CHAPTER 9 – EDUCATION
Capital Expansionism
After 1975: forms of economic production in economic sphere changed –
reduced corporate taxation.
Reductions in education funding.
Video: “Captive Audience: Advertising in Classrooms”
Questions to consider:
o What is the “Shadow Curriculum”?
Marketing scheme that goes along formally with an educational
curriculum (Subtle marketing and advertising that goes along
with education).
o Is there a difference between explicit advertising in schools and
product placement in textbook exercises? How are they different?
Discipline & Evaluation
Discipline is key to the education system – part of the Hidden Curriculum.
o The unstated, unofficial agenda of school system authorities
o Primary School: Discipline the body
o Secondary School: Increased focus on cognitive discipline
(disciplining the mind)
Docile Body
Foucalt (1977): Docile Bodies
o Group that has be ‘conditioned’ through a specific set of procedures
and practices to behave precisely that way authorities want it to
o Produced through disciplinary control:
Hierarchical observation
Normalizing judgment
The examination
Cultural Capital
Cultural Capital (Pierre Bourdieu)
o Reflects the reproduction of the class structure, mostly through
difference in consumptions patterns and taste.
o Given the upper classes advantages in education.
Example of the Reproduction of Class Structure Jean Anyon:
o “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”
o Ethnographic study of five elementary schools in New Jersey in 1978
79
o Daily schoolwork, parents’ occupations.
Results:
o Working Class Schools
Following the steps of a procedure; mechanical; rote behavior;
little choice.
o MiddleClass Schools
Follow the directions; but some figuring, some choice, some
decision making.
o Affluent Professional Schools
Creative activities; independence; asked to express and apply
ideas and concepts.
o Executive Elite Schools
Develop analytical intellectual powers; reason through a
problem; logically sounds products and of top aca
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