Examine the Marxist view that the role of the education system is to reproduce and justify the existing class structure.

Bowles and Gintis also believed in something called the Hidden Curriculum. This was where students gained knowledge in subjects that were not on the curriculum. It also ensured schools that students had an acceptance of hierarchy. Hierarchy is where you always have a person above you telling you what to do. In this case it was the pupils obeying the teachers and the teachers giving authority. This ensures authority and control throughout the school. It also prepares students for their later roles in the work place. They believe that children are only motivated by external rewards, for example at school you receive qualifications and at work you receive wages. Pupils gain little enjoyment from studying the actual subjects but learn to put up with it so they can gain the external rewards. This prepares them for work because work in a capitalist society is boring so workers are motivated by an external reward: their wages. Also, schools are structured so that fragmentation of subjects is the norm as pupils move from one subject to another through the day. This also prepares students for work as it is usually structured the same way, as individuals have specific tasks and are denied knowledge of how the overall productive process works. This ensures that the workforce are easier to control.

Althusser is also a Marxist who disagrees with meritocracy. He believes that education is an ideological state apparatus where the government controls ideas. He argues educations main purpose is to maintain and reproduce class inequalities in wealth and power, by transmitting middle class values through schools. This, he says, is done through the hidden curriculum.

Paul Willis is a neo Marxist. This means he agrees with some things the Marxists say but has a different view on others. He agrees that the education system reproduces the class system, however when he conducted a study on 12 lads from a Midlands school over a period of twelve months (from last year of school to their first months of paid employment) he found that the lads adopted working class culture which is masculine, rebellious and physical and they praised manual over mental labour. This resulted in the lads rejecting the middle class values of their school, thus they enjoyed bunking off and making teachers lives difficult. The lads also felt superior to both teachers and conformist students (students who did what they were told) and they often used sexist and racist language. The lads more importantly, attached little or no value to the academic work of the school and had no interest in gaining qualifications. This led to them ending up in working class jobs. Willis argues his students were not like those of Bowles and Gintis as it was evident they were not docile and obedient. Instead, they openly rejected the belief that hard work and striving for individual success can bring worthwhile rewards. Willis also points out however that this rejection of the school values is actually the pupils downfall as it was ultimately reproductive ie. They ended up in manual jobs as a result of having no qualifications. The lads rejection of school makes them the victims of a system where their labour will be exploited in the workplace.

Criticisms of the Marxist view are that they are too deterministic. They also ignore the influence of the formal curriculum, and the Marxists place too much blame on the teachers. Also functionalists argue that education performs certain essential functions that no other institute could. They also believe in meritocracy, that the brightest people will get the best jobs and the people who were not so bright ended up in working class jobs.