Socialist Marxist Theories in Education: Key Figures

Posted on Mar 20, 2025 in Social sciences

Socialist Marxist Theories in Education

Socialist Marxist theories form the foundation of socialist education. It is a multipurpose education centered around work that transcends class-based education. It advocates for the “Unified School,” encompassing three crucial aspects: Intellectual Education, Physical Education, and Polytechnic Education (education closely tied to labor).

Background

  • Plato (4th Century BC): His works, *The Republic* and *The Laws*, laid early groundwork.
  • Thomas More (15th-16th Century): Author of *Utopia*.
  • Campanella (16th-17th Century): Wrote *The City of Sol*.
  • The Enlightenment (18th Century): Thinkers like Owen and Fourier (19th Century) contributed.

A core idea uniting these thinkers is: “Education is the source of all good and all evil depending on its use or implementation.” They also emphasized linking education with productive labor.

Marx and Engels (19th Century)

Founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels collaborated for 40 years. Their seminal work is *The Capital*. They envisioned a socialist education characterized by:

  • Secularization (free of charge).
  • Polytechnic Education integrated with work.
  • Non-religious education. They opposed church influence, viewing it as aligned with bourgeois educational principles.

Organization:

  • Collective Teaching.
  • Authoritarian Education (starting with the state and family).
  • Unitarian Education.

The goal was to achieve future equality, an education system that does not create inequalities. This idealism culminated in the October 1917 Russian Revolution led by Lenin, who implemented Marx’s ideas through a decree incorporating principles of the New School with Marxism.

Makarenko (19th-20th Century)

His life had two phases: director of colonies and lecturer. His key works include *Pedagogical Poem* and *Flags on the Towers*.

Key Ideas:

  • Union between education and community.
  • Rejection of some New School principles: “The essential needs are not of the individual but of the community, the country, and the sense of duty.”
  • Communist-inspired education: Only within the community can the new person be created.
  • The purpose of education is to cultivate creative work habits.
  • The school should guide the family, where education begins.

Organization of Education:

  • Almost military discipline, presented as vital for building a communist society.
  • Discipline consciously embraced by students as necessary and educational.
  • Work colonies: Half a day of productive work and the other half dedicated to studying teaching materials.

Gramsci (19th-20th Century)

A classic Marxist thinker and founder of communism.

School’s Aims:

  • To find an alternative society, balancing liberalism and authoritarianism.
  • Single, classless, and equal-opportunity formative education, enabling individuals to attain critical awareness and liberation from ignorance.
  • Emphasis on the reciprocal relationship between school and life, with mutual influence.
  • Inclusion of Marxist demands for versatility and ‘omnilateral’ development, understood as necessary to impose discipline, rules, and certain restrictions on individual freedom.
  • Granting freedom to the child while exercising authority when necessary.

Sujomlinski (20th Century)

Considered, along with Makarenko, a great teacher of communism. World War II deeply impacted him; the Nazis killed his wife. His work is rooted in love for children and hatred of fascism.

Key Principles:

  • Advocacy for no orders or commands.
  • Bringing the individual closer to the community, and the unique closer to the collective.
  • Combines Marxist and New School principles in what he termed Socialist Education.
  • His *School of Joy* emphasized activities and play, but with rigor.
  • Children learn best when working joyfully and without fear.

Suchodolski (20th Century)

Doctor of Philosophy of Education.

  • Critical of traditional conservative education.
  • Proposed educating for the future, while acknowledging the difficulty of preparing for tasks and conditions that do not yet exist.
  • The key is to educate from a holistic perspective, integrating:
    • Study and School
    • Work
    • General Life Education
    • Vocational Education
  • Advocated for forming individuals capable of participation, cooperation, and joint efforts.

French Sociologists and Philosophers

They discuss capitalist education.