Critique of the Political Economy of Education: The Prokla Approach.

Abstract

The so-called reconstruction of Marx's critique of political economy was a significant feature in the central European Marxist discussions of the late sixties and early seventies. In the wave of this theoretical reconstruction movement, a new research discipline appeared: 'Marxist economics of education', or 'the critique of the political economy of education'. The most influential contributions came from researchers associated with the West Berlin journal PROKLA Probleme des Klassenkampfes. This article is a review of the debate during the seventies, from the pioneering contributions of the Prokla circle (Elmar Altvater and others), through the objections that were raised against their approach, to some possibilities for further research in the field.

Radical Liberalism and Radical Education

“…[Bowles and Gintis, 1981] As such it displays both correspondences as well as contradictions with the economic system [Paci, 1977;Carter, 1976] and serves not only to reproduce existing class relationships and attitudes [Bowles and Gintis, 1976] but also to legitimate the existing social structure and the role of the State within that structure. [Habermas, 1976;Broady, 1981] The emphasis of the Marxian approach is therefore on correspondence, contradiction, reproduction and legitimation.R adical liberal educators also stress these factors as being basic to our understanding of the role of education. lUich's analysis, for example, explored the relationship between the need for business to sell commodities and the commercial, consumer oriented values that are reproduced in the schools and universities.…”

Tove Skutnabb‐Kangas: Some prerequisites for learning the majority language – a comparison between different conditions

“…in the work of the Research Group on Curriculum Theory and Cultural Reproduction, Stockholm (e.g. lundgren 1979, Broady 1981, in Apple 1978Apple , 1979 etc. There are many possibilities to analyze the mediating processes between the societal macro-level and the individual and group-oriented micro-level even from a strictly linguistic point ( 'feee e.g.…”