Which ideas are associated with Althusser's criticisms of education?

• A. Middle class do better than the working class
• B. Middle class teachers judge the working class pupils
• C. Both A and B
• D. None of the above

Answer: (C)

Education as an ideological state apparatus is the key idea here. Althusser argues that schools transmit the ruling-class worldview and legitimize social inequality, not by overt coercion but by shaping how students come to see themselves and their place in society. This helps explain why middle-class students often do better: they bring cultural capital—language, habits, expectations, and ways of learning—that fit the school’s norms, making success seem more attainable and natural within the system. The hidden curriculum reinforces conformity to social hierarchies and prepares students to accept roles that align with the existing order.

At the same time, the system’s internal dynamics can lead to judgments about working-class pupils. Because teachers and schooling practices are embedded in a classed society and often reflect middle-class norms, students from working-class backgrounds may be evaluated through biased expectations, tracked, or steered in ways that reproduce inequality. In Althusser’s view, these everyday interactions within education help reproduce the social order, so both the outcome pattern and the evaluative dynamics fit his critique of how education naturalizes and maintains class structure.