EDM 6210
Education Policy and Society
Lecture 7
Education Policy and Social Differentiation:
The Class-Structure Analysis
A. Class Structure Analysis: Formulation of the Problem
Three approaches to structure of class inequality
1. Gradational approach to class structure
2. Relational approach to class structure
a. Weberian structure of class relation
b. Marxist structure of class relation
3. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social space
B. Marxist’s Class Structure Analysis
1. Marx’s Legacy on Class
2. Erik Olin Wright’s formulation of Marxist class analysis agenda
a. Two dimensions of class analysis
i. Theoretical objects of class analysis
ii. Levels of abstraction
b. The research agenda of the Analytical Marxists
Theoretical Object of Analysis
Level of
Abstraction
Class Structure
Class Formation
Mode of
Production
Polarized class relations
Epochal struggle between classes
Social
Formation
Co-exitence of classes based in
different modes of production and
different stages of development of a
given mode
Class alliances
Conjunction
Institutional variability in class
relations in given jobs
Concrete class organizations:
parties, shop floor organization
unions
2. Wright’s conception of contradictory class location
a. Re-conceptualization of class relation
i. Economic ownership of means of production
ii. Possession of means of production
- Control over physical means of production
- Control over the labor power of others
b. The class structure with contradictory class locations in advanced capitalism
3. Wright’s conception of assets of exploitation
a. Re-conceptualization of class relation
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i. Relation of means of production
ii. Relation of authority
iii. Relation of scarce skills
b. Three-dimensional class structure in advanced capitalism
4. Wright and Burawoy’s conception of class reproduction
a. Class reproduction: The fundamental question in class analysis
“What are the mechanisms that explain the capacity of capitalists to actually
appropriate surplus labor from workers? …How is it…that capitalists manage to
get workers to perform sufficient actual labor effort to produce a profit above the
cost (wages) of that labor-power?”
b. Bowles and Gintis’s thesis of Contested Exchange
i. Threats of being fired
ii. Surveillance
- Bureaucratic surveillance
- Fordism
- Neo-Fordism
- Post-Fordism
iii. Wages: Cost of losing the job
iv. Trade-off between surveillance and wage
c. Wright and Burawoy’s two-dimension mechanism
i. Cognitive mechanisms underlying explanation of behavioral compliance
- Strategic rationality
- Behavioral norms
- Evaluative norms
ii. Immediate rational basis for behavioral compliance
- Domination
- Asymmetrical reciprocity
C. Weberians’ Class Structure Analysis
1. Theory of class structuration and basic constituents of Weberians’ class structure
analysis
a. Distinction between concepts of economic class and social class
i. Economic class, class situation and market situation
ii. Social class and mobility chance
2. Giddens’ theory of structuration
a. Class structuration as “process whereby economic classes become social
classes” (Giddens, 1981, p. 105)
b. Construction of socioeconomic index as measures of economic class
c. Mobility-table analysis as measures of social class
d. Status attainment analysis as measures of class structuration
3. Socioeconomic status measure
a. Constituents of SES measure: Occupation, education and income
b. Duncan’s socioeconomic index
c. Nam and Powers’s approach to SES measure
4. Social mobility analysis
a. Class schema
- Duncan’s 17-category class schema
- Class schema of the Oxford Social Mobility Group
b. The structure of the mobility table
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c. Social-mobility table analysis
5. Origin and destination: Status attainment analysis
D. Education as Mechanism of Class Reproduction: The Marxist Theories
1. Louis Athusser (1971) Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus.
a. Repressive state apparatus
b. Ideological state apparatus
2. Bowles and Gintis' thesis of the rise of mass education in the US
a. In pre-capitalist and colonial American
i. Elite education was restricted to a selected few and it serves as "the
aristocratic penchant for conspicuous intellectual consumption." (1976, p.
156)
ii. Education for the fortunate few was "narrowly vocational, restricted to
preparation of children for a career in the church, the 'learned professionals',
or the still inconsequential state bureaucracy." (1976, p. 156)
b. In early capitalist economy
i. Mass education as means of to resolve institutional crisis of US early capitalist
economy and migrant society
- Mass education as means of assimilation, integration and control of
transient, even foreign, elements came to constitute a major segment of
the population in US Urban areas in the 19th century
- Apparent visibility of inequality of wealth in urban areas
- Erosion of traditional simple legitimizing ideologies, i.e. the divine right of
king and the divine origin of social rank
- Universal franchise in election
ii. Contributions of mass schooling to social assimilation and control
- Schooling inculcates work attitude necessary for oppressive factory in
primitive capital accumulation in US capitalism
- Mass schooling as representation of ostensible openness of the US society
- State-sponsored education as means to inculcate acceptance of public
authority of the Federal and state Government
c. Schooling in corporate capitalism for differentiated labor force
i. Class politics in Urban School Reform in the early 20th century
ii. The education-stratification effect of progressive education movement
- Progressive education principle  "Needs of the child" replaced common
school ideal
- The rise of vocational education
i The invention of objective educational testing and the institutionalization of
educational tracking by "scientific" design
ii. The expansion and stratification of higher education in the mid 20th century
and the proletarianization of white-collar workers
3. Bowles and Gintis' thesis of class-reproduction function of education
a. Education stratification reproduce class stratification
i. Stratified schooling system reproduced the stratified the technical and
cognitive skill of labor
ii. Stratified schooling system reproduced differentiated personalities
necessary for the modes of control in capitalist labor process
iii. Legitimizing the economic inequality of capitalism and inculcating the
value of possessive individualism
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iv. Constituting and reinforcing the fragmented and stratified consciousness
of the subordinate economic classes
b. The Correspondence principle in capitalist schooling
i. The structure correspondence between the social relations of the
schooling system and those of capitalist workplace
ii. “The structure of the social relations on education…inures the students
to the discipline of the workplace”
iii. It “develops the types of personal demeanor, modes of self-presentation,
self-image, and social-class identifications which are the crucial
ingredients of job adequacy”.
iv. The hierarchical relations between administrators and teachers, teachers
and students, and among students replicate the hierarchical division of
labor and vertical authority lines in the workplace.
v. The alienating features in schooling learning prepare students for the
alienating features in the Fordist labor process
vi. The “destructive competition among students through continual and
ostensibly meritocratic ranking and evaluation” nurtures the fragmented
and stratified consciousness in the workplace and legitimatize the
economic inequality in capitalism.
c. Differentiation of correspondence principles between the education
stratification and the occupational hierarchy
d. The correspondence principles between the social relations in family and
those in schools
4. Debate on Reproduction Theory of Education
a. Resistance theorists’ critique on structuralist reproduction theory
i. The rediscover of the knowledgeability of the agents
ii. The resistance capacity of both students and teachers
iii. The incoherence in the structure capitalist system
iv. The dialectic and contradictory nature of capitalist system
b. Revision of the reproduction theory: Structural contradictions thesis
i. Bowles and Gintis’ conceptions of sites and practice
- Differentiating sites: Family, state, and capitalist production
-. Differentiating Practices: cultural, political, appropriative, and
distributive practices
- Structural delimitations of sites
- Transportation of practices across sites
ii. Carnoy and Levin’s conception of education in democratic-capitalist society
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E. Education as Cultural Market: The Weberian Theory
1. Weber’s thesis on The Typological Position of Confucian Education.
Types of Educational System
Classifying
Characteristics
Educational Content
Legitimate Base
A
B
C
Heroic/Magical
Cultivation
Specialized expert
Training
Charismatic Authority
Traditional Authority
Legal-Rational
Authority
2. Collin’s theory of political economy of culture
a. Distinction between productive labor and political labor
i. “Productive labor is responsible the material production of wealth.”
ii. “Political labor sets the conditions under which the wealth is appropriated. To
the extent that one is paid for one’s productive contribution, this does not
happen automatically but because political labor has shaped the
organizational structure and the labor market to make this possible.” (Collins,
1979, p. 50)
b. Distinction between material property and positional property
i. Material property refers to one’s possession of material and financial asserts
which can generate wealth.
ii. Positional property refers to one’s possession of the capacity or authority to
determine how wealth are distributed among productive positions in
organization and in labor market at large, and more fundamentally among
class positions in a class structure.
c. Cultural market and cultural currency
i. Cultural market refers to the field in which cleavage lines (i.e. distinctions)
among positional groupings (e.g. status groups) are constituted, alliances
among them are formed, and closures and barriers restricting inter-grouping
mobility are set. In short, cultural market is where the definition of the
positional property of a given society is institutionalized.
ii. Cultural currency refers to the most commonly accepted cultural goods in a
given market. Collins asserts that educational qualifications in the form of
credentials have risen to the position of universally accepted cultural currency
in modern societies.
d. Professionalization and constitution of monopoly of expertise
i. Professionalization of supply
- Institutionalization of professional knowledge
- Institutionalization of professional practice
- Institutionalization of professional career
ii. Professionalization of demand
iii. Professionalization of work-organization
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