Tests the functionalist and class-reproduction explanations of community college expansion against the experiences of four states where community colleges have proliferated and one state where they have failed to develop. Finds that both explanations have missed the key role of autonomous government officials. (FMW)

Reviews two books by Henry Giroux that consider the relations among schooling, culture, and power, and that argue for a critical science drawing on contemporary European and American Marxist cultural analyses and critical structural traditions. Argues that Giroux's work provides an important theoretical perspective for a method of study and…

Examines and assesses Marxist debates over schooling and societal reproduction. Argues that, if Marxists insist on using functional analysis to explain schools in capitalist society, the accuracy of these explanations must be empirically assessed. (FMW)