Classroom Social Relationships: Exploring the Bowles and Gintis Hypothes

In Schooling in Capitalist America (1976), Bowles and Gintis assert that relationships in schools reproduce consciousness of workers by fragmenting students into groups where different capabilities, attitudes and behaviors are rewarded. These institutional relations reinforce the self-concepts, aspirations and social class identifications of individuals to requirements of social division of labor. To explore this hypothesis discriminant analyses of variables measuring classroom relationships and student attitudes in 139 secondary classrooms at different track levels were conducted. The findings indicate that track levels, reflective of racial and social divisions of society, are characterized by differences on both dimensions. Relationships in low track classes were more characterized by alienation, distance and punitiveness than were those in upper track classes. Students in lowest track expressed more negative attitudes about themselves and their futures. That schools appear to play a dynamic role in reinforcement or production of attitude differences is supported by finding that track levels are more widely separated and distinct on this dimension in senior than in junior high schools. The differences found seem likely to contribute to differential socialization posited by Bowles and Gintis.