Reproduction in Education: an elaboration of current neo‐marxist models of analysis

Abstract

Abstract This paper represents an attempt to develop current understanding of reproduction in education. Commenting on current neo‐Marxist models of analysis, we argue that more attention needs to be given to the universalising practices of schools if reproduction is to be fully understood. Drawing on evidence taken from a national study of Irish [1] schools, we show how the state's intervention in schooling can have universalising effects. However, we argue that the state has only intervened in the realm of educational provision, not in the realm of consumption, hence inequalities persist. The second part of the paper tries to explain why state intervention in education is largely limited to provision. In effect, this means examining the processes of universalism and particularism within the context of the capitalist state. Here we argue that actions by state managers (particularly in response to resistances developing in schools) are restricted by an array of vested interest groups within the educational site. While contradictions lead to resistances in school, these resistances generate counter‐resistances from those class and/or status groups, which have their own agenda within the educational system. The managers’ need to reproduce both the skills and attitudes necessary for the capital accumulation which funds the state machinery is, of course, another powerful controlling force.