Schools reward discipline and subordinacy regardless of their effect on achievement
Evidence
Students are rewarded for exhibiting discipline, subordinacy, intellectually as opposed to emotionally oriented behavior, and hard work independent from intrinsic task motivation. Moreover, these traits are rewarded independently of any effect of “proper demeanor” on scholastic achievement. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 505
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Public schooling in America was founded to produce a properly subordinate adult population; US schooling founders aimed at social control amid capitalist inequality, not equality — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 363; Teacher-rated citizenship traits are inversely related to creativity and mental flexibility. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 510 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Discipline values the act of positioning itself, not which position an individual holds
#corroborates(0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 260 - Modern schooling creates an individuality that only exists in the act of obedience
#corroborates(0.80) - Surveillance-based schooling constructs individuality only as a position in a sequence
#corroborates(0.78) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 262 - Disciplinary schooling values the act of keeping position more than the position itself
#corroborates(0.75) - Academic institutions structurally reward conventional teaching and punish engaged pedagogy
#corroborates(0.75) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 403 - Schooling disciplines students through practices borrowed from army life
#expands(0.75) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 258 - Children experience punishment as relational harm rather than learning the intended lesson
#qualifies(0.70) — , The Rod and the Child, 10941