Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology
Schools of war
Glenn Rikowski 1 * , Alisson Slider do Nascimento de Paula 2
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1 Visiting Fellow in the College of Social Science, University of Lincoln, UK
2 Researcher BPI/FUNCAP, Professor at Centro Universitário Inta (UNINTA), Brazil
* Corresponding Author
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ARTICLE INFO

Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology, 2021 - Volume 3 Issue 1, pp. 54-65
https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956

Article Type: Conceptual Article

Published Online: 20 Jun 2021

Views: 1509 | Downloads: 435

ABSTRACT
In his classic The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), Friedrich Engels argued that workers engaged in industrial action gained knowledge of economic processes, tactical awareness in struggles and grasped the value of solidarity in the face of employers’ assaults on pay and working conditions. These struggles constituted “schools of war”; significant learning experiences for workers, argued Engels. Yet schools of war can take other forms, such as struggles against the capitalisation of education; educational institutions becoming sites of capital accumulation and preparation for capitalist work. In this sense, education has become a battleground as its privatisation, commodification, marketisation, commercialisation and monetisation have gathered pace in many countries since the second half of the twentieth century. This article argues that there are two main fronts in the war over the penetration of education by capital in contemporary society: the business takeover of education, as educational institutions become value- and profit-making sites; and the reduction of education to labour-power production. It explores these two fronts of war in terms of education policies in England and Brazil and argues for the establishment of forms of education beyond capitalist states and capital’s commodity forms.
KEYWORDS
education policy privatisation commodification labour-power Marxism schools universities alternatives
In-text citation: (Rikowski & de Paula, 2021)
Reference: Rikowski, G., & de Paula, A. S. D. N. (2021). Schools of war. Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology, 3(1), 54-65. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956
In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Rikowski G, de Paula ASDN. Schools of war. Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology. 2021;3(1), 54-65. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956
In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Rikowski G, de Paula ASDN. Schools of war. Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology. 2021;3(1):54-65. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956
In-text citation: (Rikowski and de Paula, 2021)
Reference: Rikowski, Glenn, and Alisson Slider do Nascimento de Paula. "Schools of war". Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology 2021 3 no. 1 (2021): 54-65. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956
In-text citation: (Rikowski and de Paula, 2021)
Reference: Rikowski, G., and de Paula, A. S. D. N. (2021). Schools of war. Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology, 3(1), pp. 54-65. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956
In-text citation: (Rikowski and de Paula, 2021)
Reference: Rikowski, Glenn et al. "Schools of war". Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology, vol. 3, no. 1, 2021, pp. 54-65. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2021169956
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.