Construction of the Education System

The state has a major influence in the settlement of habitus which creates a common basis of what is and should be considered as common sense in a society.

Some perspectives suggest that education is a product of the welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 2002) shaped by markets, families and government; therefore, the formation of education systems should be accompanied by economic, social and political structures and institutions. Bourdieu (2000: 175) asseverated that the form of construction of a state determines the construction of its institutions, its ideology and classification in society. Nowadays, an education system closely linked to the welfare state is a popular model in Scandinavian countries and has been developed and implemented in countries like Finland over the last fifty years. Finish education policy makers and scholars assure that an approach to education built together with the welfare state leads to a “well-performing education system” (Sahlberg, 2009:

330), due to the fact that it is not only dependent on markets, the state or families but it is related to the entire whole social system and institutions.

The construction of different education systems is a long-term process that has been developed through many decades. Disciplinary training methods, high supervision and lack of autonomy for schools reflect the basis on which most education systems have historically been constructed. In contrast, recent global education reforms have sought learning improvement, increased budgets and higher coverage of compulsory education. However, most reforms have produced high standardization, increase of accountability and close supervision of schools, teachers and students. Therefore, profound structural changes of education systems are still being pursued.

The emergence of educational systems during the nineteenth century was studied in four countries that had not been influenced by other countries (England, Denmark,

21 France and Russia) (Archer, 1979). The study exposed how national culture and religion modelled the system of each country and revealed the extent to which ideology plays a major role. This means that the more orthodox an education system is, the more refined are the instruments of control it deploys to legitimate its own national ideology (Archer, 1979). In the study Russia stood out from the other countries due to its highly religious and orthodox education which incorporates strong instruments of control in its education system, such as tight discipline, supervision and strict assessment of teachers and students. Bourdieu studied the academic structures within the French education system, specifically the structure of the Academy of Philosophy and Humanities at Faculties of the Collège de France and the Collège du Sorbonne which became the two most prestigious universities in France in the sixteenth century and still hold this position nowadays. Through this study, he found that academics’ practices correlated to their social origin (social class) and the social and cultural capital they owned. He argued that the field of education in France exposed evident forms of reproduction of class and power in a similar milieu (Bourdieu, 1992, 1991) like codes and institutionalized practices which professors created in the academic field. He argued how these circles of professors or ‘fields of power’ (Bourdieu, 1991) exert their control of power by establishing rules and designing the format of compulsory education and teachers’ education.

For example by teaching in the Ecole normale supérieure (which was one of the first schools for teachers in France and in Europe) they provide tools, practices and codes to the student teachers, and being part of the committee of the Ecole normale supérieure, they were able to define the rules of the College, determining the recognition of curricula and teaching practices (Bourdieu, 1992)⁸. Therefore, education institutions for him are a clear formation of power and accumulation of capitals (economic, cultural and social). More recently, scholars like Cho, Lee and Kim (2013) exposed very restrictive education systems such as in North Korea, explaining how tight bonds between education and politics determine the education

8 See more in Bourdieu (1992): „Die eigentliche universitäre Macht beruht im wesentlichen auf der Herrschaft über die Instrumente zur Reproduktion der Körperschaft -jury d’ agrégation, Comité Consultatif des Universités-, das heißt auf dem Besitz eines auf der Universität, insbesondere der ENS erworbenen Kapitals, über das hauptsächlich die Universitätsprofessoren der Sorbonne und speziell die der kanonischen Fächer verfügen, die ihrerseits häufig aus dem Bildungsmilieu kommen, also von Lehrern weiterführender Schulen und Hochschulen, aber vor allem auch von Volksschullehrern abstammen“ (1992:142). „die, mehrheitlich der Sorbonne zugehörig, ein ganzes Fach dominierten und húfig die interne Reproduktion der eigenen Zunft kontrollieren (als Lehrer an der Ecole normale supérieure, als Mitglieder der jury d' agrégation, des Comité consultatif, der Jury beim concours zur Aufnahme in die Exole normale supérieure).“ (1992:146)

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system in the country, so that education strengthens the political ideology of the state and the government defines education system rules.

The education system represents fields of power where characteristics of the social structure are incorporated, whereas the school represents a hub where differences in social structure and power are exposed (Azaola, 2012). The education system is defined by Bourdieu (1990:10) as “the sum total of the institutional or customary mechanisms ensuring the transmission from one generation to another of the culture inherited from the past”; and for Archer (1979) are ideal goals that take form in “power struggles”. Some forms of observing power in the field of education are, according to Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), the way in which education systems legitimate the culture of the upper classes and reproduce it through institutions that foster a hegemonic culture. For Foucault, this system of reproduction in education is a block that involves “capacity, communication and power” (Foucault, 1988). Bourdieu represented the field of education as a vicious circle where power passed on between people from similar backgrounds origin and a promise is made to perpetuate their power through pedagogical and institutional practices. He specifically approached the role of teachers in the reproduction of the

‘field of power’ and asseverated that most pedagogic actions⁹ seek for legitimacy in education, suggesting that teachers act as channels for that purpose. This means that the field of education and its regulation are defined by the groups with more power and more capital seeking the permanence of their power and ideologies and establishing their ways as legitimate with teachers usually being instruments.

Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) explained the system of education as a system of

“agents or agencies” and showed how the heads in the field of education determine the rules of the system; a system that is constructed on the basis of the rules and ideologies of privileged groups. These privileged groups seek for safe forms that reproduce their position and power, so they construct fields of “self-reproduction”

that allow perpetuation. The more suitable way for reproduction of power is then through the transmission of their ideologies and the modelling of a system that claims relevance and legitimacy over several social actors.

9 Pedagogic actions were defined as those actions that happened in education systems as embodied violent impositions of arbitrary culture and power (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990)

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“Given that it must reproduce through time the institutional conditions for the performance of the WSg, i.e. that it must reproduce itself as an institution (self-reproduction) in order to reproduce the culture it is mandated to reproduce (cultural and social reproduction), every ES (education system) necessarily monopolizes the production of the agents appointed to reproduce it, i.e. of the agents equipped with the durable training which enables them to perform WSg tending to reproduce the same training in new reproducers, and therefore contains a tendency towards perfect self-reproduction (inertia) which is realized within the limits of its relative autonomy.” (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990: 60)

Bourdieu and Gramsci agree that education leads to the reproduction of social class.

Both authors recognize social, cultural and pedagogical practices that reproduce social classes and create patterns in education systems and schools. Bourdieu for example, studied higher education, how the ruling classes and intellectuals shaped the system to create the ‘proper’ methods of instruction and validated it as a recognized system. Gramsci studied primary and secondary schools and found that schools are also divided by social classes, in a manner that each social class supports the type of school where the practices of their class are taught and reproduced “each social group has its own type of school, intended to perpetuate a specific traditional function, ruling or subordinate” (Gramsci, 1971:187). Probably the most interesting point made by Gramsci in his reflections is that domination over individuals represents a potential for alternative hegemonies to emerge and his proposed new method of educating individuals through democratic principles.