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The first book-length examination of the theses developed by Louis Althusser and his collaborators on the processes of class-based educational formation and the function of schools.Drawing largely on unpublished writings that have been overlooked by scholars of both Althusser and critical pedagogy,
Knowledge, Ideology, Reproduction reveals that, for Althusser and the
Groupe Spinoza, educational formation and the position of knowledge are central, decisive issues in understanding the real forces driving the mechanisms of social reproduction. This perspective enables a critical interrogation of knowledge transmission and opens up new possibilities for transformative educational practices.
List of contents
Foreword vii
Acknowledgments xxviii
Introduction 1
1 Pedagogical Function and Class Struggle: On the Genesis and Structureof ‘Student Problems’ 13
Introduction 13
1 Technical Division and Social Division 15
2 The Pedagogical Function 22
3 ‘Just because we are stepping onto a train it doesn’t mean we know how
to drive it!’: On the Genesis of ‘Student Problems’ 26
4 Knowledge as a Commodity: André Gorz on the Contradictions
within (Academic) Capital 43
5 Knowledge as a Commodity: J-P. Milbergue on the Internal
Contradictions of the (Capitalist) University 54
2 The School Does Not Exist: Scholastic Mythology and IdeologicalReproduction in Pierre Macherey 68
Introduction 68
1 The School and the Text: Representation and Synecdoche 75
2 The Mechanisms of Fiction: Generation by Reduction and
Pedagogical Separation 84
3 The Mechanisms of Fiction: Functioning by Pedagogical Analogy as
an Act of Ideological Belief 88
4 Five Hypotheses about School Apparatuses 93
4.1 First Hypothesis 94
4.2 Second Hypothesis 96
4.3 Third Hypothesis 96
4.4 Fourth Hypothesis 98
4.5 Fifth Hypothesis 99
5 Culture and Ideology: Roger Establet 101
6 On the Ownership of the Means of Expression (and the Genesis of
the Class-Based School): Michel Tort 120
3 ‘Schools’ 137
Introduction 137
1 Schools i: The Ideological Representations of the School and their
Theoretical Identification 150
2 Schools ii: The Characteristics of the School-Form as a Social
Form 163
3 Schools iii: Schooling and Wage Labour 177
4 Schooling and the Reproduction of Labour Power 182
5 Once Again on Wage Theory: The Wage-Form and the Notions of
‘Labour’ and ‘Qualification’ 189
6 Schooling as a ‘Technical’ Criterion for Measuring ‘Qualification’ and
as a Principle for Establishing Individual Attitudes 201
4 Outlines of the History and Geography of Class-Based SchoolEducation 214
Introduction 214
1 On the Historical-Geographical Differences in the Establishment of
Schools in Three Capitalist Countries 219
2 The école préparatoire and the école progressive as Ideological Forms
of the Class-Based School 224
3 On the Historical Processes of Formation of the Class-Based School:
The Antediluvian Forms 226
4 The Transition Phase: A Look at the French Case 236
Afterword 245
References 253
Index 258
About the author
Giacomo Clemente is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Milano-Bicocca and formerly visiting professor at UBA, University of Buenos Aires. He has published translations and articles on topics including post-Althusserian theory, ontology and discourse analysis.
