Presentation Schedule
Revisiting the Bowles and Gintis Correspondence Principle 50 Years Later (100820)
Session Chair: Brent Shea
Monday, 5 January 2026 16:20
Session: Session 3 (Parallel)
Room: Ala Moana Hotel: Pakalana & Anthurium Room
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, in their neo=Marxian critique and economic determinist analysis of education (1976), hypothesized that the social class-specific socialization occurring throughout primary and secondary education could be explained by the dominant influence of corporate capitalism on the institution of education. This implies that, if we know the characteristics of the dominant economic institution, we will know how education is structured. This structure includes non only classroom instruction and tracking systems within schools but also among schools, which differ by neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics and sources and amount of financial support. The hypothesized correspondence between the social relations of production and the structure of schooling has withstood the scrutiny of researchers during these past 5 decades, resulting in both affirmation and revisions, ranging from explaining persistent reinforcement of work-related characteristics in Japanese schools (Takemura 2018) to the 1988 Education Reform Act's impact on British and Welsh Schools (Bailey 1995). While the hidden curriculum reflects worker characteristics required in the workplace, it is critical to acknowledge the effect of these traits on products of consumption (goods and services), and their effect on the social relations of production. The correspondence principle, when applied to the function of education in providing the non-cognitive traits required in workplaces, contends that workers' traits correspond to both the kind and amount of education. The extension of this principle that is hypothesized here is that the same non-cognitive traits that reflect production processes also affect the products of consumption, which themselves affect the processes of production.
Authors:
Brent Shea, Sweet Briar College, United States
About the Presenter(s)
Professor Brent Shea is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Sweet Briar College in United States
See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule
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