A school’s social character comes from which class it serves, not its teaching method

Evidence

The traditional school was oligarchic because it was intended for the new generation of the ruling class, destined to rule in its turn: but it was not oligarchic in its mode of teaching. It is not the fact that the pupils learn how to rule there, nor the fact that it tends to produce gifted men, which gives a particular type of school its social character. This social character is determined by the fact that each social group has its own type of school, intended to perpetuate a specific traditional function, ruling or subordinate. If one wishes to break this pattern one needs, instead of multiplying and grading different types of vocational school, to create a single type of formative school (primary-secondary) which would take the child up to the threshold of his choice of job, forming him during this time as a person capable of thinking, studying, and ruling—or controlling those who rule. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 365

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what gives a school its social character — the class function it serves, not its pedagogy.
• XREF: Core scaffolding for the Islamic school/education debates in Islamophobia discourse — madrasa demonization as class-anchored schooling. — connects to: Capitalist-class objectives, not reformer ideals, have actually shaped US schooling — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 569; A feminist classroom is distinguished by perspective, not course listing; Failed school reform stems from social structure, not human irrationality or malice — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 217