This volume is part of a series of monographs from Australia devoted to outlining an alternative approach, based on neo-Marxist concepts, to policy studies in education. The opening essay in this volume is a historical analysis of federal involvement in Australian educational policy development. After a descriptive overview of the role of…

Neo-marxist theory provides a better tool for educational researchers than other research methodologies because of its focus on empowering the dispossessed and its interest in the relationships between human activity and material circumstances. Traditional educational research is rooted in the positivist tradition and claims to be value neutral…

The following issues are addressed for a Marxist approach to Native American strategies for self-determination: (1) specifying the level of the nationalities question; (2) ethnicity and Marxism; (3) nation, class, and imperialism; (4) the theoretical significance of the transition between communal and noncommunal modes of production; and (5)…

This article describes the dominant ideology characteristic of modern organization which reproduces patterns of domination and subordination, and then discusses the effects of the dominant ideology relative to the structure and function of schooling. (MT)

Within the current historical crisis of transnational capitalism, disabled people are finding themselves increasingly at risk. It is essential to (re)theorize the category of disability, particularly in critical response to the emancipatory possibilities offered through "border pedagogies." The paper locates the conceptual category of disability…

Reviews the major works of the French Marxist sociologist, Nicos Poulantzas, to determine their implications for the educational process. Poulantzas' work focused on the class structure of capitalist societies and the roles of the state and of the schools in maintaining and reproducing the status quo. (Author/SK)

Explores the danger and promise inherent in grounding educational reform in "professionalizing" teaching. One author offers a Marxist critique as contributing to the oppression of the working class. Another argues that professionalizing teaching misconstrues "education" and "profession" and proposes a professionalism…

Discusses U.S. studies at Russian universities. Includes the status of the field, difficulties in obtaining sources, communist interpretation of U.S. social problems resulting in methodological isolationism, and low quality of scholarship. Warns against a shift in attitude that idealizes the Western experience. Argues that changes in mentality…

This paper proposes a new myth for New Zealand education policy development: "equal power in adversity." Unlike the preliberalism Darwinian myth, "survival of the fittest," and its replacement, "equal opportunities," the new myth would incorporate and reconstrue the socially critical postulates of the currently hegemonic "equal outcomes" myth…

This paper examines how selected aspects of contemporary urban environment influence the form and function of the family and the position of women within the family and within society. The study was undertaken within the framework of Marxian analysis and with a specific focus on how advanced industrial capitalism perpetuates the family in its…

The use of prepackaged instructional programs threatens to disenfranchise teachers from their own occupation. To address this concern, this article analyzes the disenfranchisement of elementary teachers in the United States from a Marxist and feminist perspective and outlines several strategies for individuals interested in resisting this trend in…

Provides a theoretical framework for thinking, from a developmental perspective, about the role of television as a "dominant activity" of American childhood. (PD)

The Marxist theory of correspondence between education and the rest of society and the economy is summarized and analyzed in terms of capitalist systems. The conclusion reached is that the educational systems of the advanced capitalist societies are generally mismatched with the wider economies of which they are a part; that is, the correspondence…

This essay investigates what identity politics may have to contribute to the reformation of Marxist theories of education through considering how it would theorize the practice of explicitly critical pedagogy. (IAH)

Discusses the morality of teaching neoclassical theory as the only science of economics. Argues that the teaching of neoclassical theory violates moral principles unless each and every attribute of neoclassical theory is proven superior to corresponding attributes of competing theories. Criticizes neoclassical economics for teaching what rather…