Three Theories of How Social Reproduction Happens

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Three Theories of How Social Reproduction Happens
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What is the theory of meritocracy?(MacLeod
calls it the achievement ideology.)
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What is the theory of social reproduction?
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From the perspective of meritocracy, what
explains why someone is at the top of the
economic structure?At the bottom?
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From the perspective of social reproduction, what
explains why someone is at the top of the
economic structure?At the bottom?
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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 social reproduction?
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Sociologists explanations for how social
reproduction happens through schools

• Marxist explanations economic determinism
• Cultural and linguistic capital
• Resistance

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Two Important Terms

• AGENCY an individuals ability to act or choose
• STRUCTURE the way that political and economic
  power affect opportunity, in stable and enduring
  ways

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Marxist Explanations

• the structure 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)

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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

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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

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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 persons body, language, and tastes

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Cultural and Linguistic CapitalThe 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)

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Cultural and Linguistic Capital

• cultural capital good
  academic performance
• economic capital high
  educational
• 
  credentials

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Story Time Example
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Cultural and Linguistic CapitalThe 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.

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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)

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Third Explanation

• Resistance

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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

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Paul Willis, Learning to Labor How Working-Class
Kids Get Working-Class Jobs (1977)

• earoles (conformists) and lads (non-conformists),
  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

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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

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Questions regarding Williss work for todays
economy

• How does the change from an industrial economy
  and factory jobs to a consumer economy and
  service sector jobs affect working-class young
  peoples choices and options?
• How does social reproduction happen for
  working-class young women? through resistance or
  some other mechanism?

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Which theory makes the most sense to youin
explaining why social reproduction happens to the
extent that it does? Explain your reasons why.