Download Three Theories of How Social Reproduction Happens

Three Theories of How Social
Reproduction Happens
What is the theory of meritocracy?
What is the theory of
social reproduction?
From the
perspective of
meritocracy, what
explains why
someone is at the
top of the
economic
structure?
At the bottom?
From the
perspective of
social
reproduction,
what explains
why someone is
at the top of the
economic
structure?
At the bottom?
For sociologists, the question is:
how do we explain that social
reproduction is happening,
to the extent that it is?
And what is the role of schools in
that social reproduction?
Sociologists’ explanations for
how social reproduction
happens through schools
• Marxist explanations: economic
determinism
• Cultural and linguistic capital
• Resistance
Two Important Terms
• AGENCY: an individual’s ability to
act or choose
• STRUCTURE: the way that political
and economic power affect
opportunity, in stable and enduring
ways
Marxist Explanations
• the structure and differentiation of the capitalist
economy takes precedence over human action or
agency
• capitalism requires people to take on different
work roles (and thus different sets of skills,
knowledge, and dispositions) which are valued
differently (receive different levels of wages)
• a reserve labor force (both skilled and unskilled)
keeps wages low (for capitalists’ profit)
Marxist Explanations:
What is the role of schools?
• Bowles and Gintis (1976) say that schools are training
young people for their future economic and occupational
position according to their current social class position
• students of working-class origin are trained to take orders,
to be obedient, and are subject to more discipline
• children of professionals are trained using more
progressive methods, which gives them internal discipline
and self-presentation skills
• These children therefore need to be sorted into different
tracks or schools for the purposes of instruction.
Other terms for Marxist
approaches
• “deterministic”: people have no choice
because their futures are determined for
them by the economic structure and their
position within it
• “structural”: the economic structure will end
up reproducing itself, whatever people do
• “materialist”: a focus on material/economic
conditions; the economic and occupational
structure is paramount in this explanation
Cultural and Linguistic Capital
• Income and wealth are forms of economic capital
• Cultural capital is what is valued socially or
culturally (by society as a whole? By those in
power?) that can be transformed into status,
power, or economic capital
• Each class has its own cultural background,
knowledge, dispositions, and tastes that are
transmitted through the family (Bourdieu 1984)
• This is called the habitus to signal its deep
routinization, naturalness, and embedding within a
person’s body, language, and tastes
Cultural and Linguistic Capital:
The Role of Schools
• The cultural capital of the dominant group
in society (holding the most power and
wealth) becomes the knowledge that is most
valued in schools
• To possess that cultural capital means one is
considered educated or smart or talented
(i.e., having merit)
• The acquisition of that cultural capital
occurs invisibly and naturally
Cultural and Linguistic Capital
cultural capital
good
academic
performance
economic capital
high
educational
credentials
Story Time Example
Cultural and Linguistic Capital:
The Role of Schools
• In other words, schools look like they are neutral
in evaluating students, but because the knowledge
and dispositions they value correspond to the
cultural capital of the dominant group, students
from that class perform better in schools. Schools
require cultural resources with which only some
students are endowed.
• Schools therefore legitimate social reproduction.
The story so far.....
• the primacy of the economic structure
• the primacy of the cultural (which regulates
the interaction of structure and agency
through the notion of habitus)
Third Explanation:
Resistance
Resistance Theory
• student resistance to school is a political
response to oppression and limited life
chances
• Students do not believe that a high school
diploma is going to help them do well
• this theory thus highlights agency: people
are able to act, interpret, and have some
power in their lives in response to structures
Paul Willis, Learning to Labor: How Working-Class
Kids Get Working-Class Jobs (1977)
• earoles (conformists) and lads (nonconformists), all working-class
• The lads develop a subculture in
opposition to the values of the
dominant society, based on machismo
and racism
• education was associated with
feminine qualities (Willis, 1977, p.
104)
• factory work became a place of
masculinity, respect, and pay
Willis, continued
• Factory work initially positive
• Yet four or five years later, the
lads felt locked into factory
work and into this type of life
(Willis, 1977, p. 112)
• Ironically, through their
resistance to school, they
“chose” their class position and
reproduced the social structure
Questions regarding Willis’s
work for today’s economy
• How does the change from an industrial
economy and factory jobs to a consumer
economy and service sector jobs affect
working-class young people’s choices and
options?
• How does social reproduction happen for
working-class young women? through
resistance or some other mechanism?
Which theory makes
the most sense to you
in explaining why social
reproduction happens?
Explain your reasons why.
Andy Blevins
•
•
•
•
Economic determinism?
Cultural and linguistic capital?
Resistance?
Other factors not accounted for by these
theories?