Conflict Theory and Education: Perpetuating Inequality

Conflict theory offers a critical lens through which to examine the role of education in society. Departing from functionalist perspectives that view education as a beneficial force for social mobility and cohesion, conflict theorists argue that the educational system often reinforces and perpetuates existing social inequalities rooted in class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Instead of reducing disparities, schools, according to this perspective, can serve as mechanisms that maintain the status quo, benefiting dominant groups while disadvantaging marginalized communities.

Education as a Tool for Maintaining Power

Conflict theorists view the education system as a means by which those in power stay in power. The fulfillment of one’s education is closely linked to social class. Students of low socioeconomic status are generally not afforded the same opportunities as students of higher status, no matter how great their academic ability or desire to learn. This perspective highlights how the education system can be a tool for maintaining existing power structures while creating a docile workforce or underclass.

The Reproduction of Social Class

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu extensively studied social class reproduction, researching how cultural capital alters the experiences and opportunities available to students from different social classes. Cultural capital refers to cultural knowledge that serves as metaphorical currency that helps us navigate a culture. Members of the upper and middle classes have more cultural capital than do families of lower-class status. As a result, the educational system maintains a cycle in which the dominant culture’s values are rewarded and thus generationally reproduced. Instruction and tests cater to the dominant culture and leave others struggling to identify with values and competencies outside their social class.

Consider a student from a working-class home assigned a paper due on Friday. They may have to babysit younger siblings, face a poor study environment, and lack family support. The student's mother may be unable to provide adequate encouragement or support due to her own exhaustion or language barriers. The family may also lack access to a computer and printer at home. Such a situation leads to social class reproduction.

The Impact of Standardized Testing

There has been a great deal of discussion over what standardized tests such as the SAT truly measure. Many argue that the tests group students by cultural ability rather than by natural intelligence. For example, a question on the comprehensive reading section of the SAT inquires about a painting at an art museum. For a student who has not experienced art museums regularly, this question poses greater difficulty than it does for a student who grew up going to cultural events such as art exhibitions.

Read also: Conflict Resolution for Students

The Hidden Curriculum

The cycle of rewarding those who possess cultural capital is found in formal educational curricula as well as in the hidden curriculum, which refers to the type of nonacademic knowledge that students learn through informal learning and cultural transmission. The Hidden Curriculum ideology is very prevalent in sociology, as sociologists seek to better understand how education is shaping society as a larger unit. This hidden curriculum reinforces the values and norms of the dominant culture, further disadvantaging students from marginalized backgrounds.

Tracking and its Consequences

Conflict theorists point to tracking, a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low-achievers) that perpetuate inequalities. While educators may believe that students do better in tracked classes because they are with students of similar ability and may have access to more individual attention from teachers, conflict theorists feel that tracking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations. Low-track classes tend to be primarily composed of low-income students, usually minorities, while upper-track classes are usually dominated by students from socioeconomically successful groups.

In 1987, Jeannie Oakes theorized that the disproportionate placement of poor and minority students into low tracks does not reflect their actual learning abilities. Some studies suggest that tracking can influence students’ peer groups and attitudes regarding other students. Adam Gamoran’s study (1992) shows that students are more likely to form friendships with other students in the same tracks than with students outside of their tracks. Since low-class and minority students are overrepresented in low tracks, and Whites and Asians generally dominate higher tracks, interaction among these groups can be discouraged by tracking.

Unequal Resources and Biased Testing

To conflict theorists, schools play the role of training working-class students to accept and retain their position as lower-tier members of society. They argue that this role is fulfilled through the disparity of resources available to students in richer and poorer neighborhoods as well as through testing. A school’s resources are dependent on property taxes in the school district’s boundaries. IQ tests have been attacked for being biased-for testing cultural knowledge rather than actual intelligence. For example, a test item may ask students what instruments belong in an orchestra. To correctly answer this question requires certain cultural knowledge-knowledge most often held by more affluent people who typically have more exposure to orchestral music.

Gender Inequality in Education

Feminist theory aims to understand the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality, particularly in education, as well as their societal repercussions. Women in the United States have been relatively late, historically speaking, to be granted entry to the public university system. education programs became illegal. In the United States, there is also a post-education gender disparity between what male and female college graduates earn, despite women now graduating college at higher rates than men. A study released in May 2011 showed that, among men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010, men out-earned women by an average of more than $5,000 each year. First-year job earnings for men averaged $33,150; for women the average was $28,000 (Godofsky, Zukin, and van Horn 2011).

The "Varsity Blues" Scandal

In 2019, news emerged of a criminal conspiracy regarding wealthy and, in some cases, celebrity parents who illegally secured college admission for their children. Over 50 people were implicated in the scandal, including employees from prestigious universities; several people were sentenced to prison. One of the questions that emerged at the time was how the students at the subject of these efforts could succeed at these challenging and elite colleges. Meaning, if they couldn’t get in without cheating, they probably wouldn’t do well. Many people would say no. First, many of the students involved (the children of the conspirators) had no knowledge or no involvement of the fraud; those students may have been admitted anyway.

Grade Inflation

Grade inflation generally refers to a practice of awarding students higher grades than they have earned. It reflects the observation that the relationship between letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing over time. Some, including administrators at elite universities, argue that grade inflation does not exist, or that there are other factors at play, or even that it has benefits such as increased funding and elimination of inequality (Boleslavsky 2014). But the evidence reveals a stark change. Based on data compiled from a wide array of four-year colleges and universities, a widely cited study revealed that the number of A grades has been increasing by several percentage points per decade, and that A’s were the most common grade awarded (Jaschik 2016). In an anecdotal case, a Harvard dean acknowledged that the median grade there was an A-, and the most common was also an A. Williams College found that the number of A+ grades had grown from 212 instances in 2009-10 to 426 instances in 2017-18 (Berlinsky-Schine 2020).

Some cite the alleged shift toward a culture that rewards effort instead of product, i.e., the amount of work a student puts in raises the grade, even if the resulting product is poor quality. Another oft-cited contributor is the pressure for instructors to earn positive course evaluations from their students. Finally, many colleges may accept a level of grade inflation because it works. Analysis and formal experiments involving graduate school admissions and hiring practices showed that students with higher grades are more likely to be selected for a job or a grad school. And those higher-grade applicants are still preferred even if decision-maker knows that the applicant’s college may be inflating grades (Swift 2013). Ironically, grade inflation is not simply a college issue.

Conflict Perspective and Education

In the conflict perspective of education, schools and educational systems are seen as tools of society. Educational systems are considered integral to the reproduction and reinforcement of the hierarchical nature of capitalist societies and maintain the domination of society's elite classes. Conflict theorists posit that the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of social stratification within capitalist societies is reproduced and perpetuated by subtly teaching subordinate groups that they are inferior, reinforcing existing class inequality within the social stratification, and discouraging alternative societal paradigms. This is done in part through a hidden curriculum, the inculcation of standards of proper behavior for the society or culture. Conflict theorists also posit that education reform can only come about if the capitalist economic system is first reformed. Although research has shown some support for conflict theories of education, much of this research can be interpreted differently.

The Hidden Curriculum and Social Control

According to conflict theorists, one of the ways that education maintains an elite class system is through the promotion of the hidden curriculum within the educational system. The hidden curriculum refers to the standards of proper behavior for a society or culture that are taught within the school system. The hidden curriculum is not part of the articulated curricula for schools, but is taught subtly through the reinforcement of behavior and attitudes that are deemed appropriate by the society or culture. According to conflict theorists, the hidden curriculum rises in part from two factors: teachers also need to maintain discipline in the classroom so that they can get the concepts contained in the articulated curriculum across to students, and educational systems tend to be highly bureaucratic in nature.

Read also: Comprehensive Conflict Resolution

As a result, teachers can find themselves focusing on obedience to rules rather than teaching the articulated subject matter of the curriculum. For example, children are taught to raise their hand before asking a question, are required ask permission before going to the restroom, can only work on certain subjects during certain hours of the day, cannot talk in class, and are required to obey the rules that most teachers find essential for maintaining order in the classroom. Learning these concepts helps reinforce the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of society. Further, in many situations, students who have a better grasp of material are prohibited from helping those two are struggling to learn. When such situations arise, conflict theory posits that the emphasis in the classroom shifts from learning the material prescribed by the curriculum to pleasing the teacher.

Increasing Levels of Education and Social Stratification

According to conflict theory, the fact that education bestows status on individuals helps to perpetuate social stratification. In addition, conflict theorists believe that educational systems typically deny disadvantaged students from getting the same educational-and resultant job-opportunities as other children. When this happens, the stratification of society is preserved in succeeding generations.

Tracking and the Correspondence Principle

According to conflict theorists, tracking is another way that social stratification is reinforced and supported by the educational system. Tracking is the educational practice of placing students into different curriculum groups based on achievement or aptitude test scores, prior performance, or other criteria. Typically, tracking begins early in a child's educational career, often when students are first taught to read and are put into reading groups. Students from more influential backgrounds tend to have been taught the alphabet and the basics of reading at home and have been exposed to educational games, computers, other materials and technology that increase their reading readiness. Students from disadvantaged families that cannot afford or do not have access to these things are, therefore, less prepared to start reading than the other children. As a result, children who are less advantaged tend to be put into separate reading groups that focus on less advanced materials while the more advantaged children are segregated into other groups that help them to excel more. According to conflict theorists, therefore, rather than offering equal opportunities to all children, tracking only serves to reinforce and perpetuate the distinction between social classes.

Conflict theorists not only believe that tracking systems reinforce social stratification and difference between social classes, they also tend to believe that tracking systems are actually designed to meet the needs of capitalist societies by preparing the skilled labor force necessary for capitalist societies to continue. This is done through what they refer to as the correspondence principle: The tendency of schools to promote the values expected of individuals within each social class in order to prepare students for the types of jobs that members of that class typically hold within society.

Credentialism and Discrimination

Another way in which conflict theorists see education as reinforcing the stratification of society is through credentialism. This is a negative term that is used to refer to the requirement for educational credentials for their own sake as a prerequisite for employment or for conferring social status in place of an objective emphasis on the qualifications, skills, or abilities of the person. According to conflict theorists, credentialism can be used to inhibit disadvantaged or lower classes from attaining better paying jobs because they have been unable to attain a required level of education whether or not that person has the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the job. In other words, credentialism allows employers and other individuals and groups higher in the social order to legally discriminate against lower classes and disadvantaged individuals on the basis of credentialism that are not directly related to a job or other position of higher social status.

The Work of Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis

Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life by Bowles and Gintis (1976) is arguably one of the landmark works analyzing education from a conflict perspective. Written about the American educational system, the main thesis of the book is that the evolution of the American educational system cannot be understood without a concomitant understanding of the American economic and social structure. Because of this assumption, the authors contend that educational reform cannot succeed without concomitant economic reform. Among the criticisms leveled at the American educational system by the authors are that the school system reinforces and legitimizes economic inequality within society. As a result, according to the authors, the American educational system severely limits the ability of students to develop to their full potential.

The Legitimization of Inequality

Much of Bowles and Gintis' analysis of the American educational system focuses on their view that schools are agents that reproduce and reinforce the inequalities inherent in capitalism and the concomitant social stratification. In particular, they believe that groups of students, who are sorted to a great extent on the basis of race and class, receive different treatment in the education system. This differential treatment results not only in different cognitive outcomes (i.e., different levels of academic achievement and types of skills acquired), but in different types of social learning as well, including different attitudes toward institutional structures, self-perception, and expected roles in adult society. These differences in both academic and social learning result in a situation that helps the capitalist economy (and its putative unequal and undemocratic structures) continue. Bowles and Gintis refer to this cycle as the legitimization of inequality. Through this process, the authors posit that students come to accept the unequal nature of social stratification as being a natural phenomenon. As a result, according to this theory, children from the upper classes come to see the perquisites of their social position as being theirs by right while children from the lower classes come to see the limits on their own potential place in society as right and acceptable.

The School's Role

There are two components to this view of the role of schools in socializing children. First, children from all classes within society learn the attitudes that the authors see as being necessary for the maintenance of the hierarchical and authoritarian structure of the capitalist society. Second, because of the differences in what and how students are taught within the educational system, students are differentially socialized to take their expected role within adult society. In addition, because of the socializing nature of the educational system, students coming from all levels within society come to see the hierarchical nature of society as being both natural and acceptable.

According to Bowles and Gintis, educational systems socialize children differently and in such a way as to reinforce the characteristics and expectations of their respective social classes. This is done in order to prepare the students for the occupations in which they will engage once they join adult society. By doing so, however, Bowles and Gintis posit that schools legitimize the inequalities of the social hierarchy of capitalism by rewarding those who succeed. In this way, children are taught to accept the existing social order, even if it means accepting their own disadvantaged position.

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