Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to work on the Cornrow Curves project, which applies culturally situated design elements to educational settings to use the cultural capital of cornrow braids to enhance student understanding of geometry and programming. To increase my own understanding of the ideological framework for Cornrow Curves, I read two texts: “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire and “Of Marx and Makers” by Ron Eglash. Ideas found in these texts can be combined and actualized in real-life situations, such as the Cornrow Curves project.
The first text, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” highlights the importance of liberatory education for students from marginalized backgrounds. Freire points out that oppression dehumanizes both the oppressors and the oppressed, and that liberatory education serves to humanize both. Liberation must come directly from the efforts of the oppressed, as they are the only people that truly understand the nature of their oppression. Education
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Eglash points out that both capitalism and communism are fundamentally flawed systems. Capitalism fails to fathom of unalienated value, deems labor and nature as unlimited resources, and relies upon constant improvement of primary value extraction methods. Communism talks about unalienated value, but in practice fails to keep value within the producing community. In the USSR, for example, failed to institute and uphold unalienated labor, ecological, and expressive values within their economic system. Eglash then proposes a new economic model: generative justice. Under the idea that society is best served when value is kept within the community that produces it, generative justice aims to keep unalienated labor, ecological, and expressive value in its community of origin. Generative justice is defined as the universal right to generate unalienated value and directly participate in its
Freire disagrees with the traditional form of education when he says, “Oppression...is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression is also necrophilic” (Freire 261). Freire argues that learning via oppression is the death of learning. Oppression is necrophilic, as Freire says, because, instead of appreciating intelligence, people hang onto the death of language and education. To some this may not seem important, but there is a death of learning and the practice of learning. The Banking Concept is not the way to teach. Oppression in teaching is more prevalent than thought. An example of this is when people only call attention to pitfalls and negativity instead of cherishing positivity and successes. This is not a beneficial environment for the majority of people. Freire and Plato both illustrate that darkness and oppression symbolize the dearth of
1) Carbone II, Steven A. (2010). Race, Class, and Oppression: Solutions for Active Learning and Literacy in the Classroom. Student Pulse, 2.01. Retrieved from:
The students in the school are shied away and even denied opportunities for higher education by the teachers, “Many have been discouraged or prevented from pursuing academic or work goals” (Kivel 44). From not believing in the students to not wanting them to get further ahead in life, the teachers in this low budgeted, racist school are sacrificing the students future in the name of institutionalized racism. This causes the students to remain in the same social class for another generation, once again, starting the cycle of integrated racism in the schools and surrounding
Bernard Marx, the misunderstood outsider in this “brave new world”. At the beginning of the novel Bernard seems to be the antithesis of what this society is about. With his ideologies and actions he mirrors the audience's immediate judgement of the dystopian society that Aldous presents.He seems “normal” compared to the rest of the people in this world. In his novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley is able to use the character, Bernard Marx to demonstrate the wrongs and problems with this society, with the complete change that ultimately takes place within Bernard, Aldous represents the inevitable change that seems to happen to outsiders faced with the pressure of conformity.
The author argues that in order for oppression to be vitally explored, the factors that create oppression must be realized. Oppression gives material advantage to the oppressor. "All social relations have material consequences". The author argues that all identities must be considered interconnected.
Commodity fetishism has blinded people into believing that value is a relationship between objects, when in reality, it is a relationship between people. This in turn, prevents people from thinking about the social labor condition workers have to endure; they only care and value about how much objects costs. They think that the source of the value comes from the cost, but it truly comes from labor (FC). Through this objectification stems alienation and estrangement. Marx starts with the assumption that humans have an intrinsic quality. As human beings, individuals like to be create and manipulate his or her environment. Creating is a part of people; therefore, people their being into their creations. However, Marx postulates that capitalism and specialized division of labor separates that working class from their creations in four ways- through alienation from the product, the labor process, one’s species-being, and humanity itself. The working class suffers through this hostility to make create more wealth for owners of factories. They get trapped in a cycle to make products for profit, but as automation advances, machines begins to take over people’s jobs; therefore, there less employment opportunities available, which in turn allows factory owners to decrease wages and exploit and devalue the working class (EL). In the The Poverty
Lacking the necessary support, many start to devalue the importance of doing well in school deciding that perhaps school isn’t part of their identity. In Susan’s case she’s eliciting multiple forms of subordination, and within each dimension she’s being subjective to different types of oppression; racial oppression, gender oppression, and class oppression, she’s experiencing cultural alienation and isolation and is not only based on her ethnicity as a Latina but is also influenced by how she is treated as a female, as a member of a certain socioeconomic class, and in relation to her English language proficiency, and even her perceived immigration status. In this sense, students like Susan experience different forms of discrimination or marginalization that stems from
Karl Marx, born on May 5, 1818, died on March 14, 1883, was a German
Currently, in our society we can see an increase in inequality and discrimination towards different people. Unfortunately, the American ideology does not take into account the diversity that exists in the country. The lack of an educational perspective that includes all people regardless of gender, race, sex, religion and social class is vitally important to take into account not just those people who meet the “normal” perspectives imposed by society, but also take in consideration those who don’t necessarily meet the social expectations. It could be said that intersectionality is a tool which helps us to analyze and defend multiple discriminations and above all to understand how different factors influence the rights and opportunities that
Capitalism as an economic system does not exist in its pure form in the world. However, the advancements that he listed as enriching the human experience are merely a product of progression, which can occur in any economic system, not just capitalism. Goldberg then went on to discuss capitalism’s creation of “intangible capital” and the value it brings (Goldberg, 12). However, the capitalist elite control the means of distributing this “intangible capital”, and often access “natural capital” as well.
Though the rewards are pleasing to the ear, the path to obtaining the benefits of communism is a violent one. This strict governing idea was derived from Communist Manifesto, a book written by two German economists, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, who declare that many problems in society are caused by the unequal distribution of wealth. These two believe that “Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour. The only thing it deprives him of is the ability to enslave others by means of such appropriations.” To achieve the goal of happiness and prosperity for all, the lines that distinguish the differences between the rich and poor must be erased. Obviously, the rich will never voluntarily give up their goods or status; therefore the figureheads must force equality among the citizens. Communism places their citizens, whether they be the wealthy or the laborers, into working classes that specify their contribution to the government. With such balanced placement of the people, individuality is impossible for any single person to achieve.
Inspired by the works of Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin nonetheless drew his ideology from many other great 19th century philosophers. However, Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” was immensely important to the success of Russia under Leninist rule as it started a new era in history. Viewed as taboo in a capitalist society, Karl Marx started a movement that would permanently change the history of the entire world. Also, around this time, the Populist promoted a doctrine of social and economic equality, although weak in its ideology and method, overall. Lenin was also inspired by the anarchists who sought revolution as an ultimate means to the end of old regimes, in the hope of a new, better society. To his core, a revolutionary, V.I. Lenin was driven to evoke the class struggle that would ultimately transform Russia into a Socialist powerhouse. Through following primarily in the footsteps of Karl Marx, Lenin was to a lesser extent inspired by the Populists, the Anarchists, and the Social Democrats.
Brazilian Paulo Freire wrote the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968. The book quickly began a conversational topic among educators, students, policy makers, administrators, academics and community activists all over the world. Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed has been translated into many languages and is banned in a number of countries.
Capitalism dominates the world today. Known as a system to create wealth, capitalism’s main purpose is to increase profits through land, labor and free market. It is a replacement of feudalism and slavery. It promises to provide equality and increases living standards through equal exchanges, technological innovations and mass productions. However, taking a look at the global economy today, one can clearly see the disparity between developed and developing countries, and the persistence of poverty throughout the world despite the existence of abundant wealth. This modern issue was predicted and explained a hundred and fifty years ago in Karl Marx’s Capital.
There are many distinct institutions which correspond to the different roles that appear in society. As time change, it seem that certain institutions stand out from the rest, and in this case education serves as an essential component in society. Educational institutions play an important role in influencing the choices of individuals from their early childhood; presenting people with the objectives and values that are instilled by society. Education impacts individuals, groups, and society, whether it’s a positive or negative one. The Conflict Theory by Karl Marx will serve as tool to explain the points in this paper.