Education and the Reproduction of Class, Gender, and Race: Responding to the Postmodern Challenge

Abstract

most notably, structuralist Marxism), they fail to hit their mark with respect to the more subtle formulations that have come to inform contemporary critical sociologies of education.Despite the various criticisms and qualifications of the original "correspondence principle" for economically based models, the general notion of social and cultural reproduction has remaineddespite appearancesa central assumption of critical pedagogy and critical sociologies of schooling. To be sure, this has required fundamental revisions to the model, involving both the incorporation of concepts of agency and resistance, along with the diversification of the causal nexus of power to include non-class forms of exclusion and domination. As well, the metatheoretical status of such theorizing has shifted from that of a totalizing (functionalist) structuralism to that of a more fallibilistic, historically specific structural m e t h~d .~ Does it make sense to continue to describe such approaches with the concept of "reproduction" at all? As one recent defender of the notion of cultural reproduction has charged, the concept was "seemingly highjacked" (at least in Britain) by "the orthodoxy of studies in the theory of ideology and neo-Marxisms," thus hstracting attention from the dynamic and positive dimensions revealed in other sources of this t r a d i t i~n .~ This situation is said to require "an attempt to liberate the concept back into the wider arena of sociological debate," a process initiated in the work of Pierre B0urdieu.j As we will argue, such a rehabilitation has been long under way in both social theory and educational sociology in the guise of what we will term practicebased, parallelist models of cultural reproduction.Two broad shifts -one internal and another external-can be identified which have contributed to a reorientation of debates in these domains. The first shift, visible by the end of the 1970s, involved primarily immanent forms of self-criticism and was initially associated with theories of social and cultural reproduction in relation to theories of social inequality and stratification and to theories of the state. The outcome was a move away from the correspondence principle, in other words, 3. So, for example, Michael Apple points to the "need to interpret schooling as both a system of production and reproduction," in revising his earlier position in Education and Power (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19821, 22. Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Giroux develop a typology of theories of reproduction: economic-reproductive (structuralist Marxism), cultural-reproductive (Bourdicu), and hegemonic-state models (Cramscian) and their relation to theories of resistance in Education Under Siege [South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Gamey, 19851, 74ff. Giroux's more recent flirtation with postmodcrnism in his Border Crossings (New York: Routledge, 1992) does not involve abandoning this theme, though it could be argued that he fails to articulate adequately the "language of possibility" with the constraints of structure.

Postmodernism and the repoliticization of education

“…Also connected to the critical tradition are Brodkey (1987), Beyer and Liston (1992), Kanpol, (1992), and Morrow and Torres (1994). The approach from feminist pedagogy is expressed in Nicholson (1989), Lather (1991), Gore (1993), McLaren and Hammer (1989), and some contributions in Giroux (1991).…”

Dissing learning disabilities

“…CTE holds that the education system has been unable to promote a more egalitarian society as it is focused on the growth of dominant social groups (Wotherspoon, 1998). CTE targets the reproduction of capitalist social order based on class system which occur through the contributions of the -hidden curriculum‖ (Morrow & Torres, 1994). Reproduction theorists advocate for equality within the education system while opposing the mainstream ideology which it recognizes works to maintain power relations while being agencies of dominant class or culture (Demaine, 2003).…”

“…Using, testing as a mode to evaluate the knowledge held by the students, they are placed within a system of hierarchy. As CTE asserts, this categorization is a form of cultural reproduction within the education system that framed from the contributions of a hidden curriculum to maintain capitalist social order (Morrow & Torres, 1994). By placing students into categories, their future is already established by the educators.…”

Neoliberal Governance and the “New Professionalism” of Israeli Principals

“…Education is perceived as a central arena for the production and reproduction of knowledge and behavior (Morrow and Torres 1994), which in many cases causes the state to introduce controls over educational functions (Zajda 2006). The injection of neo-liberalism into educational discourse and practices has transformed the essence of educational professionalism.…”