Educational reform and class conflict. Journal of Education

Class-based analyses of education typically assume a direct relation between the system of production and the operations of the schools. Accordingly, a relatively straightforward correspondence between schools and workplaces is traced within a framework of reproduction of capitalist labor. Such analyses do not address the fact that schooling is sponsored by the state. In this article we view schooling within the democratic, capitalist state and show how the struggle between democracy and capitalism within the arena of the state is visited upon the educational system. Attention is given the influence that strong social movements can have on increasing equality in schooling and on changes in the larger social order.