Critical Conflict in Education

According to the critical conflict perspective, one of educational institutions main functions is to reduce social inequalities within society. However, inequalities are being perpetuated based on class, race, and gender. The conflict perspective focuses on power and resources when analyzing any social problem and when looking at education, the disbursement of funds is a critical component to the perpetuation of those inequalities. Those who have the power and resources are the one’s making decisions as to where the money goes and how much goes there. Our society is separated into classes based on wealth so if the wealthy people are making financial decisions their focus would be on what would benefit their class not lower classes.

Critical Conflict theorists also suggest that classism is a social problem within education because students come to institutions with different amounts of cultural capital learned at home. Cultural capital is a term that defines the amount of culture acquired by individuals based on financial and educational status. Classism occurs as a direct result of cultural capital, the more exposure one has to culture the more enlightened the individual becomes (Kendall, 2010).

Another form of social problems within education according to the critical conflict perspective is what is known as the “hidden curriculum”—refers to how certain cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority, are transmitted through implied demands in the everyday rules and routines of schools (Kendall, 2010). In this theory, sociologists believe that the elite class of society uses education as a tool to control the masses through obedience and conformity. This is a form of the rich maintaining their wealth through mediocre resources for lower classes of people in an effort to become richer. Theorists suggest that all classes of people experience the hidden curriculum to some degree but the working class and poverty level students are most affected. For example, a study of five different schools from different backgrounds showed that working-class schools emphasized memorization without decision making and choice; Middle-class schools stressed the process involved with getting the right answer; and elite-class schools focused on developing analytical thinking and how to apply abstract principles to problem solving (Kendall, 2010).