Eight Reasons Why We Should All be Marxists

The third of three posts on Marxism for A2 Sociological Perspectives – Arguments and evidence for the continued relevance of Marxism 

Contemporary Marxists argues that Marxist analysis is still relevant to an understanding of modern society. A considerable amount of contemporary Marxist thought focuses on how Capitalism has become globalised and emphasises the injustices of the global capitalist system; another strand of contemporary Marxist theory focuses on how the values of capitalism (in the form of ‘neo-liberal hegemony’) have penetrated Western culture to the detriment of us all.

You might like to think about what Marxist concepts are illustrated by these cartoons

  1. Some Sociologists argue that a class based analysis of global society is still relevant.

Leslie Sklaire argues that recent decades have seen the emergence of a ‘Transnational Capitalist Class’. These are the leaders of global corporations, certain politicians and their bureaucrats who control billions of dollars of assets and financial flows. They wield their power through undemocratic international economic institutions such as the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund and the G20. These institutions were established after World War Two to help co-ordinate the expanding global economy and facilitate redevelopment after the war. However, many left wing theorists such as Joseph Stiglitz argue that since the 1970s these institutions have forced dozens of developing countries to adopt neo-liberal economic policies. Neo-Liberal policies include such things as privatising public services, cutting taxes and regulating industry less, thus allowing Transnational Corporations to open sweat shops, pollute local areas, and take all the profits away without giving very much back. The basic idea here is that the global economy is run by Corporations and Politicians for the benefit of Corporations and their high powered political supporters (One of whom is ‘Gideon’ Osborn)

  1. There is considerable evidence that exploitation still lies at the heart of the Capitalist system.

Corporations are frequently criticised for exploiting workers and the environment – through sweatshop labour and pollution, where they can get away with it. Some of the most obvious examples include Shell and oil pollution in Nigeria; Coke’s legacy of draining water local water supplies in India to produce Coke, which results in drought in local areas and Apple’s use of sweatshops in China to produce the ipad.

  1. There is some evidence that those with economic power still have disproportionate influence over the superstructure.

Marxist Theory is still relevant because…. There is some evidence that those with economic power still have disproportionate influence over the superstructure.

I should just point out that the point of this post is to provide soundbites that you can use in an exam (or an arguement with a Tory supporter of the neo-liberal state apparatus) rather than a comprehensive or balanced account of evidence for or against (the variety of) Marxist theory.

Evidence of Elite control over the government

By far the best example of state putting the interests of Capital before the interests of the majority of people is how the government has responded to the present ‘economic crisis’. 

Simply put, the state is making the poor pay for the economic problems caused by the Transnational Capitalist Class. The average guy on the street is getting poorer while the rich are still getting richer! Consider also the recent case of Ireland, where the minimum wage is being cut by one euro, VAT is being increase, and public sector jobs axed, while Corporation Tax remains at an incredibly low 12.5%  

Getting back to the cuts in Britain, this is no surprise if you actually look at the characteristics of those who make up the cabinet and the wider Tory Party; you actually find that many of them are themselves extremely wealthy. The prime minister, deputy prime minister and Chancellor are all millionaires – They are the Transnational Capitalist Class – and they are hardly likely to hurt themselves.

Evidence of Elite control over the Criminal Justice System

Another example of the elite class having control over the superstructure lies in the differential treatment of white collar crime and street crime. Even though White Collar Crime costs more to the economy than street crime, White Collar Criminals are still less likely to get punished. According to Tombs and Whyte, this is partly because the government invests fewer resources into investigating fraud and health and safety crimes (the types of crime Corporations are most likely to be guilty of) than it does into working class street crime.

Evidence of Elite Control over the mainstream Media

Greg Philo argues that it is simply crazy it is that the agenda in the media is about ‘what services should the government cut’ rather than ’should we tax the wealthy or make cuts.[1] Philo points[2] out that there are other solutions to the current economic crisis – there is enough property wealth in the country – we could just take it off them, but the government is making the average man on the street pay instead. In his film, 

Evidence of Elite Control of the Education system

Evidence for elite control of the education system lies in the fact that if you are wealthy, you can buy your children a private education, which gives them a much greater chance of getting into a top university and high getting a highly paid, prestigious job.  The statistics make for extremely uncomfortable reading… Intelligent children from the 20% of richest homes in England are seven times more likely to attend a high-ranking university than intelligent children from the poorest 40%’.Looked at another way, of 80,000 15-year-olds who’d been on free school meals in 2002, only 45 had made it to Oxbridge- compared to the high-end private Westminster school which averages 82 successful applicants every year.[3]

People from upper middle class, public school backgrounds dominate every economic sector except those – such as sport and hard science – in which only raw ability counts. Through networking, confidence, unpaid internships, most importantly through our attendance at the top universities, we run the media, politics, the civil service, the arts, the City, law, medicine, big business, the armed forces, even, in many cases, the protest movements challenging these powers. The Milburn report, published last year, shows that 45% of top civil servants, 53% of top journalists, 32% of MPs, 70% of finance directors and 75% of judges come from the 7% of the population who went to private schools.’[4]

  1. There is evidence that we are still under ideological control – but we don’t realise it.

Antonio Gramsci, A humanist Marxist writing in the early twentieth century first pointed out that what he called ‘Hegemonic Control’ plays an ever important role in advanced Capitalist societies. Hegemonic control occurs when the intellectual and moral leadership provided by the dominant class provides the fundamental outlook for the whole of society.

Greg Philo points to one very good recent example of this in recent years – the fact that we are so willing to accept cuts to public services when the richest ten percent of the country own so much wealth that if we just took one fifth of their wealth we would clear the national deficit, yet this idea doesn’t not even appear in the media. Agenda Setting has removed it and so we do not even consider it.

  1. Capitalism is kept going by creating ‘false needs’ –

Successful companies today spend billions on advertising campaigns to convince us that we need the products that they make. Looked at objectively much of what we buy we don’t need, yet the Capitalist class invests billions convincing us to buy things that we do not need.

Worse that ideological control – More generally, numerous Sociologists such as Richard Wilkinson and David Garland point out that the more unequal a country, and the more a country has adopted neo-liberal policies – the higher the prison population. It would appear that the closer a country is to ‘pure capitalism’ the more punitive the elite class is.

  1. Alienation and Commodity Fetishism

We in west have become so obsessed with consumer culture that we end up defining ourselves through the products we consume, and how we ‘pick and mix them’ (this means fashion, holidays, houses, cars, mobile phones). From a Marxist point of view this is incredibly shallow – Marx believed that we are only fully human when we are fully engaged with the political and economic processes of our society. From the Marxist point of view, Capitalism just encourages us to be childlike and define ourselves through our styles and our hobbies and to forget about politics and economics. In the truest sense we are alienated from our productive base while our identities become more and more dependent on material goods.

  1. David Harvey argues that economic crises are inherent to the Capitalist system and that in recent years these crises have become more severe and more frequent.

Harvey argues that any sane person should join an anti-capitalist movement because the root problems of Capitalism are the same as they were in Marx’s day – click here for his analysis of the problems of Modern Capitalism

  1. Capitalist exploitation is so bad in some parts of the world that there is vehement resistance to it – especially in Latin America – President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, for example, perceives himself as an anti-Capitalist, as do many people of Latin America. The Zapatistas in Mexico is another good example and the World Development Movement also has Marxist undertones.

  • See the first 20 mins or so of John Pilger’s ‘War on Democracy’ to here Hugo Chavez talk in Marxist terms – on stream

  1. Although you don’t see it in the media there are tens of thousands of people who call themselves Communists and who sympathise with Marxism and the wider anti-capitalist movement. Left Wing criticisms and the anti-capitalist movement are still very much alive today.

Related Posts

The Traditional Marxist Perspective on Society – Eight Key Ideas

Eight Criticisms of Traditional Marxism

Eight Criticisms of the Traditional Marxist View of Society

Capitalism and the class structure have changed since Marx’s day, and work is less alienating, and other criticisms!

Eight criticisms of Marx’s view of society are:

  1. The class structure today is more complex.
  2. Capitalism today is less exploitative
  3. Control of the economic base does not mean control of the superstructure
  4. False consciousness is a problem concept in postmodern society
  5. There is less alienation today
  6. Capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty
  7. Communism didn’t work
  8. Marxism was a metanarrative.

Writing in the 19th century Karl Marx saw society as clearly structured into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the former exploiting the later. He believed the Bourgeoisie controlled the superstructure and that they used institutions such as religion to spread false consciousness which distracted workers from their alienating working conditions which prevented them from rising up in revolution.

Today in 2022 it is clear that many of the these ideas are no longer valid. This post summarises eight criticisms of Marx’s view of society and social change including

Before reading it you might like to read up on the key ideas of Marx here: The Traditional Marxist Perspective on Society which outlines Marx’s theory of society in more depth and this post: Eight Ways in Which Marxism is Still Relevant Today which suggests some of Marx’s ideas may still hold some relevance today!

The class structure today is more complex than Bourgeois-Proletariat.

There is no clear dividing line between the Bourgeois (who in Marxist terms are the investor capitalist class who own the means of production) and the Proletariat (the people who have to sell their labour power to earn wages and survive).

In most Western Nations and increasingly in developing nations there is an extensive middle class who have stocks and shares invested in Corporations run by what Marxists would call the ‘Capitalist Class’. Also in Britain 70% of people own their own homes and see these homes (our private property) as ‘economic assets’ so many of us are, in a sense, petit-capitalists.

There are also more social class today. The Great British Class Survey (GBCS) conducted in 2011 found seven distinct social classes, with cultural and social capital being almost as important as economic capital in determining which class someone falls into.

The GBCS did find evidence of an ‘ordinary elite class’ of wealthy, high income individuals who tended to own their own homes, with an average age over 50, but these made up 6% of the population and are nothing like the ‘Bourgeoise’

Age also has a significant influence on what class you fall into today: older people are more likely to be elite or traditional working class, younger people more likely to fall into the new social classes in the middle.

In short social class today is something of a complex, messy, picture, and certainly not as simple as one small class of capitalists exploiting a larger working class.

Capitalism today is less exploitative

Two historical examples of this are when Henry Ford, the famous car manufacturer, realised that paying his workers good wages would generate demand for the cars he produced – a process which lead to workers being less exploited and ‘buying into’ the Capitalist system.

A second example is the move towards ‘Keynsian Economics’ in which the state came to play a more central role in regulating Capitalism to ensure that worst excesses of exploitation, inequality and insecurity that pure Capitalism generates were minimised.

Part of this involved the introduction of the welfare state in many European Countries after the Second World War. In the United Kingdom the state now provides universal health care, education, pensions and social security, these are paid for through a progressive taxation system: the more you earn, the more you pay, and yet everyone benefits.

Possibly the most obvious piece of evidence that Capitalism has lost its exploitative power is the introduction of a minimum wage in the UK in 1998, which has gradually increased broadly in line with inflation and stands at £10.42 an hour in 2023. Employers are legally obliged to pay this.

All of these things act as a safety net to ensure that the worst excesses of Capitalist exploitation are ameliorated.

Control of the Economic Base does not mean control of the Superstructure

Marx argued that those who control the economic base (the economy) controlled the economic superstructure (religion, education, media for example) – yet many of our institutions today have at least relative autonomy from Bourgeois control.

Much of the media today is completely independent of Bourgeois control, with many media outlets being critical of governments, Transnational Corporations and the global wealth elite. This is especially true of media companies which operate purely online, and there are hundreds of these today.

Many popular music artists are also extremely critical of the Capitalist system and have audiences of hundreds of millions of people.

Similarly education systems today are increasingly free of bourgeois and government control. Granted national curriculums may be shaped by national governments but there is an ever increasing amount of educational material available online for free which is not controllable but a small elite.

In short it seems that as we have shifted to a Postmodern society the superstructure (the media and education systems) have grown massively in size and are increasingly controlled from below by a diverse array of individuals. The superstructure is simply too large today to be controlled by a small minority.

Criticisms of False Consciousness

Given the above three points, it seems ludicrous to argue that the superstructure is controlled by the Bourgeoisie and is used to create false consciousness.

Firstly, post-modernists argue that culture (mainly the media) exists independently of Bourgeois control and is used by people in different for a variety of different purposes. If institutions are not controlled by the Bourgeois, then there can be no False Consciousness.

What we really have in post-modern society according to Post-Modernists is free individuals who correctly see class as irrelevant and who do not feel exploited and who are happy to identify themselves through the products they buy – products that are themselves the final outcome of a successful Capitalist system of production.

From a more philosophical point of view Marx’s concept of ‘false consciousness’ implies that there is also a ‘correct consciousness’ which in turn rests on the idea of there being ‘one truth’. This idea is problematic from a postmodern stand point which believes there is not one truth, but many different interpretations of reality and so many truths.

Work is less Alienating today

Work has changed a lot in the last hundred years. In general, jobs today are much less alienating than when Marx was writing in the mid 19th century.

At least 45% of jobs in the UK today are associate professional/ technical or above (1) and these are skilled jobs which tend to allow workers more autonomy than the kind of unskilled factory jobs which Marx saw as alienating.

There are also more than four million self employed people who directly control the terms and conditions of their working lives, and if you control your own working conditions then by definition you are NOT alienated.

Following Covid there is now much more working from home and flexible working hours, which means companies are flexing around the needs of workers, making work fit their home-lives rather than the other way around.

In modern companies workers have a lot more say, partly due to unionisation and partly due to enlightened management techniques.

Capitalism has changed and works for many

Classic Marxist theory has been criticised for being economically deterministic. Marx argued that economic laws would result in ever increasing amounts of exploitation for the poor an increasing concentrations of wealth at the top.

However, as it turns out the evolution of the global capitalist system has resulted in increasing wealth and prosperity for most people, and while the very rich have got VERY rich, we have also seen a persistent decline in global poverty over the past thirty years.

Different societies have responded differently to the global spread of Capitalism – some have pushed neo-liberalism (America and Britain since the early 1980s) whereas other European countries have taken a social democratic line and used the state as a buffer to protect citizens from the worst excesses of Capitalist exploitation (Scandinavian countries).

Whatever form state-capitalism has taken in Europe, there has been a general long-term trend towards ever increasing wealth, with the majority of people today being better off now than they were in one hundred years ago. Granted, there is a current squeeze in the form of a cost of living crisis, but the long term trend has been one of growing prosperity for most Europeans.

India and China, the two most populous countries in the world have also seen rapid economic growth in the last few decades, and have done so through embracing capitalist models of development (albeit in very different forms). Both of these countries have expanding middle classes with an increasingly global outlook.

Communism didn’t work

The Communist Revolutions in Eastern Europe did not lead to greater equality and freedom as Marx would have hoped. The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of Communism in Eastern Europe and the gradual transition of ex Soviet-bloc countries to capitalist systems; while China has gradually become more open to capitalism over the same period.

Given the failures of communism it is difficult to see what the alternative to Capitalism might be. NB – As a counter critique, contemporary Marxists would argue that the state communism of Eastern Europe was hardly true communism.

Traditional Marxism was a Metanarrative

From a more philosophical point of view Marx’s concept of ‘false consciousness’ implies that there is also a ‘correct consciousness’ in which workers realise the truth that they are being exploited and join a revolutionary movement for social change which pushes towards the Communist future.

However, as mentioned above, this idea that we should all be seeing the world in the same way because there is only one truth (Marx’s truth) is problematic in postmodernism which believes there are many different and equally valid ways of seeing the world.

Postmodernists would argue that Marx’s ‘grand theorising’ about the world is no longer relevant: IF we are interested in getting political then rather than researching with the intention of creating the perfect society, we would be better off focussing our attention of much more specific and localised social issues.

Signposting and Related Posts

This post has primarily been written for A-level sociology students focussing on the Theory and Methods module in the second year.

Two related posts include:

The Traditional Marxist Perspective on Society

Eight Ways in Which Marxism is Still Relevant Today

Sources

(1) ONS (2022) Industry and Occupation, England and Wales Census 2021.

The Marxist Perspective on Society

A summary of some of the key Ideas of Karl Marx, including Bourgeoisie/ Proletariat, exploitation, false consciousness, ideological control, and revolution.

In order to fully understand Marxism, you need to understand the work of Karl Marx, who produced most of his writing between 1840 and 1870, and in this post I summarise eight of his key ideas.

NB this is a simplified version of Marxist Theory designed for second year A level students, and I have ‘A-levelled’ it!

Although simplified you might like to read this even simpler version written for first year sociology students: Marx: Key Ideas.

The Bourgeoisie and Proletariat

Under Capitalism there are two basic classes- The Bourgeois and The Proletariat, and their relationship to private property defines them.

The Bourgeoisie own Capital – resources such as land, factories and money which can be used to make a profit, their principle source of income.

The proletariat own no capital – just their labour power and must sell it the Bourgeoisie.

NB when Marx talked about ‘private property’ he was talking about privately owned capital (spare ‘property’ for investing for profit), not someone owning their own tools or even one house in which they lived.

The Bourgeoisie exploit the Proletariat

The amount of money the employer pays the worker is less than the total value of goods that worker produces. The difference between the two is called surplus value. Marx thus says that the capitalist extracts surplus value from the worker. To Marx, Profit is basically the accumulated exploitation of workers in capitalist society.

Control of the Economic Base means control of the superstructure

According to Marx those who have economic power control all other institutions. During Marx’s day there was some evidence to suggest this was true – Voting was restricted to men with property; Press Barons used their papers to spread propaganda; and only the children of the wealthy could get to university.

Ideological Control

The Bourgeois use their control of institutions to keep the masses ignorant of their exploitation.

This is known as ideological control. According to Marx this was mainly done through the Mass Media and Religion. Ideological control results in False Consciousness – individuals not being aware (conscious) of their true class position or their exploitation by the ruling class. They are in a state of illusion.

Capitalism causes alienation

Under Capitalism the worker becomes alienated from the process of production, from the people he works with and from the products they produce. This is because he lacks control over his work and becomes a ‘machine’, and thus work appears as ‘alien’ to him.

Marx’s ideas on Capitalism and social change – Competition leads to increasing levels of exploitation – Marx argued that the Capitalism had within it the seeds of its own destruction – it would eventually create the social conditions that would lead to its downfall. In order to stay competitive, Capitalists would have to sell goods at lower prices, which would mean reduced profit.

This would then encourage Capitalists to seek to reduce wages and increase efficiency– making the working conditions of the proletariat ever worse. Marx theorised that increasing numbers of increasingly exploited proletarians crammed into ever expanding cities (where factories were based) would eventually lead to a violent revolution – in which the proletariat would throw off their oppressors.

Revolution and Communism

Marx argued that following the overthrow of the Bourgeois – society would eventually organise itself along Communist lines – where the means of production are collectively owned (no private property) and everyone has equal wealth.

Marx was vague about exactly what the Communist society would look like but argued that in this society ‘each would give according to their ability and take according to their needs’ and that there would be a lot more free time for all.

The point of ‘Social Research’

Marx spent the last decade of his life sitting in the British Library analysing how Capitalism worked and discovered that over time, the degree of exploitation of workers increased. He thus theorised that Capitalism would gradually lead to an increasing amount human misery and exploitation and that it must, one day come to an end.

As far as Marx was concerned, he had realised the truth, and he believed that political action was necessary to ‘wake up’ the proletariat and bring them to revolutionary class consciousness. He spent much of the middle and later parts of his life engaged in efforts to bring about revolutionary change.

Sign Posting – Other Relevant Posts for second year sociology

The Marxist Perspective on Society is usually taught as part of the compulsory Theory and Methods module in the second year of study.

After reading this post you should also read:

Eight Ways in Which Marxism is Still Relevant Today

Eight Criticisms of Traditional Marxism

Related Posts from other Topics Within Sociology

One way to approach Marxist Theory in second year Sociology is to look at what Marxists say about specific areas of society such as the family and education:

Find out more about Marxism – Good external sites

The Marx and Engels Archive – This is a comprehensive site which provides access to Marx’s major works, as well as biographies and articles about Marx, and a picture gallery!

The Communist Manifesto – Published in 1848 this is Marx’s most famous work – the one which contains the classic line ‘Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains’.

Marxism 2016 – Ideas for Revolution – This is the homepage of the latest Marxism festival, which is held in London every year over several days, where you can go to hear contemporary Marxists speak and argue amongst themselves.

The Victorian Slum is a BBC recreation of slum life from the 1860s, which was one of the decades when Marx was writing and conveys some of the privations working class slum dwellers had to endure – basically wages just about covered lodging and food. NB – According to this article, the level of squalor was almost certainly worse than in the video. There’s a good level of sociological commentary running through this.

From Modernity to Post-Modernity

Modernity (1650 to 1950) involved industrialisation, capitalism, urbanisation, nation state building, and a belief in progress through science. Postmodernity (1950 to today) is global, media saturated and hyperreal, consumerist, culturally diverse, sceptical and uncertain about politics, science and the truth.

In order to understand what post-modernity is, one has to understand what modernity, or modern society was! Somewhat confusingly ‘modern society’ refers to European society between roughly 1650- 1950 (ish) and post-modern society refers to European and many other ‘advanced’ ‘post-industrial’ societies from around 1950 (ish) onwards.

Post-Modernists argue that post-modern society is different to modern society, so much so that it requires new methods of study and new theoretical frameworks. Essentially, what is different, according to Post-Modernists, is that those stable institutions which used to bind us together have much less influence now, and with the rise of globalisation and New Media technologies, individuals are much more free to construct their culture and identity that they once were. Sociologists disagree as to exactly when post-modernism started. For some, the roots of it lie in early modernity, for others, post-modernism does not properly begin until the 1970s, still others argue (Giddens) that we don’t even live in a post-modern society at all!

Now it’s important for you to get your head around what post-modern society is, because theorists of post-modernity argue that the traditional structuralist theories of Marxism and feminism are no longer relevant and suggest new ways of ‘doing sociology’.

In order to understand what post-modern society is, one has to understand what modern society was

What was modernity?

Modernity is the term used by sociologists to describe the “modern” period which began in Europe several hundred years ago. Some of the key features of modern societies were:

Industrialisation and Capitalism

Economic production is industrial and capitalist, with social class as the main form of social division. Social classes are based on people’s social and economic position. Marx’s view for instance, was that industrial society people were divided into two main classes, those who owned businesses and those who sold their labour to them.

fordism_2
The Fordist Factory – Industrialist and with Clear Social Class Divisions

Urbanisation

The growth of cities, or urbanisation. During the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries thousands of people moved to cities to find work and make their homes.

urbanisation
Urbanisation – The growth of cities was a key process of modernity

Nation States and Bureaucracy

A powerful central government and administration, known as a bureaucratic state. Local and central government have played an ever increasing part in our lives, the development of compulsory education, public housing and the welfare state for example.

nation state
Many of these nations regulated people’s lives and developed welfare systems of some sort during the modern period

Science and rationality

People’s knowledge is derived from scientific and rational thinking rather than religious faith, magic or superstition. During this period people have looked to science and logical thinking to explain the world. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, for example, have tended to be explained scientifically rather than as an “act of god”.

Moon+Landing+1920x1200+wallpaper
The Moon landing – probably the pinnacle of the modernist idea of scientific progress

Progress through science and industry

A widely held faith in scientifically based progress. An associated view has been that the more we trust in science and technological progress, the better our society will be.

Progress 12a

Most of the “great” sociologists have attempted to find ways of understanding “modernity” and the “great transformation” which created it. Writers such as Marx and Durkheim attempted to create theories and concepts which could help explain the workings of societies and answer basic questions such as “what holds societies together?” and “what makes societies change?”

What is Postmodernity?

Post-Modernity refers to the view that the institutions and ways of living characteristic of Modernity have been replaced to such a profound extent that our society is fundamentally different to the ‘modern’ society. In contrast post-modernism is a term that refers to new ways of thinking about thought. Post-modernists believe that knowledge itself needs to be understood in a different way to modernists sociologists such as Functionalists and Marxists. It follows that not all theorists of post-modernity are post-modernists.

Five Key features of the postmodern society

Postmodern society is:

  1. Global
  2. Media saturated and hyper-real
  3. Fragmented
  4. Consumerist
  5. Culturally diverse and hybrid.

Globalisation

A simple definition of Globalisation is the increasing connectedness between societies across the globe. Globalisation means there are more flows of information and ideas, money, and people moving across national boundaries.

postmodernity globalisation

The increasing importance of the mass media

The post-modern era has witnessed a huge expansion in media technology. The rise of digital media, especially the internet, has lead to a massive and unprecedented increase in the number of people using the media; a huge increase in the diversity of media products both factual and fictional; an increase in the number of people creating their own music, videos, profile sites and uploading them for public consumption, greater interactivity, more flexibility. All of this results in much more complex patterns of media usage, more picking and mixing

One consequence of this is that our society has an increased reliance on the media to tell us what is going on in the world. Some sociologists argue that the media creates something called ‘hyper reality’ where what we see in the media is different yet more real than reality. Baudrillard argues that the media coverage of war for example is different to reality, yet is the only reality most of us know.

New networks also emerge through the use of media, most obviously through profile sites such as Facebook. One consequence of this is the breakdown of local communities, as people increasingly network online in the privacy of their own homes, and don’t communicate with their next door neighbours.

postmodernity hyperreality
Hyperreality – Is the virtual world more real than reality?

A world in fragments

In post-modern society, the pace of change is much more rapid than in modern society. Post-modern society is thus more dynamic, more fluid if you like. The post-modern society doesn’t sit still, it is like a fidgeting child, and as a result, it lacks any coherent, stable social structure. This can be evidenced in the following areas:

Work: Gone are the days of a ‘Job for Life’, today is the era of the ‘portfolio worker’ who is much more likely to move jobs and change career several times throughout his or her working life. Working life is also characterised by much more uncertainty as businesses are quick to move to other regions or countries if they can find cheaper labour abroad. One very good illustrative example of this is Dyson, which recently closed down a factory in South Wales to seek cheaper labour in China. From the perspective of the South Wales workers, Dyson came and went in a very short time frame. Also, companies are now increasingly likely to employ workers through recruitment agencies which can fire at short notice, and much work is temporary, part time and characterised by flexible working hours. There are of course good sides and bad sides to all of this, but the upshot is that working life is much less stable than it used to be. See Richard Sennet: The Corrossion of Character chapter 1 and Polly Toynbe: Hard Work for an insight into the post-modern world of work.

Fashion and Music: Two of the most visible examples of the fast pace of change lies in the fashion and music industries, which are constantly evolving with new styles and musical forms constantly emerging, and with many artists having to continually reinvent themselves to stay in the spotlight. At the extreme end of this, the pop-idol genre of shows demonstrates how individuals are made stars for a month and then forgotten.

The breakdown of local communities: The increased flexibility of labour associated with the world of work means people move more often in their lifetimes, meaning that people are much less able to put down sable roots in their local communities. This has lead to a decline in ‘social capital’ (pretty much like trust) according to Robert Putnam. Look him up on Google, go on, you know you want to. Do something different instead of wasting your time surfing for information on…

post modernity network society
Postmodern society is a network society, with a complex ‘structure’, if any structure at all!

The Consumer society

According to post-modernists one Fundamental difference between the post-modern society and modern society is that our society is consumer oriented, rather than work oriented. This means that consuming things, and leisure activities are more important today than work. The image of the post-modern society is thus one of a shopping mall, rather than a factory.

Post modernists argue that we live in a ‘Pick and mix’ society. Individuals today are free to pick their lifestyle and life course, from a wider range of options than ever before, just as if they were picking and choosing products in a super market! Importantly, post modernists argue that individuals are much less shaped by their class, gender and ethnic backgrounds today. Women, for example, are not expected to become housewives and mothers, just because they are women and work is much less gendered than it used to be. Society is no longer divided along class lines, or gender lines, or even ethnic lines. Being born working class, being born a woman, or being born black, does not, according to post-modernists, pre-determine one’s future, or shape one’s consciousness (identity) as it did in modernity (and the extent to which it did was often exaggerated by the classical sociologists).

postmodernity consumerism
Postmodern society – a society of consumers

Cultural diversity and hybridity

The ever increasing pace of globalisation has lead to an increase in cultural diversity and ‘hybridity’, which refers to the mixing of different cultural traditions. If we compare society today to that of 100 or even 50 years ago we see a bewildering increase in the diversity of social and cultural forms. Some of the more obvious examples include:

  • Goods and services: A simple trip to the supermarket or shopping mall reveals a huge range of products one can buy, and the same is true of services.
  • Fashion and Music: Once again, one can spend several hours in a week simply choosing what to buy or wear, or sorting MP3s on one’s MP3 player (once you’ve chosen one of those course!)
  • Pretty much every other sphere of life is more diverse than it was 50 years ago: Education, work, family life…..
postmodern uncertainty
The result of all of the above = a lack of clear direction, and an abandonment of the possibility of progress

Review Questions

  • In a post-modern society, we have much more consumerism choice, what are the consequences of this for individuals?
  • Briefly explain two key features of the modern society
  • What is ‘Globalisation’?
  • What is meant by the term ‘hyperreality’?
  • Briefly explain what is meant by the fragmented society
  • What is cultural hybridity, illustrate with an example
Signposting and Related Posts

This material is most relevant to the social theories aspect of A-level Sociology.

Three examples of Postmodern Thinkers

Criticisms of Postmodernism

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Postmodern and Late Modern Views of Education – A Summary

The Postmodernist View of Education 

  • Postmodernists stand against universalising education systems – it there is no one truth, then it is not appropriate to have a one size fits all education system.
  • Modernist education is oppressive to many students – students give up their freedom for 11 years in order to learn knowledge which will improve their life chances – this does not work for everyone.
  • Ideas of education which fit with a postmodern agenda include –
  1. Home Education
  2. Liberal forms of education (Summerhill School)
  3. Adult Education and Life Long Learning (because adults can make more of a choice)
  4. Education outside of formal education (leisure)

The Late-Modernist View of Education

  • At an Institutional level education (mainly schools) become a fundamental part of the reflexive institutional landscape of Post-Fordist late-modernity
  • Education policy is one of the things which the New Right and New Labour governments can and have used to ‘colonise the future’ by (a) providing opportunities for reskilling in an ever changing global labour market and (b) to keep under surveillance students ‘at risk’ of future deviance.

Post and Late Modern Perspectives on The Family – A Comparison

The Postmodern View of Family/ Personal Relationships

  • The fact that we see a dazzling array of personal, intimate relationships and family forms is an expression of post-modern society.
  • Postmodern relationships are much more complex because of hyperreality (think Tinder) and because of leisure – this is generally to be celebrated because relationships (and sexuality) are now much more about fun rather than duty.
  • A postmodern view would celebrate the new freedoms surrounding postmodern relationships – based on choice and leisure – as this is a move away from the oppressive norms of the traditional nuclear family.

The Late Modern View of Family/ Personal Relationships

  • Developing stable relationships becomes more difficult in late modern society because relationships becomes a matter of choice.
  • The root cause of this is that the ‘new norm’ is for people to ‘use’ their relationships as a means of constructing their own identities. ‘My needs’ come first, the relationship comes second.
  • Two generic forms of ‘typical relationship emerge’ – The Pure Relationship (based on ‘confluent love’) and the Negotiated Family.
  • These are typically characterised by greater equality but more instability (hence high divorce) – new structures emerge to help people through relationship breakdowns.

Sociological Perspectives on Education Summary Grid

A Level Sociology – Perspectives on Education Summary Grid

A summary of the Functionalist, Marxist, New Right, Late Modern/ New Labour and Postmodern Perspectives on the role of education in society – focusing on Key ideas, supporting evidence and criticisms. (Scroll down for ‘test yourself’ link)

NB grids don’t display particularly well online so I’ve put in two pictures of the grid itself, summarised the content in text form below, and you can buy the pdf colour version itself as part of the ReviseSociology education revision bundle!

The Functionalist Perspective on Education

Key ideas

  • Education performs positive functions for the individual and society:
  • Creating social solidarity (value consensus) through teaching the same subjects.
  • Teaching skills necessary for work – necessary for a complex division of labour.
  • Acting as a bridge between home and society – from particularistic to universalistic values.
  • Role Allocation and meritocracy

Supporting evidence for Functionalism

  • School performs positive functions for most pupils – exclusion and truancy rates are very low.
  • Role Allocation – Those with degrees earn 85% more than those without degrees.
  • Schools do try to foster ‘solidarity’ – Extended Tutorials – (‘cringing together’?)
  • Education is more ‘work focused’ today – increasing amounts of vocational courses.
  • Schooling is more meritocratic than in the 19th century (fairer).

Criticisms/ limitations

  • Marxists – the education system is not meritocratic (not fair) – e.g. private schools benefit the wealthy.
  • Functionalism ignores the negative sides of school –
  • Many schools fail OFSTED inspections,
  • Not all pupils succeed
  • Negative In school processes like subcultures/ bullying/ teacher labelling
  • Postmodernists argue that ‘teaching to the test’ kills creativity.
  • Functionalism reflects the views of the powerful. The education system tends to work for them. (because they can send their children to private schools) and it suggests there is nothing to criticise.

If you need to review this topic in more depth there are more detailed class notes here: The Functionalist Perspective on Education.

The Marxist Perspective on Education

Key ideas

  • Traditional Marxists see the education system as working in the interests of ruling class elites. The education system performs three functions for these elites:
    • Reproduces class inequality.
    • Legitimates class inequality.
    • The Correspondence Principle – School works in the interests of capitalist employers.
  • Neo- Marxism – Paul Willis – A Classic piece of Participant Observation of 12 lads who formed a counter school culture. Willis argued they rejected authority and school and just turned up to ‘have a laff’ (rejecting the correspondence theory). However, they ended up failing and still ended up in working class jobs (so supports the reproduction of class inequality).

Supporting evidence for Marxism

  • To support the reproduction of inequality – Who gets the best Jobs. And there is no statistically significant evidence against the FACT that, on aggregate, the richer your parents, the better you do in education.
  • To support the Legitimation of class inequality – pupils are generally not taught about how unfair the education system is – they are taught that if they do badly, it is down to them and their lack of effort.
  • To support the Ideological State Apparatus – Surveillance has increased schools’ ability to control students.

Criticisms/ limitations

  • There are many critical subjects taught at university that criticise elites (e.g. Sociology).
  • It is deterministic – not every child passively accepts authority (see Paul Willis).
  • Some students rebel – 5% are persistent truants (they are active, not passive!).
  • Some students from poor backgrounds do ‘beat the odds’ and go on to achieve highly.
  • The growth of the creative industries in the UK suggest school doesn’t pacify all students.
  • The nature of work and the class structure has also changed, possibly making Marxism less relevant today.

For more detailed class notes on this topic please see this post: The Marxist Perspective on Education.

The Neoliberal and New Right Views of Education

Key ideas

  • Their policies seem to have raised standards.
  • Created an ‘education market’ – Schools were run like businesses – competing with each other for pupils and parents were given the choice over which school = league tables.
  • The state provides a framework in order to ensure that schools were all teaching the same thing – National Curriculum.
  • Schools should teach subjects that prepare pupils for work: New Vocationalism!

Supporting evidence for the New Right

  • There has been a correlation between the introduction of New Right policies and steadily improving results all through the 1990s and 2000s, right up to the onset of Coronavirus distorted everything.
  • Their policies have been applied internationally (PISA league tables).
  • Asian Countries with very competitive education systems tend to top the league tables (e.g. China).

Criticisms/ limitations

  • Competition between schools benefited the middle classes and lower classes, ethnic minorities and rural communities ended up having less effective choice.
  • Vocational Education was also often poor.
  • There is a contradiction between wanting schools to be free to compete and imposing a national framework that restricts schools.
  • The National Curriculum has been criticised for being ethnocentric and too restrictive on teachers and schools.

For more in depth class-notes please see: The New Right View of Education.

The Late Modern Perspective on Education

Key Ideas

  • Government needs to spend more on education to respond to the rapid pace of change brought about by Globalisation.
  • People need to re-skill more often as – government should play a role in managing this. Schools are also necessary to keep under surveillance students ‘at risk’ of future deviance.
  • New Labour Policies – the purpose of school should be to raise standards, improve equality of opportunity, and promote diversity and equality.

Supporting Evidence for Late Modernism

  • All developed economies have governments who spend large amounts of money on education, suggesting more (not less like Neoliberals suggest) state education is good.
  • It is difficult to see what other institution could teach about diversity other than schools.
  • There did seem to be more equality of opportunity under New Labour rather than under the 2015 Neoliberal/ New Right government.

New Labour’s education policies are probably best described as Late Modern.

Criticisms

  • Postmodernists argue that government attempts to ‘engineer’ pupils to fit society kill creativity
  • Marxists argue that whatever state education does it can never reduce class inequalities – we need to abolish global capitalism, not adapt to it!
  • Late-Modern, New Labour ideas about education are expensive. Neoliberalists say that we can no longer afford to spend huge sums of money on education.
  • See also evaluations of New Labour Policies

The Postmodern View of Education

Key ideas

  • Stand against universalising education systems.
  • See Modernist education as oppressive to many students – especially minority groups
  • Believe the ‘factory production-line mentality of education kills creativity
  • Ideas of education which fit with a postmodern agenda include – Home Education, Liberal forms of education, Adult Education and Life Long Learning and Education outside of formal education (leisure)

Supporting evidence

  • Many people agree that schools do kill creativity (Ted Robinson, and Suli-Breaks)
  • Sue Palmer – Teaching the test has resulted in school being miserable and stressful for many pupils.
  • Do we really want an education system more like the Chinese one?
  • The National Curriculum has been criticised as being ethnocentric (potentially oppressive to minority groups).

Criticisms/ limitations

  • Late-Modernists – we need schools to promote tolerance of diversity.
  • Neoliberalism – we need a competitive system to drive up standards in order to be able to compete in a global free market!
  • Marxists would argue that home education would lead to greater inequality – not all parents have an equal ability – if we leave education to parents, the middle classes will just benefit more, and working class kids will be even further behind.
  • Liberal forms of education may result in the survival of the fittest’

For a more in depth look at this topic: Postmodernism and Education.

Signposting/ Find out More

This post has been written primarily for students revising for their A-level Sociology exams, specifically for the education topic which appears on paper SCLY1

This post focuses only on the knowledge, you also need to be able to apply it! For further help with revising for this paper, you can see my ‘essays and exams page‘ for examples of the kind of questions which may come up and help with analysis and evaluation skills.

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Test yourself:

Functionalist or Marxist? (Quizlet Test)

Sociological Perspectives on Social Policy and the Family

Sociological Perspectives influence ideas about social policies. Views range from the New Right who believe in policies to support the traditional nuclear family to Radical Feminists, some of whom argue for the abolition of the nuclear family.

Sociological Perspectives on the family include Functionalism, Donzelot’s conflict perspectives, Liberal and Radical Feminism, the New Right and New Labour.

There are several social policies you can apply these perspectives too: everything from the 1969 Divorce Act to the 2022 marriage act.

Perspectives on family policy summary:

The two grids below summarise what family policies different sociological perspectives might support or criticise.

summary grid on sociological perspectives on family policy
summary grid on sociological perspectives on family policy

The main blog post below goes into much more depth….

The Functionalist View of Social Policy and The Family

Functionalists see society as built on harmony and consensus (shared values), and free from conflicts. They see the state as acting in the interests of society as a whole and its social policies as being for the good of all. Functionalists see policies as helping families to perform their functions more effectively and making life better for their members.

For example, Ronald Fletcher (1966) argues that the introduction of health, education and housing policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of a welfare state that supports the family in performing its functions more effectively.

For instance, the existence of the National Health Service means that with the help of doctors, nurses, hospitals and medicines, the family today is better able to take care of its members when they are sick.

Criticisms of the functionalist perspective

The functionalist view has been criticised on two main counts:

  • It assumes that all members of the family benefit equally from social policies, whereas Feminists argue that policies often benefit men more than women.
  • It assumes that there is a ‘march of progress’ with social policies, gradually making life better, which is a view criticise by Donzelot in the following section.

Adapted from Robb Webb et al

A Conflict Perspective – Donzelot: Policing the Family

Jacques Donzelot (1977) has a conflict view of society and sees policy as a form of state power and control over families.

Donzelot uses Michel Foucault’s (1976) concept of surveillance (observing and monitoring). Foucault sees power not just as something held by the government or the state, but as diffused (spread) throughout society and found within all relationships. In particular, Foucault sees professionals such as doctors and social workers as exercising power over their clients by using their expert knowledge to turn them into ‘cases’ to be dealt with.

Donzelot applies these ideas to the family. He is interested in how professionals carry out surveillance of families. He argues that social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families. Donzelot calls this ‘the policing of families’.

Surveillance is not targeted equally at all social classes. Poor families are much more likely to be seen as ‘problem families’ and as the causes of crime and anti-social behaviour. These are the families that professionals target for ‘improvement’.

For example as Rachel Condry (2007) notes, the state may seek to control and regulate family life by imposing compulsory Parenting Orders through the courts. Parents of young offenders, truants or badly behaved children may be forced to attend parenting classes to learn the ‘correct’ way to bring up children.

Donzelot rejects the Functionalists’ march of progress view that social policy and the professionals who carry it out have created a better society. Instead he sees social policy as oppressing certain types of families. By focussing on the micro level of how the ‘caring professions’ act as agents of social control through the surveillance of families, Donzelot shows the importance of professional knowledge as a form of power and control.

Criticism of Conflict perspectives

Marxists and Feminists criticise Donzelot for failing to identify clearly who benefits from such policies of surveillance. Marxists argue that social policies generally operate in the interests of the capitalist class, while Feminists argue men are the beneficiaries.

Adapted from Rob Webb et al

The New Right and Social Policy

The New Right have had considerable influence on government thinking about social policy and its effects on family. They see the traditional nuclear family, with its division of labour between a male provider and a female home maker as self-reliant and capable of caring for its members. In their view, social policies should avoid doing anything that might undermine this natural self-reliant family.

The New Right criticise many existing government policies for undermining the family. In particular, they argue that governments often weaken the family’s self-reliance by providing overly generous welfare benefits. These include providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers and cash payments to support lone parent families.

Charles Murray (1984) argues that these benefits offer ‘perverse incentives’ – that is, they reward irresponsible or anti-social behaviour. For example –

  • If fathers see that the state will maintain their children some of them will abandon their responsibilities to their families
  • Providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers encourages young girls to become pregnant
  • The growth of lone parent families encouraged by generous welfare benefits means more boys grow up without a male role model and authority figure. This lack of paternal authority is responsible for a rising crime rate amongst young males.

The New Right supports the following social polices

  • Cuts in welfare benefits and tighter restrictions on who is eligible for benefits, to prevent ‘perverse incentives’.
  • Policies to support the traditional nuclear family – for example taxes that favour married couples rather than cohabiting couples.
  • The Child Support agency – whose role is to make absent dads pay for their children

Criticisms of the New Right

  • Feminists argue that their polices are an attempt to justify a return to the traditional nuclear family, which works to subordinate women
  • Cutting benefits may simply drive many into poverty, leading to further social problems

Feminism and Social Policy

Liberal Feminists argue that that changes such as the equal pay act and increasingly generous maternity leave and pay are sufficient to bring about gender equality. The following social policies have led to greater gender equality:

  • The divorce act of 1969 gave women the right to divorce on an equal footing to men – which lead to a spike in the divorce rate.
  • The equal pay act of 1972 was an important step towards women’s independence from men.
  • Increasingly generous maternity cover and pay made it easier for women to have children and then return to work.

However, Radical Feminists argue that patriarchy (the ideal of male superiority) is so entrenched in society that mere policy changes alone are insufficient to bring about gender equality. They argue, for example, that despite the equal pay act, sexism still exists in the sphere of work –

  • There is little evidence of the ‘new man’ who does their fair share of domestic chores. They argue women have acquired the ‘dual burden’ of paid work and unpaid housework and the family remains patriarchal – men benefit from women’s paid earnings and their domestic labour.
  • Some Feminists even argue that overly generous maternity cover compared to paternity cover reinforces the idea that women should be the primary child carer, unintentionally disadvantaging women
  • Dunscmobe and Marsden (1995) argue that women suffer from the ‘triple shift’ where they have to do paid work, domestic work and ‘emotion work’ – being expected to take on the emotional burden of caring for children.
  • This last point is more difficult to assess as it is much harder to quantify emotion work compared to the amounts of domestic work and paid work carried out by men and women.
  • Class differences also play a role – with working class mothers suffering more because they cannot afford childcare.
  • Mirlees- Black points out that ¼ women experience domestic violence – and many are reluctant to leave their partner

New Labour and Family Policy

New Labour was in power from between 1997 – 2010. There are three things you need to know about New Labour’s Social Policies towards the family

1. New Labour seemed to be more in favour of family diversity than the New Right. For example –

  • In 2004 they introduced The Civil Partner Act which gave same sex couples similar rights to heterosexual married couples
  • In 2005 they changed the law on adoption, giving unmarried couples, including gay couples, the right to adopt on the same basis as married couples

2. Despite their claims to want to cut down on welfare dependency, New Labour were less concerned about ‘the perverse incentives of welfare’ than the New Right. During their terms of office, they failed to take ‘tough decisions on welfare’ – putting the well-being of children first by making sure that even the long term unemployed families and single mothers had adequate housing and money.

3. New Labour believes in more state intervention in family life than the New Right. They have a more positive view of state intervention, thinking it is often necessary to improve the lives of families.

For example in June 2007 New Labour established the Department for Children, Schools and Families. This was the first time that there was ever a ‘department for the family’ in British politics.

The Government’s aim of this department was to ensure that every child would get the best possible start in life, receiving the on-going support and protection that they – and their families – need to allow them to fulfil their potential. The new Department would play a strong role both in taking forward policy relating to children and young people, and coordinating and leading work across Government and youth and family policy.

Key aspects included:

  • Raising school standards for all children and young people at all ages.
  • Responsibility for promoting the well-being, safety, protection and care of all young people.
  • Responsibility for promoting the health of all children and young people, including measures to tackle key health problems such as obesity, as well as the promotion of youth sport
  • Responsibility for promoting the wider contribution of young people to their communities.
Signposting

This post has been written primarily for students of A-level sociology, and is one of the main topics in the families and households module, usually taught in the first year of study.

Related posts include:

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Why do White Working Class Kids Lack Aspiration?

This useful Thinking Allowed Podcast summarises two recent pieces of qualitative social research and helps further our understanding of why white working class boys underachieve in education.

The podcast starts with Michael Wilshaw in 2013 (when he was head of OFSTED) pointing out that only 35% of white girls from low income households and 26% of white boys achieved 5 GCSEs at grades A*- C.

Wilshaw states that there is no reason why such pupils shouldn’t be able to achieve, and effectively blames their failure on a lack of aspiration among white working class boys.

Two sociologists who take issue with Wilshaw’s theory are Garth Stahl (spent nine years teaching in state secondary schools in England before conducting interviews in three London schools), and Heather Mendick ( who has researched the relationship between urban youth and schooling more generally). Together Stahl and Mendick effectively argue that white working class boys don’t lack aspiration at all, what they lack is a middle class view of aspiration, and it is this which puts them at a disadvantage in education.

Schools are Based Around a Middle Class Idea of Aspiration

Stahl argues that aspiration is a big thing in contemporary education – the dominant discourse in the system (which is unquestioned) is that learning will eventually equal earning, and that it is up to the individual student to do this on their own – i.e. the right kind of aspiration is to aspire to earn and then sacrifice now in order to get the grades to get you that income in the future.

The podcast also mentions that this discourse is tied up with the neoliberal idea of ‘self-crafting’ – or working on the self to progress – and no doubt this means that part of aspiration means skilling yourself up to make yourself more attractive to employers – you know the sort of thing – D of E and other volunteering, team sports, musical instrument, winner of the Young Apprentice.

The problem with the above is that it is a very middle class definition of aspiration – the kind of thing middle class parents spend a lot more time instilling in their children than working class parents.

White Working Class Aspirations and how They Conflict with School’s 

According to Stahl, working class boys do  have aspirations – they generally wished for a nice, ‘ordinary life’, not to be greedy, just wanting to get a decent job and to  ‘bring home the bacon’for their family.

There was a significant focus on trades (plumbing for example) as being good careers where they could do an honest days work for a decent wage, a focus on ‘authenticity’ (rather than ‘constructing an image of yourself and selling your image,, maybe?)

One point of conflict was over the paid work some of the boys did while at school – for them it was all part of their future ‘honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay’ aspiration (demonstrating a clear work ethic) but not for the school, as it conflicted with the ‘learning = earning’ discourse.

Interestingly, the boys didn’t reject school like Willis’ lads did, rather they invested in ‘ordinary learner identities’  – they didn’t want to succeed or fail and settled for middling positions in the school.

The harmful effects of the normalisation of middle class aspiration 

Mendick points out that aspiration is now used to judge people – certain aspirations which do not fit into the ‘learning = earning’ discourse are seen as failures – such as being a celebrity, having a family at a young age, or just wanting to being normal for example, all of these are seen as not good enough. The effective of this is normalises a middle class pathway through life and to further denigrate working class culture and aspiration as inferior.

This is supported by Stahl who found that the boys he interviewed had a sense of working class pride, but they weren’t so loud and proud of this identity like Willis’ lads were in the 1970s.

Mendick also found evidence of some middle class children just wanting out from this competitive culture – it’s not just the working classes who are disempowered.

Finally, and depressingly, the researchers both found a widespread acceptance of self-blaming for failure.

Brief Commentary

I think these pieces of research are an invaluable antidote to the dominant culture of middle class aspiration which has infiltrated our education system.

These ideas about aspiration and individual responsibility haven’t just emerged out of thin air after all – as Zygmunt Bauman would probably out, they’re just part of the wider social process of individualisation – Where individuals are expected to find biographical solutions to system contradictions.

I think more students should question the ‘learning = earning’ equation, because in the future formal education and qualifications may well not be the best way for kids to guarantee a secure income (if, indeed they can ever gain a secure income).

Finally, we should ask ourselves whether there’s anything wrong with ‘merely’ aspiring to having a decent job, paying your way, and feeling like you’re contributing to society, rather than always wanting to ‘work harder, earn more cash and so on….’

This is only a selective commentary from the podcast, read the research if you want to find out more…!

 References

Identity, Neoliberalism and Aspiration – Educating White Working Class Boys, and Mendick as studied the relationship

Urban Youth and Schooling

Cultural Capital and Educational Achievement

cultural capital is the skills, knowledge and values possessed by the middle class which give their children an advantage in education compared to the working classes.

Cultural Capital can be defined as the skills and knowledge which an individual can draw on to give them an advantage in social life. In this post, I explore and then look at how cultural capital can give children an advantage in education.

Cultural capital is one of the most important concepts within the sociology of education, and it goes a long way to explaining why middle class children do better in education than working class children.

Key Terms

  • Capital can be defined as any assets that can improve your life chances.
  • Cultural Capital – having the skills, knowledge, norms and values which can be used to get ahead in education and life more generally.
  • Social Capital – possession of social contacts that can ‘open doors’
  • Educational capital – middle class parents having higher levels of qualifications.
  • The Habitus – Bourdieu’s concept describing a cultural framework, or set of norms and values which contains a set of taken for granted assumptions about good and bad tastes. (It is essentially the same as cultural capital).

Cultural Capital Theory

Cultural Capital Theory is a Marxist theory of differential educational achievement.

In contrast to cultural deprivation theory, cultural capital theory does not see working class culture as inferior, or lacking in any way, it just sees it as different to middle class culture. Instead of blaming working class underachievement on flawed working-class culture, cultural capital theory focuses on the dominance of middle class culture in society and social institutions.

In short, middle class children are more likely to succeed because the education system is run by the middle classes and works in their interests. The middle classes are able to define their own culture as superior and thus working class culture and working class children are marginalised in the education system and end up underachieving.

Pierre Bourdieu and The Habitus

The Marxist sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is the theorist most closely associated with developing the concept of cultural capital and applying it to education.

Bourdieu argued that each class has its own cultural framework, or set of norms, values and ideas which he calls the habitus. This habitus contains a set of assumptions about what counts as good and bad taste which influences the kind of leisure activities different classes engage in, the kind of places they visit, where they go on holiday, the kind of television programmes they are likely to watch, what kinds of books they are likely to read and the type of music they are likely to listen to.

The middle class habitus places much more value on the following kinds of activities, and thus these are the kinds of activities which middle class children are more likely to be exposed to compared to working class children:

  • Reading non-fiction and classical literature rather than pop literature
  • Watching documentaries rather than soap operas
  • Learning to play classical instruments (e.g. The Piano)
  • Going on educational visits – to museums and art galleries for example
  • Going on holidays abroad (to ‘broaden horizons’).

Exposure to the above activities provides middle class children with ‘cultural capital’ – many of the above activities are inherently educational in nature and provide middle class children with skills and knowledge which give them an advantage at school. This knowledge can either be specific – such as with reading non-fiction, or more general – such as cultural trips providing children with a sense of independence and self-confidence.

Middle class culture is also the dominant culture in most schools, and schools place high value on the above types of middle class skills and knowledge. Middle class children thus ‘just fit in’ with middle class schools, they are at home in a middle class environment, they don’t need to do anything else other than be themselves in order to belong and thrive at school.

In contrast, working class culture (with its immediate gratification and restricted speech codes) is seen as inferior by most schools. The default assumption of the school in regards to working class children is that school is somewhere where working class children are taught to be more middle class – thus by default working class culture is devalued and working class children are more likely to struggle in education as a result.

Educational Capital

One important (and easy to understand) aspect of cultural capital theory is educational capital: middle class parents are educated to a higher level than working class parents (they are more likely to have university degrees) – an obvious advantage of this is that they are more able to help children with homework throughout their school careers, but the are also more likely to socialise their children into thinking that going to university is a normal part of life – and thus good GCSEs and A levels are a necessity rather than being a choice.

Research on Cultural Capital

This is one of the more researched concepts in recent decades and there have been several studies since the late 1980s which have put cultural capital theory to the test, including:

  • Dianna Reay – Middle Class Mothers Make The Difference
  • Stephen Ball – The 1988 Education Act gave middle class parents more choice
  • Alice Sullivan – A Quantitative Study of how cultural capital effects 400 children
  • Why do Working Class Kids Lack Aspiration (Broad support for Cultural Capital Theory).

The remainder of this section summarises some of this research (links to more in depth posts forthcoming)

A quantitative analysis of Bourdieu’s theory

Alice Sullivan conducted a survey with 465 children approaching school leaving age in 1998, using the the educational qualifications of the parent with the highest status job to measure parental cultural capital.

Students were asked about the activities they engaged in such as the kind of books they read, the television programmes they watched, the music they listened to and whether they played a musical instrument. They were also tested on their knowledge of cultural figures, their vocabulary and how much they visited museums and art galleries.

Sullivan conducted quantitative analysis to find out which of the above variables affected GCSE results and found that those who read more widely and read more complex fiction and those who watched arts, science and current affairs programmes achieved better GCSE results.

Music and attending cultural events had no effect on GCSE scores.

Sullivan also found that students’ cultural capital was strongly correlated with that of their parents, which in turn was correlated with their social class background.

HOWEVER, Sullivan also found that there were strong differences in educational achievement within middle class students and within working class students, so cultural capital alone does not automatically mean middle class kids will do better, or working class kids will fail.

Other factors such as parental interest and involvement in a child’s education and material factors also contribute to educational achievement.

Positive Evaluations of Cultural Capital Theory

  • Cultural capital seems more relevant now with neoliberal education policies – marketisation (and free schools) gave parents and schools more freedom – middle class parents and schools use this freedom to exclude the working classes.
  • Social capital theory is useful in explaining the punishingly depressing fact that privately educated children often use their social networks to get internships to get them into the ‘professions’.
  • Unlike cultural deprivation theory Bourdieu etc. do not see working class culture as inferior or blame the working classes for the failure of their children.
  • The theory links inside and outside school factors – middle class families and middle class schools work together to exclude working class children (especially see Ball’s idea about the school-parent alliance).
  • The theory may be more relevant now with the establishment of Free Schools – Only middle class parents really have the cultural capital necessary to set up Free Schools.

Criticisms of Cultural Capital Theory

  • Most statistical research suggests material deprivation and economic capital are more significant factors than cultural capital in explaining class differences in educational achievement.
  • It may be unfair to blame schools for being biased against working class children – many schools put extra resources into helping working class children.
  • From a research methods point of view, it is more difficult to research and test out some aspects of cultural capital theory – how do you measure the effect of piano lessons on educational achievement for example?
  • If cultural deprivation theory is true – there are no practical solutions to reducing class inequalities in education within the existing system – more radical (revolutionary?) changes are necessary.

Cultural Capital Theory – A Summary of The Key Ideas:

  • Marxist Theory
  • Middle Class Socialisation = Cultural Advantage– Literature, Classical Music and Museums
  • Middle Class Parents better educated = help with homework/ University seen as necessary
  • Stephen Ball – Skilled Choosers and the School Parent Alliance
  • Related concept = Social Capital = Internship in friends Dad’s Law Firm = UNFAIR
  • Positive Evaluation – Blames the middle classes/ More relevant with 1988 and Free Schools
  • Negative Evaluation – Money matters more/ no practical solutions to WC failure.

Examples of Cultural Capital in Action

  • Parents encouraging their children to read.
  • Parents taking their children on a trip to a museum.
  • Parents taking their children on a cultural sight seeing tour abroad.
  • Parents encouraging their children to learn the Piano.
  • Parents helping their children with homework.
  • Parents using their research skills to research which school to send their child to.
  • Parents phoning the school to get their children extra support lessons.
  • Parents taking their child for a dyslexia test to get them extra time in exams.

Signposting

Cultural capital is one of the most important concepts within the sociology of education, it is part of the broader sub-topic of sociological explanations of underachievement.

For a briefer version of what’s above see this post: The effects of cultural and social capital on education.

For more information on Bordieu, you might like this external post: Bourdieu’s foundational concept of the Habitus.

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