Shorris Sociology Of Education Essay

The educational system has emerged as the dominant ideological state apparatus (Althusser) of modern society, and is therefore the primary apparatus that allows the dominant economic system to reproduce itself. Some may argue that without an education, a poor person would never be able to identify that they are being wronged by the system, that they would be blind to their exploitation and therefore unable to defend themselves against it. Shorris uses an anecdote about Aristotle to demonstrate this; when a student analyzed the philosopher’s thoughts on self-indulgence, the class collectively realized that they “were all inheritors of wounds caused by the incontinence of educated men; now they had an ally in Aristotle, who had given them a way to analyze the actions of their antagonists” (12). Here, Shorris implies that without the ancient teachings of Aristotle, his impoverished students would never be able to decode the reasoning behind their exploitation. What Shorris does not mention is that it is often through this education that the upper class’ ideology is buried beneath its liberating qualities and it’s faults are …show more content…
He writes, “...coming into possession of the faculty of reflection and the skills of politics leads to a choice for the poor… they may use politics to get along in a society based on the game, to escape from the surround of force into a gentler life, to behave as citizens, and nothing more; or they may choose to oppose the game itself” (12-13). Shorris admits that getting an education does nothing to dismantle the system that places poor people in their situations to begin with, other than his single student who rebels and attempts to start a union (13). The majority of his students continue on into further higher