsory education helps to reground the field of critical pedagogy, framing a renewed ‘revolutionary Marxist pedagogy.’ Their careful undertaking of Marx and contemporary scholars of Marx situate this text as a must-read across multiple disciplines including philosophy, political science, government, and education - a true classic in the making." (Sandy Grande, Associate Professor and Chair, Education Department, Connecticut College) "This is an essential text for all of those interested in the continuing potential of Marxism as an analytic tool and as a political movement, with implications for critical pedagogy and a truly liberatory education. It traces the history of the use of Marxist theory in education in ways that are insightful, and it provides a key set of categories for reading and using Marx in a ‘postmodern’ age. A rare achievement in educational scholarship." (Dennis Carlson, Full Professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University)

A paper prepared for the Fourth Historical Materialism Annual Conference 2007, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London

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The Marxist theory of schooling: A study of epistemology and education (Harvester studies in philosophy) Paperback – January 1, 1980

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Marxism and Teacher Education

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 09 August 2019
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Dave Hill 2 , 3  

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Introduction

This entry suggests an eco-Marxist manifesto for teacher education, focusing on activity within formal education systems and calls for education workers – including teacher educators – and other cultural workers to become Marxist activist public organic intellectuals of the working class within micro-, meso-, and macro-social and political arenas.

Arenas of Action

There are many types of Marxist. This is written from a classical, revolutionary Marxist perspective.

There are various arenas in which Marxist and critical educators and teacher educators can be, are, and should be active. These are within the:

Classroom/seminar room/lecture theater

Wider school community/organization – such as the staffroom and the trade union branch

Local community/town/city – for example, in tenants’, benefits’, anti-racist, anti-austerity, environmentalist or other local community organizations and movements- and within town-wide/city-wide political parties, social movements, and...

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Edwards, G., Hill, D., & Boxley, S. (2018). Critical teacher education for economic, environmental and social justice. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies , 16 (3). Online at http://www.jceps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/16-3-1.pdf

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Hoare, Q., and Nowell Smith, G. (eds. and trans.) New York: International Publishers.

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Hill, D. (2004). British Educational Research Association (BERA) annual conference. Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, Sept 14–18. Critical teacher education, critical pedagogy and equality: A critical transformative teacher education: A four-year Marxist undergraduate programme. Online at http://www.ieps.org.uk/papers1.php

Hill, D. (2010). A socialist manifesto for education. Online at http://www.ieps.org.uk/PDFs/socialistmanifestofored.pdf

Hill, D. (2013). Class struggle and education: Neoliberalism, (neo)-conservatism, and the capitalist assault on public education. Critical Education, 4 (10). Online at http://www.ieps.org.uk/media/1147/class-struggle-and-education-2013-dave-hill-in-critical-education.pdf

Hill, D. (2019) (forthcoming). Marxist education against capitalism in the neoliberal era. Cadernos do GPOSSHE On-line (Grupo de Pesquisa Ontologia do Ser Social, Historia, Educação e Emancipação Humana). Fortaleza.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/2010). The Communist Manifesto. Marxist Internet Archive. Online at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

Marx, K. (1845/2002). Theses on Feuerbach. Marxist Internet Archive. Online at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm

Marx, K. (1847). The Poverty of Philosophy. Marxist Internet Archive. Online at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/

Prendergast, L.M., Hill, D., & Jones, S. (2017). Social Exclusion, Education and Precarity: neoliberalism, neoconservatism and class war from above. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 15 (2). Online at http://www.jceps.com/archives/3526

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Hill, D. (2019). Marxism and Teacher Education. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_323-1

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