The Living and the Dead in Education: Commentary on Julian Williams

Autor/in	Jones, Peter E.
Titel	The Living and the Dead in Education: Commentary on Julian Williams
Quelle	In: Mind, Culture, and Activity, 18 (2011) 4, S.365-373 (9 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1074-9039
DOI	10.1080/10749039.2010.523101
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Labor; Alienation; Political Attitudes; World Views; Social Systems; Schools; Educational Practices; Educational Change; Role of Education; Social Change + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Entfremdung; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; World view; Weltanschauung; Social system; Soziales System; School; Schule; Bildungspraxis; Bildungsreform; Bildungsauftrag; Sozialer Wandel
Abstract	Jean Lave and Ray McDermott (2002) did a service with their powerful reading of Marx's 1844 essay on "Estranged Labour" (Marx, 1964). In reworking Marx's critique of "alienated labour" in terms of "alienated learning," they reminded everyone of Marx's own impassioned revolt against the inhumanity of the capitalist order and found a novel way of illuminating Marx's standpoint through an exploration of formal schooling. Julian Williams (this issue), responding to Lave and McDermott's initiative, offers a subtle and sensitive discussion of the problems and contradictions in formal education generally, and maths education in particular, in relation to capitalist society. Although Lave and McDermott emphasised the striking congruences between what passes for "work" and what passes for "education" in a society built on alienated labour, Williams attempts to throw further light on "alienated learning" by tracing the inner connections between school activity and capitalist production, seeing formal education in terms of its role in the production of labour power as a commodity. The two publications complement one another and should stimulate further discussion about the relevance of Marx's work to the educational sphere as well as to other forms of activity. Their work also connects to more general discussions of the import of Marx's notion of alienation in such classic texts as Ollman (1976) and Meszaros (1978). At the same time, their work echoes the theme of the necessity for radical transformation of educational practice and educational institutions as part of a general programme of socioeconomic and political transformation (Freire, 1969). The distinctive feature of Williams's approach, like that of Lave and McDermott, lies in explicit application of Marx's philosophical and economic work to an analysis of the connection between institutionalized education and the kind of society that creates it and is educated by it. In this article, the author follows their lead with some reflections on the significance of the issues they raise and their implications for current debates within CHAT. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10