There is a more or less widespread and naive belief in the
power of institutionalized education in transforming reality. Some of my
critics think that I share this assumption. It is not systematic education
which somehow moulds society, but on the contrary, society which, according to
its particular structure, shapes education in relation to the needs and
interests of those who control the power in this society.... (The) role of
systematic education, in the repressive society from which it stems... is to
preserve that society. Consequently, to conceive of systematic education as an
instrument of liberation is simply to invent the rules of the game ....
45
Socialization
In Canada, according to Martell, part of the role of education
systems in preserving the existing class structure involves preparing many
working class youth for the dead-end jobs at the bottom of the labour heap.
46 Serge Wagner supplies
an example from the Point St. Charles area of Montreal:
For more than a century it has furnished the "cheap
labour" needed for the economy. Yet for more than a century they have had
schools there, but this did not change anything in their basic social
situation. From father to son, the people have been manual labourers, or
seasonal workers (with few exceptions), not because they are less intelligent
here than elsewhere, but because it is necessary for the smooth running of
"our" economy, "our" society and it is the purpose of
schools in working class districts to produce this type of worker
47
How do schools help to "produce" such workers?
According to Martell, (relying here on the theoretical contributions of U.S.
Marxist economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis), one mechanism is the
so-called "hidden curriculum".48 That is, the nature of the socialization
received by children in particular schools, or programs within them, varies
according to the social class level from which the student body is
predominantly drawn, and in turn is designed to prepare them for future
occupational positions at roughly the same social class level. Thus, children
from impoverished working class backgrounds are largely tracked into terminal
vocational programs in which the rituals, rules, authority patterns, etc.--the
"hidden curriculum" of the classroom--inculcate in them the
self-concepts, personality characteristics and attitudes (e.g. obedience,
punctuality, etc.) appropriate to the social. relations of low-wage, service
sector occupations. Martell states:
The socialization... is directed to the development of a
properly subordinate character structure suitable for the dead-end work that
awaits these kids--or for a life in which they will have no job at all.49
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