Capitalism and Social Class Injustices in Education
Social class and school knowledge
Reading the article, I could not help but reflect a great deal on the realities of present-day living. Concepts of idealism and realism in contemporary socio-political and economic discourses are brought into focus. The dominant message of the article is that education has since time immemorial, and still is a tool of social sorting and a means through which the status quo of society is conserved (Anyon 3). In general, the article makes an argument for the role of education in creating a socially stratified society along class lines.
The article prompted me to think about the functional role of education in society. I reflected upon the theories of learning, namely the functionalist theory and the conflict theory. I tried to fit the article’s main ideas within the framework of either or both of the approaches while also apprising its relevance and applicability in the present-day education sector. The functionalist theory views education as a social phenomenon that ensures individuals are well prepared to serve the needs of their immediate society. To its proponents, it’s a process of conveying knowledge and information for society’s good. The conflict theory, however, recognizes education as an apparatus of maintaining the social classification of society by ensuring the working class and middle class are trained to offer their labor to the owners of the means of production, while the elites, affluent and capitalists are trained to be managers and decision-makers. The article, which is an empirical work, aligns more with the latter theory.
In contemporary living, the class is still a live social factor. Similar to the social circumstances prevailing at the time of writing the work, education is still a tool of social sorting through which children of the working class are prepared to sell their labor to children of the capitalists. While the education system ought to be a factor of social equalization and empowerment, it is instead a tool of maintaining the status quo and hindering social mobility. I agree with the findings of the article in so far as they represent the reality of the education sector as opposed to the ideal we all yearn for.
Class Wreckage and class repositioning: perspectives of Japanese-educated Taiwanese
Before reading the article by Shumin Lin, the only other context in which I had heard of Taiwan was in discussions of statehood and self-determination amongst territories and states in global politics. While I knew that Taiwan was (and is somewhat still) under Chinese political control and rule, I did not know for how long and from what time. This article was an eye-opener. I now know that it was similarly a Japanese territory between 1895 to 1945.
Granted that colonialism had its adverse effects, in Taiwan, the Japanese left a lasting impression by pioneering the art of formal pedagogy. They educated the Taiwanese, and the result was the creation of an elite class. The experience of Taiwan under Japan must have been pleasant. Evidence of this assertion is in abundance. Grandma Lee talks of Japanese imperial experience with so much love and nostalgia, reminiscing about the quality of education they received (Lin 73). The most emotive segment of the article for me is the instance when the Chinese took over the control of Taiwan and instituted Mandarin as the official language at the expense of Japanese, which was banned. The reality of the Japanese educated Taiwanese being rendered illiterate and obsolete is heart-breaking. This was a classical embodiment of class wreckage.
Thankfully, globalization and softening of political policies by the Taiwanese authorities from around the 1980s enabled the elderly Taiwanese citizens to reconnect with their past. They revel at expressing themselves in fluent Japanese and traveling to Japan. The sheer joy of their experience is perhaps an indictment of the Chinese occupation and control of Taiwan. By the readmitting of Japanese social apparatus such as language and traditions in the mainstream of Taiwanese public life, it has repositioned the Japanese-educated elders as a formidable social class in the Taiwan society. The article does well to highlight the effect of colonialism and imperialism on the subjects and their social life.