Class, Control, and Contestation in Educational Organisations

The introductory essay in this volume presents a case study of class-based organizational control and contestation in secondary schools in Victoria (Australia) in the 1970s, based on a critical perspective derived from the Frankfurt school, a perspective that undertakes to reveal the power structures, class hierarchy, and legitimating ideologies inherent in many organizations. The first section discusses and defines the Marxist concept of class relations and then applies this body of theory to an analysis of the class relations and contradictions within an educational organization, focusing on the contradictory role of teachers and the transformation of control from teachers to administrators. Control also occurs through the dissemination, through education, of selected values that legitimate the status quo. The second section presents the case study, concerning Victoria teachers' 12-year struggle with an antagonistic conservative government for control over the conditions of teaching. The latter part of the volume consists of four readings by separate authors: (1) "Class and Occupation," by E. O. Wright; (2) "Hegemony, Resistance, and the Paradox of Educational Reform," by H. Giroux; (3) "Curricular Form and the Logic of Technical Control," by M. W. Apple; and (4) an article from the journal "Secondary Teacher" on "Teachers' Conditions." An annotated bibliography is included. (TE)